It's Highly Possible To Develop Perfect Pitch

[jason_sioco]

https://jasonsiocoblogs.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/its-highly-possible-to-develop-perfect-pitch/

[ranjit]

I have gone through the blog, and there are no reasons why it should be possible to develop perfect pitch, just a strong belief that it "should be possible".

[volcanoadam]

The question is: Why would you bother to waste time to learn it?
Relative pitch is as useful in music and it doesn't create such problems as perfect pitch does, like ear ageing, or problems with non standard tunings.

[perfect_pitch]

https://jasonsiocoblogs.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/its-highly-possible-to-develop-perfect-pitch/

Good luck. It's like trying to teach someone the concept of colour, who can see for the first time after being born blind.

All I see as ranjit said, is opinion and no real facts about perfect pitch.

I do however take offense to the comments said by Volcanoadam... ear ageing??? My hearing is fantastic and I have the hearing of a late 20 year old, despite being in my 30's. Non-standard tunings? They're slightly annoying but you adjust.

The good thing about perfect pitch is that while you have perfect pitch - you also have (be default) brilliant relative pitch, so you can accept when pieces are in a different tuning system or in a lower tuning pitch.

I'm pretty sure perfect pitch doesn't cause 'ear ageing'... that's just dumb.

[ranjit]

I do however take offense to the comments said by Volcanoadam... ear ageing??? My hearing is fantastic and I have the hearing of a late 20 year old, despite being in my 30's. Non-standard tunings? They're slightly annoying but you adjust.

I've heard that perfect pitch usually starts to degrade in your fifties (it's often off by a half step), and is often gone completely by the time you're 60 or so. I think this is what he was referring to. So if you're reliant completely on perfect pitch, you will have problems then. The same is true of pitch memory. Rick Beato made a video about Beethoven recently, and he mentioned that he used to be able to tune the low E of a guitar from memory, although he doesn't have perfect pitch, and it used to be dead on. But he lost that ability in his 50s.

The good thing about perfect pitch is that while you have perfect pitch - you also have (be default) brilliant relative pitch, so you can accept when pieces are in a different tuning system or in a lower tuning pitch.

I don't think this is true. I have perfect pitch and horrible relative pitch (just kidding ). But I don't think this is true. If you know that one note is a C, the next is a G, and calculate that the interval is a perfect fifth, that does not mean that you have relative pitch. Relative pitch is being able to think fundamentally in terms of ratios. Take music which just goes by so fast that you don't have time to think about the individual notes at all. Someone with perfect pitch will have to rely on their relative pitch, and if it's underdeveloped, will struggle with transcribing it (or at least I think so).

As for the adjusting to different tuning systems -- people with perfect pitch find it harder to sing in amateur choirs where the pitch keeps drifting. I think this depends a lot on the person. Some people with perfect pitch just find it grating when something is off pitch, and can't stand it, while others are fine with it.

[lostinidlewonder]

I don't get the fuss about perfect pitch, I guess if you are a composer it is very helpful to get notes written down easily but otherwise it is not so powerful. I can completely hear pieces in my head after one or two listenings. I don't have perfect pitch however, but I can noodle my way through what I hear in my head to what would be created on the piano, I learned to play by ear very early on in my life. For me this is much more useful than simply knowing the letters associated with a note or group of notes. I can hear much more complicated patterns can pick them out slowly at the keyboard which has very flexible application.

[perfect_pitch]

I've heard that perfect pitch usually starts to degrade in your fifties (it's often off by a half step)

I don't think that's entirely true. I mean, you don't forget colour - so why would you forget pitch?

[ranjit]

I don't think that's entirely true. I mean, you don't forget colour - so why would you forget pitch?

Because pitch is stored as long-term auditory memory, whereas you have literal light cone cells in your eye to detect colour. You have three kinds of cone cells in your eye which detect colour, and the colour is determined by the ratio in which those cells are activated. Perfect pitch, however, is reliant completely on a specialized auditory memory which is completely in the brain. And apparently, auditory memory of any kind starts degrading in your fifties.

[perfect_pitch]

Because pitch is stored as long-term auditory memory [...] however, is reliant completely on a specialized auditory memory which is completely in the brain. And apparently, auditory memory of any kind starts degrading in your fifties.

I hope to prove that wrong in 30-40 years.

[ted]

I hope to prove that wrong in 30-40 years.

My teacher had an amazing combination of perfect pitch and short term memory, which enabled him to repeat things I improvised up to a remarkable complexity. He was just as good at it at eighty-three as he was at sixty-eight, when I first knew him, so don't worry too much. The only downside was that he was labelled a freak and tossed out of home at eight to be a choirboy, about which he remained bitter all his life.