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Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

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Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#61

Post by laurieg »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #58
laurieg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's a bit of survivorship bias with this one. I've never been able to learn relative pitch after trying quite a lot of different methods, ear training app and playing a couple of musical instruments. If you're in a music school then perhaps your baseline musical ability is already relatively high?

I really doubt it, and I am not surprised that apps didn't work. I also don't think playing a musical instrument actually gives as much insight here as you want - it's a very indirect transfer if you're learning via classical methods or if you are learning purely by reading. Jazz and contemporary methods involve a lot more "listen, then play back" rather than reading. If you want to work on ear training and theory, c…

That sounds like a the ear training I have done but even after a couple of decades I don't have any real ability to tell the difference between intervals. For example, I listen to a musical interval and try singing up the major scale to match it but everything matches a fifth (in my internal melody). More recently I found the Sonofield app an interesting idea for learning the intervals but wasn't able to gain any consistency.

I remember many years ago in my music lessons being shocked that some people can hear multiple notes played simultaneously. I've never found much material on learning this skill.

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#62

Post by wbl »

laurieg wrote: post #61
pclmulqdq wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt it, and I am not surprised that apps didn't work. I also don't think playing a musical instrument actually gives as much insight here as you want - it's a very indirect transfer if you're learning via classical methods or if you are learning purely by reading. Jazz and contemporary methods involve a lot more "listen, then play back" rather than reading. If you want to work on ear training and theory, c…

That sounds like a the ear training I have done but even after a couple of decades I don't have any real ability to tell the difference between intervals. For example, I listen to a musical interval and try singing up the major scale to match it but everything matches a fifth (in my internal melody). More recently I found the Sonofield app an interesting idea for learning the intervals but wasn't able to gain any con…

Learning intervals by quotation can work. "Comet, it makes your teeth turn green" starts with a descending third and is a very memorable song.

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#64

Post by sudo_cowsay »

dbalatero wrote: post #41
sudo_cowsay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the pianist trained you rather than you achieving it like a little kid does. That happens sometimes if you put in the effort (learning/memorizing/training). While I am not old enough to know how it changes, could it be perhaps that what you had learned when you were 16 was in your mind a certain pitch and as ears change (a 16 year old can hear higher pitch than 30 year old), you don’t relearn it, therefor…

I have it from early age, and it also shifts now that I'm almost 40. I think the more constantly I use it though, the more it seems to settle back into accuracy.

Thank you! That's really interesting. So it's like a muscle I guess. More you use it = better.

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#65

Post by sudo_cowsay »

dbalatero wrote: post #45
sudo_cowsay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colors are useful. Perfect pitch is pretty much useless. The exception being a composer or school conductor (you really gotta scold those children, haha). While it is a fun trick to have, the practicality of it is very different from knowing what different colors are. The most useful application of perfect pitch I’ve seen is my high school orchestra teacher honing our intonation.

Do you have it? I've gotten a lot of use out of it, and I find there's a lot of people without it that love to dismiss it in these kinds of threads as useless. It helps me improvise with others, learn things quickly, play in tune on my fretless instrument, to name a few.

I’ll admit, I don’t have perfect pitch. I do however have 2 friends with perfect pitch and a teacher with it. One of my friends says it is useless (they also play an instrument). The other 2 find that they are the exception to the “useless” rule. The other friend is training to be a composer and the teacher teaches students relative pitch with it. I’m sure if you used it properly it would indeed help with improv and learning. However, I don’t understand how it would help you play in tune. I feel like that’s more of relative pitch (which is what most professional musicians use). I also play a fretless instrument and I feel like playing in tune is more of muscle memory and subtly adjusting your fingers by the millimeter, and less about having perfect pitch. The areas between using perfect and relative pitch blurs a little though (which I think you might be confusing(?)).

For example, you can go like: Wham! “Oh that’s a little too high” and adjust (relative pitch)

Rather then: Wham! “Hmmmmmmm, that’s an an E not an F” (perfect pitch)

Fun fact: Itzhak Perlman promotes relative pitch and knowing the distance between notes rather than perfect pitch.

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#66

Post by daynthelife »

frafart wrote: post #11

It can be dormant in adults. I discovered it when I was 16 after meeting a pianist who had it and “taught me” how to do it. I kept getting faster and more accurate as I practiced solfeggio in music school in my 20s. Crazy thing is it changes with age. At around 30 I started regressing. These days I identify the tones but shifted by one semitone.

Out of curiosity, did it shift up or down for you? I've had perfect putch from a young age, but now at 30 I hear everything a semiton higher (so e.g. a B sounds like a C to me, and I have to manually subtract the semitone to infer the real pitch and hope that I am not overcorrecting)

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#67

Post by utopiah »

Thanks OP, I was going to annoy you with a bunch of request, e.g. "Can I please just get the .apk because I use GrapheneOS without the PlayStore?" then I thought "looks simple enough, maybe I a Web page is enough... no app required" which lead me to https://eguchi.app ... so instead I'll just both you with : what do you think about this alternative? Is it any good?

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#68

Post by porridgeraisin »

SeanLuke wrote: post #38

I have perfect pitch (or as it is more properly called, absolute pitch). To be honest, I am doubtful that these teach-your-kids-perfect-pitch techniques are effective: I don't think there's much evidence that they are, beyond anecdote. Perfect pitch is more a parlor trick than anything. Sure, it's impressive, and I wouldn't trade it away. But the most important skill that a musician can develop (and any musician can…

In indian music, swaras only ever exist as relative pitch markers and as such even if you do have perfect pitch it doesn't impede anything. It just comes in the back of your mind as a separate thing like oh, this is 5, this is 1.5, etc, since they are different markers from the Sa..Pa..Sa...

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#69

Post by est »

utopiah wrote: post #67

Thanks OP, I was going to annoy you with a bunch of request, e.g. "Can I please just get the .apk because I use GrapheneOS without the PlayStore?" then I thought "looks simple enough, maybe I a Web page is enough... no app required" which lead me to https://eguchi.app ... so instead I'll just both you with : what do you think about this alternative? Is it any good?

wat? what is yello, red or blue?

Re: Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch

#70

Post by Dilettante_ »

toolslive wrote: post #19
KomoD wrote: post #2

> Young children can acquire absolute (perfect) pitch — but adults cannot. The window closes around age 6. I found some papers suggesting it is possible for adults, but more difficult. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31550277/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31686378/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388931575_Learning_...

You will probably claim it's not "real" perfect pitch, but many people use their tinnitus to help them. They identified their ring as having, for example, F#, and suddenly their relative pitch became absolute.

Now there's a hack in the most delightful sense of the word
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