can you learn perfect pitch?

[swagmaster420x]

technically, this has to be possible... because it's not like people are born already knowing what "C" sounds like. They have to learn what "C" sounds like by listening to music and forming connections with the note each pitch corresponds to in our system of music. In other words, perfect pitch is a form of memory... people remember what the pitch of a note sounds like, so when they hear that pitch later, they can identify the note. So can't you "learn" perfect pitch by memorizing sounds? Is it really a "god-given talent"?

[brogers70]

If you could not automatically identify the color red, but instead could only tell whether one color was redder than another you'd have the visual equivalent of relative pitch. It would not necessarily be true that you could learn to identify red without being given another reference color to compare it to. So I don't think there's any reason why perfect pitch HAS to be something you can learn. On the other hand, I have read that if you work at it you can improve your ability to identify pitches without context.

Here's the wikipedia article  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

[swagmaster420x]

If you could not automatically identify the color red, but instead could only tell whether one color was redder than another you'd have the visual equivalent of relative pitch. It would not necessarily be true that you could learn to identify red without being given another reference color to compare it to. So I don't think there's any reason why perfect pitch HAS to be something you can learn. On the other hand, I have read that if you work at it you can improve your ability to identify pitches without context.

Here's the wikipedia article  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

i mean, to be able to have "perfect color recognition", you would have to be able to see something red and be able to call it "red". like, if someone says, pick the color that is red, you would have to have made the connection between the word red and the color the word represents. similarly, you would need to remember the pitch and its association with the note (e.g. if a 261 Hz pitch is played, you could identify it as C. If you never learned the A,B,C,D,E,F tone alphabet then i guess you would technically still have "perfect pitch", because you can recognize pitches. But imo that means you have to have heard the pitch before to recognize it, i.e. it's a form of memory).

[outin]

technically, this has to be possible... because it's not like people are born already knowing what "C" sounds like. They have to learn what "C" sounds like by listening to music and forming connections with the note each pitch corresponds to in our system of music. In other words, perfect pitch is a form of memory... people remember what the pitch of a note sounds like, so when they hear that pitch later, they can identify the note. So can't you "learn" perfect pitch by memorizing sounds? Is it really a "god-given talent"?

We had a discussion about this before. Memory is an important part of it. Both the memory for the sound itself and the memory for the given name/key/whatever. The other part is the ability to be able to recognize pitch reliably (have a "good ear") and reproduce it in the head. If the latter exists, one could probably be able to work on the former to achieve perfect pitch.

[awesom_o]

technically, this has to be possible... because it's not like people are born already knowing what "C" sounds like. They have to learn what "C" sounds like by listening to music and forming connections with the note each pitch corresponds to in our system of music. In other words, perfect pitch is a form of memory... people remember what the pitch of a note sounds like, so when they hear that pitch later, they can identify the note. So can't you "learn" perfect pitch by memorizing sounds? Is it really a "god-given talent"?

Good post! My girlfriend's brother remembers a time when he didn't have absolute pitch. It came later to him.  Both my girlfriend and I have had it ever since we can remember.

[gregh]

You're talking about absolute pitch? The ability to hear a note "cold" and name it? That gets better with practice, although some people have musical disabilities that would prevent them from ever learning it.

I don't know how common that is, but musicians routinely have very good relative pitch. That is, they know intervals, and if they hear one note they can place the next. It's an essential skill. A brass player has to "hear" the note before he plays it, or else it will squawk. Hear how a good concert trumpeter sits out for many minutes, and then comes in exactly on pitch. Then there's string players, who rely on muscle memory to put their fingers in the right place, but then they have to listen to what they're playing and make fast adjustments to really bring the note into tune. Brass and string players, when they play chords together, will bend the notes to bring the frequencies into simple ratios rather than the equal temperament that is the musical standard these days, and then the chord will sound like it descended from Heaven.

In that sense, pianists have it relatively easy--press the right key and you'll get the right pitch. Of course, the piano has enough other challenges.

[indianajo]

No.
 I have great relative pitch, but the reference is not stable.  I can sing my lowest note, call that an F, and get within a quarter tone of correct. But that is nothing like perfect pitch where the brain just knows.  I can hold the pitch we have decided on for a couple of hours, but after the rehearsal is over I have to start over.  I've been at music for 55 years, if this perfect pitch talent was going to happen it would have by now.  I'm just now learning to name intervals when I hear them on a recording, to try to play by ear, so it is possible to learn in one's sixties.  Just not the perfect pitch talent. 

[Bob]

I'm thinking you have to stop using relative pitch.  Maybe that gets set when you're young.  Then you listen more with relative pitch out of habit.


Once in a while I hear notes or sounds and know that they match exactly with certain notes in a piece of music.  Completely random, out of the blue events.  I don't check, but I know it's the same note.   Possibly same key, similar voicing or something though. 

[outin]

No.
 I have great relative pitch, but the reference is not stable.  I can sing my lowest note, call that an F, and get within a quarter tone of correct. But that is nothing like perfect pitch where the brain just knows.  I can hold the pitch we have decided on for a couple of hours, but after the rehearsal is over I have to start over.  I've been at music for 55 years, if this perfect pitch talent was going to happen it would have by now.  I'm just now learning to name intervals when I hear them on a recording, to try to play by ear, so it is possible to learn in one's sixties.  Just not the perfect pitch talent. 

I have the opposite experience. I can sing from a same pitch even after long intervals and I do not need to be given the pitch to start singing in tune. But I don't associate these sounds in my head with a name of the note or key, just like I have trouble associating piano sounds with specific keys or notes. That kind of memory has never evolved for me. I used to practice singing from a score and could do it a little bit, but that was gone quite fast after I stopped practicing it regularly.

[worov]

It's possible to acquire perfect by playing frequently on a digital piano (they are always in perfect tune). Bernhard, a former member of this forum has acquired perfect pitch this way. Here's what he says about it :

What will develop perfect pitch (even in adults) is to always play in a perfectly tuned instrument. (that makes sense , does it not?)

I believe that in this respect digital pianos are a very good idea since they are always tuned.

Most of my practice is done on a digital piano (otherwise the neighbours would kill me), and since I got one, and started using it with regularity instead of th enoraml piano, I developed perfect pitch. (I always had excellent relative pitch).

To the point where if I play on a piano that is relatively out of tune (that is, the piano is properly tuned but not to A=440) I start making amazing mistakes because what I am playing does not correpsond to the sound I am producing.

Source :
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=2706.0

[Bob]

Wouldn't you still be able to tell different 'colors' apart, even if it's not perfectly in tune?  I suppose that's where audio and visual split.  No one has to have perfectly intune colors to tell the difference.

[anima55]

I'm not certain what kind of pitch I have.  If I hear any note on the piano (except perhaps at the extreme higher and lower ends) I can tell what note it is without relating it to another note. I can also do this with the cello, and to a certain degree the guitar.  So if I hear a note on the piano, played as a single note with no other reference, I know what that note is immediately.  

I can't tell what a note is if sung or played on any other instrument which I find interesting because the piano is my main instrument, cello is my second and I play the guitar a little for fun.  So basically, it must be the length of time I have spent playing these instruments which allows me to just 'know' what the notes are when they are played.

This obviously isn't perfect pitch, and it's not relative pitch so I don't really know why I know the notes on these few instruments.  It seems to me that I must have learnt them through playing the sounds so often.  This must mean that pitch is something which can be memorised.

It's a helpful skill for many, many things, but it really does cause me problems if I use the transpose button on a digital piano.  The notes I am playing while my ears are telling me something else really throws me!

[gregh]

Miles Davis used to try to guess the pitch of things he heard, like a squeaky hinge.

[falala]

There seems to be some evidence from a few recently developed methods that children can learn perfect pitch if trained systematically for it at a young age. If it's trainable at all, there seems to be a "critical period" for it similar to that for learning languages fluently.

I taught my daughter using this method:

www.wehearandplay.com

and she appears to have passive perfect pitch (ie, she can name any note without a reference), but not active yet (ie she can't reliably sing any note named).

There's no evidence of anyone ever learning genuine perfect pitch - with a speed and an ease similar to those who have it from early childhood - as an adult. Some people tortuously train themselves to develop a kind of hybrid, where they can keep one or a few notes in memory and work out the others from there using relative pitch. But noone has ever produced the real deal.

This guy is completely obsessed with perfect pitch research and if it exists, you'll almost certainly find it on his site:

https://aruffo.com/eartraining

[falala]

I'm not certain what kind of pitch I have.  If I hear any note on the piano (except perhaps at the extreme higher and lower ends) I can tell what note it is without relating it to another note. I can also do this with the cello, and to a certain degree the guitar.  So if I hear a note on the piano, played as a single note with no other reference, I know what that note is immediately.  

I can't tell what a note is if sung or played on any other instrument which I find interesting because the piano is my main instrument, cello is my second and I play the guitar a little for fun.  So basically, it must be the length of time I have spent playing these instruments which allows me to just 'know' what the notes are when they are played.

This obviously isn't perfect pitch, and it's not relative pitch so I don't really know why I know the notes on these few instruments.  It seems to me that I must have learnt them through playing the sounds so often.  This must mean that pitch is something which can be memorised.

There's quite a few people who have this kind of "imperfect" perfect pitch (which is one of the many reasons I prefer the term absolute pitch to perfect pitch). In fact it's been found that most people, even without any musical training, can remember the pitch of a tune they've learnt within about a minor 3rd. It would seem that we all have some kind of perfect pitch-like ability, but that only gets solidified into genuine perfect pitch in a minority of people. This would make sense since even most of those with perfect pitch don't have it "perfectly". They are mostly subject to occasional errors, have off days, situations in which context throws them off etc. They have different degrees of tolerance within which they can accurately assign a note as closer to one pitch than the one a semitone away, and their sense of pitch can also go sharp or flat with age.

I have a similar thing to you - quasi perfect pitch dependent on certain timbres. When I was a teenager and played violin in lots of orchestras, I could always tell the key of string music. I think this had something to do with hearing where the open strings were, or what was resonating with them.

[Bob]

I had an idea....

Perfect pitch is the color.  Relative pitch listening overpowers that at some point for whatever reason for most people.  (taking a guess there)

But you could shift.  If you stopped using relative pitch, what's left?  Probably some undeveloped... other form of listening, which could include pitch color.  You probably wouldn't know what's happening or it would feel very unfamiliar. You might not even notice your brain registering things that way.

But how do you turn off relative pitch?

Easy way -- Listen/feel the expression/emotion in the music.  At least for me.  What does it remind me of?  How does it make me feel?  I don't know what the notes are.  I don't know what key is, etc.  But those are kind of notes that pop out later randomly, for me at least.  I know that one note I just heard is the same as x-note in y-piece. 

Engrained further by repeated listenings.

Emotions turn off the relative pitch listening. Add depth.  I notice my brain can focus in a little more deeply on notes.  Strange effect. It's like something else is switched off.

[momopi]

My brother has perfect pitch.

I don't. 

[jianxli]

It is better to call it absolute pitch. Absolute pitch is to relative pitch. What is to perfect pitch? imperfect pitch?

[Bob]

*Bob thinks about developing absolute pitch from listening to absolute music.*

[gregh]

That's what I've been doing wrong. I tend to listen to relative music.

[Bob]

Doh!

[maestroanth]

Actually, I learned perfect pitch when I was 18 or 19 and became one of the best ones with it too. Realistically, absolute pitch is the better name for it, but it's not as 'zippy' as the label 'perfect pitch'.I practiced with a site called www.prolobe.com and that kept all the stats and records of everyone. I had two usernames 'maestroanth' and curiousgeorge on that.  

Since when I was at the university, I kept my ear in pristine shape with this site, and I ended up correcting a lot of other 'born-with' perfect pitcher's mistakes and some of them didn't like being humbled by a 'non-born-with-it' guy like me.  

Furthermore, what I found amazing is that site sheds light on all the BS that goes on with perfect pitch talk by people that are ignorant on the subject. For example, the common story I hear is how so-and-so is so good with perfect pitch and they had it since birth and can spot the difference between A 440 and A 441, and then you put them under the prolobe test and they fail at it miserably.  - And BTW, "It's always some fault with the computer" with them (when in reality they just need more practice).  It's a humbling experience by many because it's really a lot harder than it looks......and because of this, I learned to not judge by word-of-mouth, but concrete examples by witnessing that person or cold-hard statistics.

This reminds me of a funny thing after watching a video on Messian in a composition class and the video bragged about his fine-tuned ear when dictating these bird-songs.  I got in a class debate because I always hated these 'bird-songs' because in reality they're just dumb animals with no inherent musicality about them (IMO, dolphin songs would probably be the better pick, but I also realize Messaen didn't have gills ;P).  Anywho, I brought the point that there was no way to check if Messaen was actually accurate when dictating these birdsongs.  - We just took his word for it.  The same thing is true for when I hear a word-of-mouth story of a 'perfect pitch' genius. - People usually just take their word for it and usually, around 90% of them aren't as correct as we might think.

[awesom_o]

Although I have had absolute pitch since before I can remember..... I agree with Anthony that it CAN be learned.

My older brother, and my partner's younger brother, both skilled violinists with meager keyboard-playing ability, acquired absolute pitch by continuous musical training. As children, neither of them had it. Both seemed to develop it during their teenage years. Like me, my partner has had it ever since she can remember (and probably even before that).