Learn perfect pitch in 15 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#81

Post by w-m » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 9:08 AM UTC

jsphweid wrote: post #69

w-m wrote: post #15

Absolute pitch: a completely useless skill, which having can in some cases even be detrimental. While being very hard to impossible to acquire. So naturally I will stop at nothing trying to develop it :) A couple of months ago, this paper made the rounds: Absolute pitch in involuntary musical imagery [0]. In a small sample group, nearly half the time (44.7%) when someone was asked to sing their current earworm, were…

This post isn't compelling to me. > a completely useless skill It's probably an overrated skill depending on the musical task, but to say it's completely useless is really ignorant. Nearly anyone who studies music at the university level or above would find this statement ("completely useless") to be wildly incorrect. > Random chance would be 8.3%. A random human won't sing off the cuff with their tonal center magica…

This criticism isn't compelling to me.

The smiling emoji at the end of the first paragraph indicates that these statements were made somewhat in jest, or perhaps exaggerated. Of course some uses can be found for absolute pitch. I saw one a couple weeks back, when Jacob Collier was tuning the audience choir to lead into "Somebody to Love" played on the piano. But, hadn't he had absolute pitch, he might just have picked up a reference note from the piano or his in-ear monitors, like a filthy commoner. Usually when making music, having good relative pitch is required, and a reference instrument is mostly handy, making perfect pitch somewhat redundant. But do tell what you're doing with perfect pitch, I'm curious.

And on curiosity, I went to your website and randomly listened to "The Fugue Song" [0]. Really loved it! Very nice moment when the singing comes in, repeating the phrase from the fugy guitar intro. Good song! (I'm a total sucker for Nina Simone's "Love Me Or Leave me", do you know that? A song where she's inserting some counterpoint improvisations in the middle). I'm listening to a bit of "Hiss" now.

> 8.3%

Rounded to the next semitone of course, I left that detail out, it's in the paper.

[0]: https://josephweidinger.com/project/the_fugue_song/

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#82

Post by bluGill » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #71

bluGill wrote: post #37

Someone introduce the author to microtunings. there is a whole - much more harmonic - world out there. Equal temperment is a harmonic disaster and it is time to end it. (there are advantages to equal temperment but harmony is lost)

You can use equal temperament with any number of divisions of the octave (or other interval, e.g. Bohen-Pierce tuning's equal division of the "tritave" into 13). Some of these provide excellent approximations of common just intonation intervals, e.g. dividing the octave into 53 gives you fifths that are only 0.07 cents off the just interval, and all other intervals in standard 5-limit Western harmony within 1.5 cents…

That is something else to introduce the author to. The author clearly thinks there are 12 notes to an octave, which is by far the most common tuning system but it isn't the only one.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#83

Post by bluGill » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:03 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #49

bluGill wrote: post #37

Someone introduce the author to microtunings. there is a whole - much more harmonic - world out there. Equal temperment is a harmonic disaster and it is time to end it. (there are advantages to equal temperment but harmony is lost)

I’m not convinced. Share a microtonal piece that can stand up against something by Chopin or any other great composer.

With some effort you can find the microtonal chords Chopin was thinking of and prove it yourself. There are of course places where it isn't clear which chord Chopin was thinking of though, so it would be fun to hear different people do this assignment...

To show a microtonal piece that stands up to Chopin requires a composing genius much better than me, so I can't show you it. Such a person may not even exist today.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#84

Post by bennettnate5 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

Slow_Hand wrote: post #73

smitelli wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fascinated by this discussion because of how imprecise the terms "perfect," "absolute," "pseudo-absolute," etc. are. It's doubly interesting because we're describing things that happen in our own minds, with each of us having potentially different abilities and training and no common reference to what a "typical" person can do. For me, sometimes, I can hear the opening note or chord of one song and it will immedi…

The meaning of perfect pitch is unambiguous. When a note is played someone with perfect pitch can identify that pitch (Ab, F, C#, etc) without a reference. Also known as absolute pitch. If someone has relative pitch it means that they need to hear a reference pitch before they can identify the played pitch based on the interval between the two. Perfect pitch may seem like a party trick for a casual musician, but if y…

The definition of relative pitch is unfortunately ambiguous, however--I've heard it defined as being able to pick out one note or several note, but having to rely on that reference note from memory to determine the pitch of other notes. I have A flat and E flat burned into my mind from playing Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf rag so many times as a teenager, so if I think hard I can figure out what any note is based on that reference. I can't quickly identify a note without doing that in my mind though, so I don't claim to have perfect pitch.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#85

Post by bennettnate5 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:15 PM UTC

vunderba wrote: post #63

lyricaljoke wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the responses to this comment imply that this is something fundamentally different than perfect pitch and give it some different name ("pseudo absolute pitch", "perfect relative pitch", etc.). While I concede that most people think of perfect pitch as something that is instilled in some way in early childhood rather than achievable through practice, I guess I would ask those commenters... why do you think the…

In fact, there is an interesting historical anecdote about polish-american pianistic prodigy Josef Hofmann related to absolute pitch: "Josef startled musicians by the accuracy of his ear. Once, at the Metropolitan Opera, he heard a tuning fork supposed to be at 440-A. Josef said it was a shade sharp, and it was." This is incredibly impressive for two reasons: - It shows absolute pitch is not necessarily limited solel…

I imagine the gold standard of perfect pitch would be identifying exactly how many cents sharp or flat a given sound is--you could tune a piano by ear if you had that.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#86

Post by thih9 » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:21 PM UTC

> Don’t learn a non-C instrument

I didn’t expect that but in hindsight it makes sense.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#87

Post by dhosek » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:48 PM UTC

The thing that really accelerated my pitch learning was choral singing (in particular, with a serious classically-oriented choir at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago). If you’re singing the notes, they really get internalized. At the peak of my skills, I was able to compose a fully harmonized melody on a walk and then play it on piano when I got home.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#88

Post by dhosek » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:51 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #35

folkrav wrote: post #24

I don't have perfect pitch, but I basically have a 440Hz sine embedded in my brain which I can use for tuning stuff and figure out the rest through relative pitch. Perfect pitch sounds actually extremely distracting as a listener...

In my city we tune to A=441 I have no idea why but when in Rome...

It’s very much a regional thing where Europeans tend to tune higher than Americans, as I recall. A lot is going to be dictated by the pitch of the local church organ.

Historically, as I recall, A was a bit lower than 440 as testified by older wind instruments and organ pipes.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#89

Post by almostnormal » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:52 PM UTC

lyricaljoke wrote: post #52

rybosome wrote: post #19

I suppose I have perfect pitch, in that I can more often than not: * aurally identify key signatures * aurally identify chords * sing a given note on command It wasn't until I was into my early twenties that I could do this. For me, the single biggest stepping stone was building the connection between what I could hear in my head from a song that I remember clearly with the underlying music theory. Specifically, buil…

Many of the responses to this comment imply that this is something fundamentally different than perfect pitch and give it some different name ("pseudo absolute pitch", "perfect relative pitch", etc.). While I concede that most people think of perfect pitch as something that is instilled in some way in early childhood rather than achievable through practice, I guess I would ask those commenters... why do you think the…

> While I concede that most people think of perfect pitch as something that is instilled in some way in early childhood rather than achievable through practice, I guess I would ask those commenters... why do you think the latter is fundamentally different, or is using some separate mechanism?

As soon as having learned some relative pitch, it becomes very difficult to train absolute pitch. One single note a day. For the second note the brain will switch to relative mode, and there's no progress on absolute. Forcing the ear/brain to run in absolute mode seems possible, but is difficult consistently enough to practice absolute.

Source: Experimenting with my own ability (or lack thereof).

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#90

Post by dhosek » Tue, Dec 03, 2024, 2:54 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #4

> I learned perfect pitch as an adult. Better learn to play an instrument; I don't know what a perfect pitch would be good for.

I had a friend in high school who had amazing pitch recognition. I still remember being at band camp and watching him with a cassette player and a stack of manuscript paper transcribing the “Get Away” break from Chicago a measure or two at a time. He’d play a bar of music, then write down all the parts. It really ruined me because I assumed this was a binary thing, you either had it or you didn’t and didn’t realize it could be learned until I eventually learned it.