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Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

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Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#91

Post by 49531 »

freedomben wrote: post #85
bjoli wrote: post #50

I am a professional musician (bassoon player in a symphony orchestra). I can, if I practice it a couple of times a week, achieve and sustain perfect pitch. I had no semblance of perfect pitch until I decided to practice it at age 24. Before that the only chance I had to guess a note was to put in in relation to my own voice. Even though I don't practice this anymore (it isn't very useful), I still often just instinct…

How does one "practice" perfect pitch? (genuinely asking so I can try it, not trying to make some dumb rhetorical point about it not being possible)

There are tools you can use that will play a note like C and then another note, and you listen and guess what the 2nd note is. It just takes a bit of consistent trial and error learning, after a bit you get the hang of it and kind of create a mapping of what notes sound like in your head. I use a app called Tenuto for it, but I am sure there are others out there.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#92

Post by 49531 »

tzs wrote: post #83

Is absolute pitch something you would actually want? From what I’ve read as people with absolute pitch get into late middle age in many their reference drifts and they start to perceive music that is in tune as being out of tune. For some this makes it hard to continue to enjoy music. People with relative pitch can learn specific notes well enough to be able to recognize them given the constraint that the note is bei…

Yea, absolute pitch is not very valuable for musicians. Interval training is much more common, where you train on the differences between notes (maj 3rd, minor 6th etc.). Good interval skills make improvisation and composition much easier. If you know the key you're in having absolute pitch doesn't really add anything, and if you're lacking in understanding intervals it won't make up for it.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#94

Post by bmitc »

seanhunter wrote: post #61
Tade0 wrote: post #21

I wonder what's the physical basis of perfect pitch? Neurons growing in a certain pattern? When I was in my late teens I went to a concert which was way too loud - for a few years after that incident I could hear something akin to modulation distortion if the sound was loud enough - a sort of low ringing like what you hear if you spin a suitcase wheel using your hand. It was unpleasant, but surprisingly helpful in id…

Absolute pitch is just a learned skill like a lot of other things. People learn to identify the pitches because they sound different and learn the names for them. Nerd note: the name "Perfect pitch" is something of a misnomer because the frequencies the note names refer to is a social construct which has changed over time[1]. A=440 is the predominant concert pitch now but since "pitch taste" generally gets brighter/s…

> Absolute pitch is just a learned skill like a lot of other things.

Is that true though? I had a friend in college who had perfect pitch. I asked him all the time how he learned it, and he said he didn't know. It just started happening. He never explicitly trained for it.

It also wasn't just about notes. He could nearly instantaneously tell chords and keys from the radio or going to the symphony. I would test him using my guitar as well, an instrument he didn't play.

It's quite rare to obtain skills by never practicing them.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#95

Post by 49531 »

raincole wrote: post #8

While I think it's pretty cool, is absolute pitch actually "useful" for music-making? I feel relative notations (I-V-vi-IV) capture the essense of a piece of music better than absolute notations (C-G-Amin-F). It's just my layman opinion though.

Nah you're right, intervals ear training will always give you more bang for your buck than absolute pitch, and even though absolute pitch is trainable, I don't know any serious musicians who have put effort into it. This is why I think folks think absolute pitch is innate (it isn't): some folks just have a knack for it, and those who don't quickly learn that the effort to build the skill isn't worth the payoff.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#97

Post by sparky_z »

49531 wrote: post #91
freedomben wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one "practice" perfect pitch? (genuinely asking so I can try it, not trying to make some dumb rhetorical point about it not being possible)

There are tools you can use that will play a note like C and then another note, and you listen and guess what the 2nd note is. It just takes a bit of consistent trial and error learning, after a bit you get the hang of it and kind of create a mapping of what notes sound like in your head. I use a app called Tenuto for it, but I am sure there are others out there.

That would be practising "relative pitch", which is a standard part of ear training. "Perfect pitch" means being able to identify the 2nd note when played by itself, without hearing the 1st note to reference from.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#98

Post by stefncb »

flappyeagle wrote: post #80
amelius wrote: post #76

Can anybody explain what is so useful about having absolute pitch? And is there a visual equivalent to perfect pitch? E.g. you see a color and you say it's #f3eb20 ? Or you taste a soup and say it's 2 grams of salt on 1L of soup?

We have the visual equivalent by default. You can look at something and make a confident determination that it's "red" or "blue", not just that it's "redder than the color next to it".

We can tell if something is red or blue, but red and blue are huge spectra. That's like telling the first third of a piano keyboard from the second. Even I can do it. Absolute pitch is more like telling exactly what wavelength it is (to a certain degree of course). Most people can't do that.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#99

Post by diydsp »

freedomben wrote: post #85
bjoli wrote: post #50

I am a professional musician (bassoon player in a symphony orchestra). I can, if I practice it a couple of times a week, achieve and sustain perfect pitch. I had no semblance of perfect pitch until I decided to practice it at age 24. Before that the only chance I had to guess a note was to put in in relation to my own voice. Even though I don't practice this anymore (it isn't very useful), I still often just instinct…

How does one "practice" perfect pitch? (genuinely asking so I can try it, not trying to make some dumb rhetorical point about it not being possible)

There are a handful of Android apps. Some use samples. Others have addl ear training exercises that are even more useful than PP.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#100

Post by OscarCunningham »

flappyeagle wrote: post #80
amelius wrote: post #76

Can anybody explain what is so useful about having absolute pitch? And is there a visual equivalent to perfect pitch? E.g. you see a color and you say it's #f3eb20 ? Or you taste a soup and say it's 2 grams of salt on 1L of soup?

We have the visual equivalent by default. You can look at something and make a confident determination that it's "red" or "blue", not just that it's "redder than the color next to it".

I can hear a note and say whether it's high, low, or in the middle. But perfect pitch further requires a resolution of 1 semitone.
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