I’m a pretty good musician and have never had the slightest ability to discern absolute pitch. I’d like it but not enough to work at it :)
Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
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Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there some sort of online test to figure out if you’re tone deaf. Every time people talk about B, C, etc. and then reproduce the sound with another instrument, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be...
It's unlikely that you're tone deaf. It's quite rare. Truly tone deaf people can't really hear music, because they can't hear the relative relationships of pitches properly. It's the relative pitches, not the absolute pitches, that create the ebb and flow of music. I've been playing music for thirty-odd years, and I couldn't name pitches by ear most of the time, certainly not without thinking about it. I often hand-t…
It's entirely possible he could be tone deaf. Congenital amusia (tone deafness) affects about 4% of the population.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how overrated red and green are. First, someone with "untrained" AP (I assume you mean no musical training) wouldn't be in a position where they'd be needing to transcribe a Bach chorale, would they? Any AP possessor with musical training--I am one--finds transcription trivially easy since there's only rhythm to figure out. While it can be momentarily…
Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch should be recognized as a disability? Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch should prevent someone from certain licensed professions? Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch is a safety concern in some circumstances? Because the answer is "yes" for colorblindness. It's just a wildly overstated comparison. I mean, even tone-deaf people don't experience the kind of diffic…
As a colorblind person with synesthesia (but I don’t play any instruments), I can say it is absolutely expansive. I experience sounds partially as sight; I have ‘seen’ many shades I would never be able to distinguish in the real world. I believe it works the other way as well, allowing me to notice more sounds than others because I can visually distinguish them, and then listen for differences
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#74More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start to lose it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem t…
Earlier studies show that people with 'absolute pitch' can be
'detuned' quite easily.
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-...
Like any measuring tool, you need to calibrate it from time to time.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#75Can't you just derive any pitch if you know the default pitch of your own voice?
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#76More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start to lose it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem t…
Sviatoslav Richter describes his great frustration with this phenomenon in his notebooks. His sense of loss is palpable.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#77Professional classical singer here. I'm personally glad that I don't have absolute pitch, or at least not any version that is mostly focused on A=440 Hz, because as an early-music performer, I regularly have to sing at A=415 (for Bach and other Baroque composers), A=430 (for Mozart on classical-period instruments), A=440, and even A=465 (for Monteverdi) at times. And occasionally at other pitches. And with varying temperaments.
This discussion doesn't seem to be acknowledging how many pitch standards there are that are still in common use, and even in increasingly-common use due to the original-instruments movement.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#78I think it's overly simplistic to group people into those who have perfect pitch and those who don't. Of course, I don't know if the article makes this claim, but I think a lot of people tend to view perfect pitch as a binary ability -- either you have it or you don't. But speaking personally, I have "sort of" perfect pitch (imperfect pitch? semi-perfect pitch?), by which I mean that I can sing and/or recognize the p…
My sense of absolute pitch decays with time. If I've been practicing my instrument a lot, then I can maintain absolute pitch for maybe a few days, e.g., recognize what key something is in. After a month, e.g., on family vacation, it's gone.
But I can always recognize intervals just fine.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#79There are supplements/nootropics that make such a thing possible.
Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible
#80I think it's overly simplistic to group people into those who have perfect pitch and those who don't. Of course, I don't know if the article makes this claim, but I think a lot of people tend to view perfect pitch as a binary ability -- either you have it or you don't. But speaking personally, I have "sort of" perfect pitch (imperfect pitch? semi-perfect pitch?), by which I mean that I can sing and/or recognize the p…
Could this be the genetic predisposition aspect at play? I'm a complete idiot musically but my perception of sounds seems to be better than most (I can tell facial expressions from voice only,or sometimes just the sounds of their saliva, when others can't). I can't hold a tune, or rather I have no idea if I am holding a tune. I have wondered if I had acquired the luck part without the training required for the skill part.
Interestingly I get asked about my musical background a lot, because of my daughter's ability, whose conversations with her teachers have been beyond my comprehension for years now. While she also lacks perfect pitch, there seems to certainly be something going on. Her Mandarin teacher asked if she was raised around Chinese speakers from an early age because her ability to hear and match tones is something you generally can't just pick up the way she did.