Question to the persons with Perfect Pitch

[drexo]

This may be quite an odd question, but I'm just curious about it, so that's why I ask.


How do you [person with perfect pitch] experience, for example, a fast piece like Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 1? Do your ears hear all the notes wich are played, or do you hear it different cause of the speed of the piece?

I'm just curious about this since I don't have perfect pitch.

[28lorelei]

Great question!
I hope this answers your question.  Yeah, I do hear all the notes, but I hear much more as well.  When listening to that piece, you hear several things simultaneously:
1. the fast notes in the right hand
2. the melody in the left
3. the chords in the left
4. the key
and of course,
5. the tempo (to some extent, although this has nothing to do with AP)

[birba]

I don't think you need perfect pitch to hear those things.  Let me tell you it's over rated.

[birba]

Wow, I just noticed this is a thread that was started four years ago!  I wonder if drexo is still alive. 

[qoogla_55]

How did you manage to fish out this lost thread? 4 years dormant and discovered again. One hell of an archelogical discovery. Whee. So cute.

[nanabush]

The first thing I pick out before anything is the key.  I'd know that Chopin's 10/1 (If I hadn't known in advance that it is was in C major before my first listen) was in C major because of the Arpeggio, and the C octaves in the left hand.

It's not really about picking out individual notes; if I hear a mess of broken notes, I can hear the chords they outline; if I'm really lucky to pick out the bass note, then I can tell the inversion and then I'd be able to play some of it without the sheet music.

A piece like Rachmaninoff Op 39 #9 would be really difficult to pick out the key unless you listened the whole way through.  There are SO many modulations on the first page that I think people are completely full of themselves who can honestly hear 'D major' in passages going from B minor to Eb minor to G minor to C minor.  So for this one, I'd be able to tell what notes or chords they are playing, but determining the key is pretty ambiguous (same thing would go with 39 #1, it doesn't really start in C minor and has a TON of modulations)

[gyzzzmo]

I heard that people with perfect pitch can fart the moonshine sonata.

[perfect_pitch]

I heard that people with perfect pitch can fart the moonshine sonata.

Wow - never knew I could do that   

[Bob]

Did Beethoven have perfect pitch?

[mistermoe]

Wow - never knew I could do that   

I don't believe you, having perfect pitch. Would be too obvious. Can't fool me, man! 

[Bob]

  Whoa... I'm pretty sure Bach had perfect pitch.  But Bach was living *before* Beethove, *before* the Moonlight Sonata was written. 

Truth *is* stranger than fiction.  You just can't make this stuff up.

[perfect_pitch]

I don't believe you, having perfect pitch. Would be too obvious. Can't fool me, man! 

First of all - I'm not a liar... It would seem kind of idiotic to lie about something like that to a bunch of pianists wouldn't it???

I do have perfect pitch... I was born with it - How do you think I manage to do the transcriptions that I do? Guess???

[birba]

I think you misunderstood Mr. Moe.  Read his sequence again. 

[mistermoe]

First of all - I'm not a liar... It would seem kind of idiotic to lie about something like that to a bunch of pianists wouldn't it???

I do have perfect pitch... I was born with it - How do you think I manage to do the transcriptions that I do? Guess???

Heeey! Waaah! I was just kidding! (Sorry if you misunderstood! ) You don't give the impression of lying at all. Don't worry!
(I should stop posting stupid things...)

edit: Thanx birba!

[perfect_pitch]

Sorry Mister Moe...

It can be hard to interpret text in forums on the internet...

It's much easier when you're talking face-to-face.

[mistermoe]

Sorry Mister Moe...

It can be hard to interpret text in forums on the internet...

It's much easier when you're talking face-to-face.

Don't worry relat.... PERFECT_pitch  (Sorry, i...just...can't...help...it)

Yes, it can be hard to interpret text in forums, but it's not always that much easier in real life 

[elconscious]

Well, you do know about these perfect pitch cats who have trouble transposing?

Guess what...

For some of them "it can be hard to interpret text in forums on the internet"

Don't make me catch any of you to seriously get mad at this one either.

Anyways...

I have what I would like to call a strong developed tonal memory and this ability enables me to identify tones by ear, to recall these and to identify tones of music and other sounds in my head. I guess what differs is the accuracy and speed.

How would I hear fast music?

Even slow music can be trouble to identify absolutely, but I have had my very first complete experience of hearing everything absolutely on a faster piece of music about two weeks ago.

It has been a very strange experience, because usually I will pick out a few tones here and there aswell as the key. This is more of a conscious thing I do, but what I had experienced back then was not done consciously and I heard it all.

To describe the difference, it was far more like a feeling than actually knowing the absolute tones that I heard in real-time. Perhaps much like looking at alot of colors flashing by at high speed. You cannot name them, but you do see the different colors passing by and you know by fact that you could name them if slowed down.

Peace,
Elcon

[perfect_pitch]

Okay - here's an interesting question...

If I remember correctly - synaesthesia is the condition that makes people perceive sounds as colours right?

So I'm presuming that if someone plays a C - they see (say) the colour red, but if they play an F#, then they see green?

What colour would they see if you play C & F# together??? Would they see brown???

I just don't understand what this synaesthesia stuff is?

[lostinidlewonder]

I believe the person has a space in their mind where the colors light up, so if both sound at the same time they would see both colors in the appropriate position in their minds eye. I feel direction when I hear music, probably because I have practiced so much piano my mind can follow the notes on a keyboard and my body moves in the directions I can feel the muscular memory in my hands even though I am not playing but only listening. I think those with this color problem would feel direction of color as well, positioned somewhere in their minds eye. They don't overlap but can be ordered side by side. This is what I was told by a student of mine who said they had synasthesia. Since this is a brain damage problem many variants of it could exist.

[birba]

So this is what Scriabin had?  I remember something about him connecting certain colors to specific tonalities.

[pollydendy]

I have been told I have perfect pitch, but since I have always had this, how can I compare it to something else that I haven't experienced?  I do know that bad  or repetitious music and bad  notes REALLY bug me. 

[mistermoe]

I have been told I have perfect pitch, but since I have always had this, how can I compare it to something else that I haven't experienced?

That's funny! It sounds like you are not sure if you have perfect pitch. Just tell anybody to play a random note on an instrument. If you immediatly know which one he/she played, you have perfect pitch. But be sure to repeat this procedure to lower the 1/12 chance of accidentally guessing right.

Not being able to compare it to relative pitch is an almost philosophical question    Pretty interesting...

What if somebody doesn't have perfect pitch, but accidentally guesses right each note he is hearing for all his life... 

I do know that bad  or repetitious music and bad  notes REALLY bug me. 

I'm not that sure if you need perfect pitch to dislike bad music. To be honest, i'm not the greatest fan of this "bad music" genre either

[scottmcc]

I'm not that sure if you need perfect pitch to dislike bad music. To be honest, i'm not the greatest fan of this "bad music" genre either

I don't have perfect pitch at all, but I can certainly tell a wrong note instantly, and depending on how wrong it is I'm often left quite pained by it.  I can also tell within a second or two if a piano is out of tune, to similar effect.  but if I play an out-of-tune piano for a while, I get used to it enough that it's no longer as painful.  alas.

I had a patient who is a professional jazz musician, and part of my hearing exam uses tuning forks.  I was using a 512 Hz fork (aka middle C), and asked him at the end if he happened to know what note it was.  he very proudly told me it was A:440.

[birba]

Martha Argerich might have answered the same thing, believe it or not.