Memorizing Many Pieces and Perfect Pitch

[jason_sioco]

I learned something about the life of Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim that struck a chord in me. They both have amassed and memorized thousands upon thousands of piano pieces. Each piece is an average of 40 minutes in length. And they have perfect pitch...Based on my piano practice/lessons/ear training, I am actually heading in that direction!!!

Before the Perfect Pitch Nazis in this forum make their usual adage of you have to be born with PP - can't develop stuff...Yes, I have a superb memory and I am recently experiencing success with my perfect pitch practice this year 2019 and I'm an adult. I do have the capacity to memorize an unlimited number of pieces. When I go to my lessons, I don't sightread, I just memorize and know the piece by heart. I like to throw that in there, before they get salty on me.

[maxim3]

[If the whole topic of perfect pitch bores you, skip this post. I'm going to put on my Lecturing Hat.]

Perfect Pitch is hardly a complicated issue; the details are few, clear, and simple. How the brain actually accomplishes it is of course a complex and still mysterious neurological issue, but us non-neuroscientists can completely ignore that aspect, and still arrive at a perfectly rational layman's set of useful conclusions.

1. What exactly IS perfect pitch, really? A better name for it is absolute pitch. Wikipedia, citing reputable authorities, says it is "the rare ability of a person to identify or recreate a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone."

2. Absolute pitch is certainly possessed by a small number of people. We know this because of overwhelming evidence of every kind – anecdotal, experimental, etc. It is a trivially simple matter to test people for this ability under rigorous, fraud-proof conditions, and that has been done extensively for many decades.

3. Anyone who claims to have absolute pitch either does, or does not. If he does not, he is either lying, or confused in some way. (For example, a person might have excellent relative pitch, but be unaware of the difference between relative and absolute pitch, and so reach a mistaken conclusion.)

4. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch through training after childhood is almost certainly either lying or again, confused or misinformed. This is simply because many experiments have actually been performed in which people were trained in absolute pitch and subsequently tested. There has never been a scientifically valid demonstration that anyone has acquired absolute pitch through training or extensive musical experience, etc.

5. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch after childhood, and who turns out in fact to actually have it, may simply have been concealing the truth. In light of the mountain of evidence alluded to above, this is almost certainly the case. In any case where it proves impossible to verify whether or not the individual is telling the truth, the claim may safely be ignored as entirely without value or interest.

(I caught a fish THIS BIG once. Unfortunately it got away and nobody was there to see it. What do you mean, you don't believe me? Why would I lie? Are you saying I'm a bad person?)

[musikalischer_wirbelwind_280]

I learned something about the life of Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim that struck a chord in me. They both have amassed and memorized thousands upon thousands of piano pieces. Each piece is an average of 40 minutes in length. And they have perfect pitch...Based on my piano practice/lessons/ear training, I am actually heading in that direction!!!

Before the Perfect Pitch Nazis in this forum make their usual adage of you have to be born with PP - can't develop stuff...Yes, I have a superb memory and I am recently experiencing success with my perfect pitch practice this year 2019 and I'm an adult. I do have the capacity to memorize an unlimited number of pieces. When I go to my lessons, I don't sightread, I just memorize and know the piece by heart. I like to throw that in there, before they get salty on me.

[If the whole topic of perfect pitch bores you, skip this post. I'm going to put on my Lecturing Hat.]

Perfect Pitch is hardly a complicated issue; the details are few, clear, and simple. How the brain actually accomplishes it is of course a complex and still mysterious neurological issue, but us non-neuroscientists can completely ignore that aspect, and still arrive at a perfectly rational layman's set of useful conclusions.

1. What exactly IS perfect pitch, really? A better name for it is absolute pitch. Wikipedia, citing reputable authorities, says it is "the rare ability of a person to identify or recreate a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone."

2. Absolute pitch is certainly possessed by a small number of people. We know this because of overwhelming evidence of every kind – anecdotal, experimental, etc. It is a trivially simple matter to test people for this ability under rigorous, fraud-proof conditions, and that has been done extensively for many decades.

3. Anyone who claims to have absolute pitch either does, or does not. If he does not, he is either lying, or confused in some way. (For example, a person might have excellent relative pitch, but be unaware of the difference between relative and absolute pitch, and so reach a mistaken conclusion.)

4. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch through training after childhood is almost certainly either lying or again, confused or misinformed. This is simply because many experiments have actually been performed in which people were trained in absolute pitch and subsequently tested. There has never been a scientifically valid demonstration that anyone has acquired absolute pitch through training or extensive musical experience, etc.

5. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch after childhood, and who turns out in fact to actually have it, may simply have been concealing the truth. In light of the mountain of evidence alluded to above, this is almost certainly the case. In any case where it proves impossible to verify whether or not the individual is telling the truth, the claim may safely be ignored as entirely without value or interest.

(I caught a fish THIS BIG once. Unfortunately it got away and nobody was there to see it. What do you mean, you don't believe me? Why would I lie? Are you saying I'm a bad person?)

[perfect_pitch]

Before the Perfect Pitch Nazis in this forum make their usual adage of you have to be born with PP - can't develop stuff...

EXCUSE ME? I hope you weren't talking about me. I've never stated once that perfect pitch can't be developed. I'll admit I've never stated the opposite either - only because I don't know if it can or can't be developed.

All I know is that I've had it from birth, but apart from that - don't think that we're all smug, superior arseholes that assume that there are gods who have perfect pitch... and those who don't are snivelling peasants...

That's elitism...

[dogperson]

Jason
I went back through your threads about PP and I am not finding anyone who said it could not be developed.  The replies varied from: why would a pianist work so hard to develop this? To ‘haven't tried to develop it’

If this gives you pleasure to do, go for it. Only you can determine if it was worth the work and time.



 

[jason_sioco]

[If the whole topic of perfect pitch bores you, skip this post. I'm going to put on my Lecturing Hat.]

Perfect Pitch is hardly a complicated issue; the details are few, clear, and simple. How the brain actually accomplishes it is of course a complex and still mysterious neurological issue, but us non-neuroscientists can completely ignore that aspect, and still arrive at a perfectly rational layman's set of useful conclusions.

1. What exactly IS perfect pitch, really? A better name for it is absolute pitch. Wikipedia, citing reputable authorities, says it is "the rare ability of a person to identify or recreate a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone."

2. Absolute pitch is certainly possessed by a small number of people. We know this because of overwhelming evidence of every kind – anecdotal, experimental, etc. It is a trivially simple matter to test people for this ability under rigorous, fraud-proof conditions, and that has been done extensively for many decades.

3. Anyone who claims to have absolute pitch either does, or does not. If he does not, he is either lying, or confused in some way. (For example, a person might have excellent relative pitch, but be unaware of the difference between relative and absolute pitch, and so reach a mistaken conclusion.)

4. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch through training after childhood is almost certainly either lying or again, confused or misinformed. This is simply because many experiments have actually been performed in which people were trained in absolute pitch and subsequently tested. There has never been a scientifically valid demonstration that anyone has acquired absolute pitch through training or extensive musical experience, etc.

5. Anyone who claims to have acquired absolute pitch after childhood, and who turns out in fact to actually have it, may simply have been concealing the truth. In light of the mountain of evidence alluded to above, this is almost certainly the case. In any case where it proves impossible to verify whether or not the individual is telling the truth, the claim may safely be ignored as entirely without value or interest.

(I caught a fish THIS BIG once. Unfortunately it got away and nobody was there to see it. What do you mean, you don't believe me? Why would I lie? Are you saying I'm a bad person?)

Who's the liar now? huh!

[dogperson]

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