Is absolute pitch helpful?

[jazzmaniac]

Hi.  I'm new in this forum.  I'm just wondering if absolute pitch is quite helpful in your playing/performance/practice/etc.?  I mean, up to what extent does a musician who has it use that ability?  Maybe someone who has it can share his experience with it.  Thanks.

[ilsa]

Not really.  As has been said many times, relative pitch is much more useful in music.  Its just an interesting way to hear things, and I find that it actually helps marginally in sight-reading as I know immediately which note I played wrongly and where my hand should shift to play the next note.  However, I don't see why these things can't be distinguished with relative pitch. 

Absolute pitch does help with tuning a violin or guitar by ear (without the use of a tuner), but as the piano doesn't need regular tuning, I can't see why it would be useful.  However, it does give one a very strong sense of key relationships, which comes in useful in aural training and music dictation.  Otherwise, absolute pitch is just fun (though not everyone who has it thinks it is) but not necessary and doesn't help very much.  It actually doesn't help one to play more in tune on the violin or sing more in tune, but it just makes you more aware that you are out of tune. 

[aterezi]

Nicely said, ilsa.

I completely agree...

Absolute pitch is just something...well...

...there really isn't anything to worry about it!

I mean, you could tell what every note is, but so could a person without it, you could just learn to read notes.

Easy as that.

Just don't worry about it...

[jazzmaniac]

Thanks for your reply.  So, I get it that you have absolute pitch.

I have lots of friends in the music college who are perfect pitchers, most of them are "born" with it.  I used to have fun with them -- I would sometimes confuse them with their ability by singing random notes while saying pitch syllables but not the actual pitch I'm singing.  They would look at me and have that confused look on their faces.  I also realized that they have difficulty reading music written in movable clefs (that was during the first few years but they learned it after a while).  Another thing is that most of them do not have a good relative pitch.  Of course these are just what I observed with my friends, I'm sure that is not the case with other perfect pitchers.

I also have a friend who has it, but wasn't "born" with it.  He actually learned and acquired it by some ear training exercises and drills.  I noticed that this friend of mine has a very good relative pitch and perfect pitch.  This guy has a very good ear, I should say.  He can transcribe a record (accurately without an aid of an instrument, of course) in a matter of minutes.  And he's an excellent jazz player, his improvs are cool.  He's a classical pianist as well.  I asked him, what is most important in his playing and over all musicianship, relative pitch or perfect pitch.  He said both, because nothing is superior that the other and they are two different things. 

[thierry13]

Thanks for your reply.  So, I get it that you have absolute pitch.

I have lots of friends in the music college who are perfect pitchers, most of them are "born" with it.  I used to have fun with them -- I would sometimes confuse them with their ability by singing random notes while saying pitch syllables but not the actual pitch I'm singing.  They would look at me and have that confused look on their faces.  I also realized that they have difficulty reading music written in movable clefs (that was during the first few years but they learned it after a while).  Another thing is that most of them do not have a good relative pitch.  Of course these are just what I observed with my friends, I'm sure that is not the case with other perfect pitchers.

I also have a friend who has it, but wasn't "born" with it.  He actually learned and acquired it by some ear training exercises and drills.  I noticed that this friend of mine has a very good relative pitch and perfect pitch.  This guy has a very good ear, I should say.  He can transcribe a record (accurately without an aid of an instrument, of course) in a matter of minutes.  And he's an excellent jazz player, his improvs are cool.  He's a classical pianist as well.  I asked him, what is most important in his playing and over all musicianship, relative pitch or perfect pitch.  He said both, because nothing is superior that the other and they are two different things. 

If he isn't born with it, it isn't a true perfect pitch. It can be VERY close to it, but not to the point of absolute of someone who was born with it... I just entered college in music, and my teacher has perfect pitch. I'll try to learn how to develop a better perfect pitch, but it will never be "perfect". Your friend probably developed it to a point where he's never wrong, but he COULD be wrong at least once. Absolute, perfect pitchers who are born with it, can absolutely NOT be wrong.

[nightingale11]

If he isn't born with it, it isn't a true perfect pitch. It can be VERY close to it, but not to the point of absolute of someone who was born with it... I just entered college in music, and my teacher has perfect pitch. I'll try to learn how to develop a better perfect pitch, but it will never be "perfect". Your friend probably developed it to a point where he's never wrong, but he COULD be wrong at least once. Absolute, perfect pitchers who are born with it, can absolutely NOT be wrong.

No one are born with absolute pitch. It is a acquired skill.Actually think about it how hell could you be born with absolute pitch when you haven't heard the pitches before you are borned. The reason why people think someone is borned with absolute pitch is that they were frequently exposed by a tuned piano or music. What nonsense to claim that you cannot ever acquire ''absolute pitch'' later in life. I hate when people claim things and never even give a thought to things. How do you know that you never cannot acquire absolute pitch? have you tried?.

The reason why absolute can be hard to aqcuire is that the scale of the pianoclaviatur is not perfectly even. The pitches over it has an error. cannot quite remember but the error is that the circle of fifth doesn't end on a C but on a B....(Bernhard knows this) well however this error is instead divided through the claviatur. On a acoustic piano this distrubution is not even buon a a digital piano this is even, so each pitch on the piano is not always quite the same. Another thing is that you have to tune the the acoustic piano regulary. So if you want to acquire perfect pitch you should practice it on a digital piano/keyboard. If you want to know how to do that ....read the perfect pitch section in Chang's book: Fundamentals of piano practice.

[bernhard]

If he isn't born with it, it isn't a true perfect pitch. It can be VERY close to it, but not to the point of absolute of someone who was born with it... I just entered college in music, and my teacher has perfect pitch. I'll try to learn how to develop a better perfect pitch, but it will never be "perfect". Your friend probably developed it to a point where he's never wrong, but he COULD be wrong at least once. Absolute, perfect pitchers who are born with it, can absolutely NOT be wrong.

I am sorry, Thierry, but that does not make any sense whatsoever.

Let us examine the issue, shall we?

Absolute pitch is the ability to name a tone.

But what does this ability ensues?

First you must be able to hear a certain frequency as unique. This is inborn and everyone who is “normal” (that is, who is not born deaf, for instance) will have it.

Second you must be able to remember the name given for this unique frequency. This is not inborn (how could it be) and has to be learned.

A person with perfect pitch therefore hears a frequency of 440 Hz, and remembers that this frequency goes by the name A. only the first part is inborn (hearing the frequency) the second part cannot possibly be because pitch (and their names) is conventional, cultural and has changed over the ages. For instance in Bach´s time A was tuned to 415. So a person with perfect pitch would not name a 440 hz frequency as A, and therefore would have made a mistake (as you claim to be impossible).

Mozart who was supposed to have perfect pitch would also have erroneously named a frequency of 420 Hz as A, since this was the tuning for A in his time.

Relative pitch on the other hand recognizes intervals – that is the ratio between frequencies, which means that a relative pitcher must hear at least two notes before getting his bearings – of course he won’t be able to name the note, but he will know the scale degree (even if s/he cannot name it). So someone plays C- E-G, and may think that he heard F–A-C (which is, relatively speaking, the same).

Relative pitch is fundamental and everyone is born with the potential to develop it, and just through playing will eventually get it. Perfect pitch on the other hand is far less necessary – but still a good skill to acquire. Everyone is born with the potential to develop perfect pitch, in fact one will naturally develop it by playing on a perfectly tuned instrument – like a digital piano. The main reason most people do not develop it is because an acoustic piano is never perfectly tuned – and in many cases (like in old pianos who will not hold true tuning) is tuned one semitone or one semitone below true tuning.

There are however many more issues here. For instance, the piano has each note slightly out of tune because of equal tempering. So perfect pitch for the piano is differne form perfect pitch for a singer (who must find the pitch by pure intonation). The difference may be negligible to untrained ears, but it is enough to warn singers to be not to get their bearings from a piano or they will never develop proper pure intonation. The same is true for string instruments like the violin. They must delay playing with a piano until they develop pure intonation (then they can adapt to the piano out-of tuneness).
Perfect pitch also has disadvantages. I once played on a piano apparently in tune - in fact it had just been tuned – but actually it had been tuned one semitone below. So when you pressed the C key, you would get the B sound. As a result, I was making mistake after mistake, since the sound I was getting from playing the correct keys was all wrong. And I had to stop and play a few scales to get my ears used to the tuning in order to play properly, and even that was difficult. (Incidentally, I developed perfect pitch without any concern to do so, simply by playing and practicing extensively on a digital piano). A person without perfect pitch but well developed relative pitch would not have experienced this problem.

Best wishes,
Bernhard

[bernhard]

I have just seen nightingale´s post (he posted as I was typing), and he is right. (How could he not be, we are saying basically the same thing )

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[leucippus]

If he isn't born with it, it isn't a true perfect pitch. It can be VERY close to it, but not to the point of absolute of someone who was born with it...

When I first heard about "perfect pitch" I became interested in it so I read a lot of papers on it.  To begin with no one is born with perfect pitch, that's simply impossible.  Why?  Because the standard frequencies that we use for notes have been arbitrarily chosen by men.  In other words, they have nothing to do with nature.   So it's impossible to be born with perfect pitch.  Pitches necessarily must be learned after birth, in fact, they can't even be associated with notes until a person is old enough to have learned what the notes are and how they are named.  So perfect pitch can't even be acquired until a person is old enough to at least have learned the alphabet.

Now, some people claim that while this may be true the people who can learn perfect pitch are born with that ability and that's what they originally meant by being born with perfect pitch.  But according to studies every normally healthy human being is born with the ability to recognize pitches perfectly if they want to.  It appears that some people just focus on pitches more than others, and so for them they categorize and memorize pitches at a very young age and burn these pitches into their memory.  Evidently the vast majority of people don't do this simply because absolute pitch doesn't seem important to most people.  Most people are more concerned with relative pitch and just never felt a need to pin down a scale to an absolute pitch.

For people who have focused on absolute pitch it had often turned out to be more of a nemesis than a blessing.  They are often annoyed by instruments or orchestras that are not tuned to perfect absolute pitches.  Moreover, studies have shown that people who do have absolute pitch can only recognize a few notes absolutely.  All the rest they recognize relative to the few that they have locked into their memory.  In other words, people who have the ability to recall or produce an absolute pitch may actually not have any better sense of relative pitch than anyone else.

The bottom line for music is that having a good sense of relative pitch is far more important than having an ability to recognize or produce any absolute pitches. 

And finally, the very term "Perfect Pitch" is often misused generically by many people to refer to anyone who actually has a good sense of relative pitch.   So a lot of people who believe they have perfect pitch actually have a very good sense of relative pitch and may actually fail to produce a genuine perfect absolute pitch if tested for it scientifically under controlled conditions.

[allthumbs]

Absolute pitch is the ability to name a tone.

Relative pitch is fundamental and everyone is born with the potential to develop it, and just through playing will eventually get it.

Perfect pitch on the other hand is far less necessary – but still a good skill to acquire. Everyone is born with the potential to develop perfect pitch, in fact one will naturally develop it by playing on a perfectly tuned instrument – like a digital piano.

Is absolute pitch and perfect pitch the same thing?

[melengi]

I am sorry, Thierry, but that does not make any sense whatsoever.

Let us examine the issue, shall we?

Absolute pitch is the ability to name a tone.

But what does this ability ensues?

First you must be able to hear a certain frequency as unique. This is inborn and everyone who is “normal” (that is, who is not born deaf, for instance) will have it.

Second you must be able to remember the name given for this unique frequency. This is not inborn (how could it be) and has to be learned.

A person with perfect pitch therefore hears a frequency of 440 Hz, and remembers that this frequency goes by the name A. only the first part is inborn (hearing the frequency) the second part cannot possibly be because pitch (and their names) is conventional, cultural and has changed over the ages. For instance in Bach´s time A was tuned to 415. So a person with perfect pitch would not name a 440 hz frequency as A, and therefore would have made a mistake (as you claim to be impossible).

Of course nobody is born knowing what an A sounds like but perfect pitch isn't a knowledge of the notes, it's the ability to recognise frequencies of sound- surely this is an obvious fact. And that certainly is something you can be born with, I certainly was. From the age I was able to talk I was able to name pitches of sounds and notes, please don't insinuate that i trained from the day I was born to do this. The odd thing is that people without perfect pitch go to such lengths to trivialise and vilify it, especially given the fact, already mentioned, that it's often more of a curse than a blessing when things like tranposition are concerned.

[bernhard]

Is absolute pitch and perfect pitch the same thing?

Yes (I mean that I use both terms interchangeably).

BW,
B.

[bernhard]

Of course nobody is born knowing what an A sounds like but perfect pitch isn't a knowledge of the notes, it's the ability to recognise frequencies of sound- surely this is an obvious fact. And that certainly is something you can be born with, I certainly was. From the age I was able to talk I was able to name pitches of sounds and notes, please don't insinuate that i trained from the day I was born to do this. The odd thing is that people without perfect pitch go to such lengths to trivialise and vilify it, especially given the fact, already mentioned, that it's often more of a curse than a blessing when things like tranposition are concerned.

Er... that is what I said:

"First you must be able to hear a certain frequency as unique. This is inborn and everyone who is “normal” (that is, who is not born deaf, for instance) will have it."

It does not seem to me that we disagree or that I am "insinuating" anything.

I am sorry that you may feel less "special", but everyone can do that (recognise specifc frequencies from birth).

Of course the only way to "prove" to others you can do that is to consistently be able to name the unique frequencies you recognise. For that you need training, be it formal or informal (my own training was completely informal: I never set out to acquire perfect pitch, it just happened by itself after a few years playing on perfectly tuned digital pianos).

Leucippus above, has put it very clearly and cogently. I suggest you read his reply carefully.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[brewtality]

I've never found either to be particularly useful as a pianist.

[thierry13]

I never set out to acquire perfect pitch, it just happened by itself after a few years playing on perfectly tuned digital pianos).

You're telling me you never heard his note's color/texture, and by playing on tuned digital pianos, you began to recognise every note's color and texture ? Cause that is how people with real perfect pitch work. My new college teacher is one of them, and he told me how he worked. He doesn't need to remember, or have the reflex to remember a certain frequency ... each note has his own texture/color, and each note allways represented that to him, as soon as he was born, he just knew how to call them like A or C or G later. I based what I said on this.

[jazzmaniac]

This forum thing is cool.  Is so nice to read posts from different people who do not necessarily agree on a topic.

I certainly agree and believed that perfect pitch (absolute pitch) is something you can acquire, and that nobody is really born with it (I too read some papers about the subject).  I don't have to write about this "inborn vs. not inborn" thing since a lot of us here have already done so (there are actually papers that support this).  I also have to disagree to what THIERRY13 said about perfect pitchers do not make mistakes.  How can he say that, has he tested someone with p. pitch?  I had checked my friends many times before and they made mistakes too.  Especially when  I play chords and ask them to identify all the pitches, they can miss a note or two at times.

I read a paper of an author who actually developed the ability.  He said that perfect pitch is a human perception, not like a computer that you would remember the pitch right on the exact frequency, e.g. A=440.  He said that perfect pitchers (even non-perfect pitchers, actually) hear pitches on a range, because there are ranges of pitches.  Meaning you could hear different "colors" of say E.  What a perfect pitcher would know is when say that E is a little flat or a little sharp, of course if E becomes more sharp it would become F, something like that.  Someone without p. pitch may not notice such nuance in pitch. 

The reason why I started this thread is because I got interested in acquiring the ability.  Actually, I've already started developing it using the exercises and drills my friend used (he has developed p. pitch himself).  And as of now, I'm proud to say that I can identify all the 12 pitches in a chromatic scale.  I mean, I can hear each pitch distinctly.  I'm still "reinforcing" the ability, though.  Also, I wanted to know if those who have the ability actually benefit from it in their music-making. I would like to know their experience with it.  As for me, I can memorize a piece more easily now and my jazz improvs improved.  My ear is never the same as when I didn't have p. pitch.  I have a very good relative pitch prior to having p. pitch, but now I hear details, like "zooming" inside the music.  I'm not saying that non-perfect pitchers cannot memorize pieces easily and would never improvise better that those with p. pitchers.  What I'm saying is that for me (and to some) having p. pitch is a blessing as opposed to those who consider it as curse.  I play other instruments other the piano.  I play gamelan, nose flute, koto, percussions and other "non-tempered" instruments (even out-of-tune pianos), but I never get "irritated" to the sound, in fact I enjoy listening to them.  Also, when transposition is concerned, I can transpose easily.

P.S.
I believe that musicians should have a good ear, because music is a "hearing art".  Visual artists should of course have good vision so they can see the colors of their creation on the canvas.  So if musicians do not have even a good sense of relative pitch (if not perfect pitch), I think he's missing a lot in his art field.  Of course there are other aspects in music that should be there to be a good musician, like interpretation, expression, etc.  But I think a good ear is very basic.

So, what is it that you find useful as a pianist, BREWTALITY?

[brewtality]

So, what is it that you find useful as a pianist, BREWTALITY?

I think the most important thing for pianists is to have an ear for detail. Nuances of touch, pedalling, sound etc. Also to be able to really listen to yourself. After all it is the combination of this that make you an artist imo, not having perfect or relative pitch.

[leucippus]

Pianos built before 1900 were all tuned to A=415 Hz.  I actually have a Victorian Era Piano that tunes to A=415 Hz.  It's not built to take the higher tension required for A=440 Hz.    I also have a Baroque period violin (copy) that tunes to A=415 Hz.

So A=440 Hz is just a modern standard.  To say that it's important to musicianship is to denounce all the performers and composers throughout most of history as being lesser musicians.   I don't buy that for a second personally.

And as of now, I'm proud to say that I can identify all the 12 pitches in a chromatic scale.  I mean, I can hear each pitch distinctly. 

This just sounds to me like you are confusing "perfect pitch" (absolute pitch) with the abiltiy to recognize or produce perfect intonation (relative pitch).

[jazzmaniac]

I think the most important thing for pianists is to have an ear for detail. Nuances of touch, pedalling, sound etc. Also to be able to really listen to yourself. After all it is the combination of this that make you an artist imo, not having perfect or relative pitch.

I agree.  Pianists, even other musicians like guitarists, violinists, etc. should have an ear for detail, and really listen to himself.  Well, that is overall still having a good ear, and I believe having a good relative pitch if not perfect pitch is one of those things.  Certainly you can take notice of your touch, the pedalling, sound, etc. but not having a sense of relative pitch?  Ear training is essential (compulsary, actually) for musicians and can you imagine an ear training without developing this so called "relative pitch"?

LEUCIPPUS:  So A=440 Hz is just a modern standard.  To say that it's important to musicianship is to denounce all the performers and composers throughout most of history as being lesser musicians.   I don't buy that for a second personally.

JAZZ:  A=440 tuning is a modern standard, yeah.  Well, great musicians like Bach who have perfect pitch is attuned to A=415 tuning, because that's the standard during his time.  That is not to say that perfect pitchers during our time are greater than those who lived before us.  It's just like saying that pianists today who use pianos with damper pedals are greater than those who play without them when it hasn't been invented.  I think if Bach still lives today, he would just adjust his perfect pitch to our standard.  Perfect pitch is "color hearing", and once you hear a certain color, that color is then labeled like E for example.

LEICIPPUS:  This just sounds to me like you are confusing "perfect pitch" (absolute pitch) with the abiltiy to recognize or produce perfect intonation (relative pitch).

JAZZ:  I don't think so.  I certainly know what relative pitch is, I have a good sense of that even before I have what I believe now is perfect pitch.  I can hear and even feel a certain pitch that when I wanted to sing it (without any starting pitch) I can accurately produce it.  Sometimes I can be a little flat or sharp, but that not a problem because singing is another thing than hearing it in ones mind.  Singing involves using muscles.  What I mean is I hear pitches accurately in my head.  So, if it is not perfect pitch, what is it then?  Relative pitch?  I don't think so.