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Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

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Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#11

Post by jabgrabdthrow »

treetrouble wrote: post #10

There's a strange preoccupation with perfect pitch. It's not very useful today since there are inexpensive electronic and mechanical tools to give you absolute pitch. It wasn't even that useful previously. I believe that people confuse it with relative pitch which usually translates to the skill of transcribing and memorizing melodies. This is very useful as a musician or even in daily life sometimes. There are peopl…

I'm interested in it from a purely philosophical / phenomenological point of view. It is as if most people are colorblind, and some people can see colors. You certainly don't say that yellow is "higher" than red but "lower" than blue.

If you listen to how people with absolute pitch describe their experience, you will realize that they are experiencing perceptions that you cannot. That is interesting.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#12

Post by triplesec »

wavesounds wrote: post #5

I'd really love to have perfect pitch but I always thought it was genetic until just a few months ago. Does anyone know any adults who were able to teach themselves perfect pitch, without the aid of mind altering chemicals, and if so how'd they do it?

TL;DR: Anecdotes of how my perfect pitch does and doesn't work

I discovered I had perfect pitch as a 7-year-old on the way back from church. I was newly a cathedral chorister annd had had a lot of classical music lessons (piano, singing, even recorder) and exposure since I was 4. I just remembered what C was, assuming other people could do that.

However, it's variable, and I had to work on tuning over the next few years to calibrate my sense of pitch, because choirs go out of tune when unaccompanied, as we sometimes were. It was good practice, but I did become somewhat obsessed with knowing "correct" pitch. There are others with much more finely-tuned perfect pitch, including some who claim to hear 1/8 semitone very easily. I was never that precise, and even having not played or sung much music for a few years recently (never really bought into the magic, but loved the music, so not much church really) found my pitch calibration had dropped a semitone, although this could be general memory confusion because of all the Baroque music I did at one point in time.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#13

Post by bloometal »

The comments really confused me. I thought the article was about delivering a pitch for your startup.

I have a habit of reading the comments on HN before reading the article. Helps me confer some context to it usually, and also see if it's worth spending my time. (Yes I know I should be making my own decision.)

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#14

Post by baddox »

daeken wrote: post #8

This has been covered on HN a few times, and I should point out that the sample size on this is in the low tens, so don't get too excited. But every time I see it, I remember a really odd side effect that I had while on a mood stabilizer (not sure which -- could well have been valproic acid, the same drug referenced in the article). A few days into taking the drug, I found that music that I knew well sounded differen…

Fascinating. Did it seem like a fixed pitch increase on everything, or did it actually mess with your relative pitch? Did you play around with a musical instrument during this?

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#15

Post by losvedir »

jabgrabdthrow wrote: post #9

This is very interesting to me. A while back I was fascinated with the concept of absolute pitch (some people have a qualitatively different , categorical perception of pitch) and did quite a bit of research on the topic. One resource that I invite anyone that is interested to read is the research done by this guy: http://aruffo.com/eartraining/ Ignore the fact that he has a "learn AP here!" link - usually that is a…

Wow, now that's a blast from the past! Never really thought I'd see this on HN.

I heartily recommend Chris Aruffo's work, as well. All the stuff in Research Phases 1-17 in "AP Research" is really quite fascinating and well cited. I hung on every new post as they came and was convinced that by the end of it he'd have acquired perfect pitch, but alas 10 years later it seems it was not to be. Still an interesting read, though.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#16

Post by daeken »

baddox wrote: post #14
daeken wrote: post #8

This has been covered on HN a few times, and I should point out that the sample size on this is in the low tens, so don't get too excited. But every time I see it, I remember a really odd side effect that I had while on a mood stabilizer (not sure which -- could well have been valproic acid, the same drug referenced in the article). A few days into taking the drug, I found that music that I knew well sounded differen…

Fascinating. Did it seem like a fixed pitch increase on everything, or did it actually mess with your relative pitch? Did you play around with a musical instrument during this?

Intervals seemed to remain the same, but it was like the root was shifted up, IIRC. I really wish I had studied it more when it was going on (not sure I did anything but listen), but I was a bit too freaked out, honestly.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#17

Post by jrockway »

daeken wrote: post #8

This has been covered on HN a few times, and I should point out that the sample size on this is in the low tens, so don't get too excited. But every time I see it, I remember a really odd side effect that I had while on a mood stabilizer (not sure which -- could well have been valproic acid, the same drug referenced in the article). A few days into taking the drug, I found that music that I knew well sounded differen…

This happens to me in the morning sometimes; songs seem to be in the wrong key for a bit after I first wake up.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#18

Post by baddox »

daeken wrote: post #16
baddox wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascinating. Did it seem like a fixed pitch increase on everything, or did it actually mess with your relative pitch? Did you play around with a musical instrument during this?

Intervals seemed to remain the same, but it was like the root was shifted up, IIRC. I really wish I had studied it more when it was going on (not sure I did anything but listen), but I was a bit too freaked out, honestly.

It makes me wonder how much one could shift all my music up without me noticing. I feel like I would be able to tell something was fishy once it got more than a whole step higher.

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#19

Post by [deleted] »

jabgrabdthrow wrote: post #11
treetrouble wrote: post #10

There's a strange preoccupation with perfect pitch. It's not very useful today since there are inexpensive electronic and mechanical tools to give you absolute pitch. It wasn't even that useful previously. I believe that people confuse it with relative pitch which usually translates to the skill of transcribing and memorizing melodies. This is very useful as a musician or even in daily life sometimes. There are peopl…

I'm interested in it from a purely philosophical / phenomenological point of view. It is as if most people are colorblind, and some people can see colors. You certainly don't say that yellow is "higher" than red but "lower" than blue. If you listen to how people with absolute pitch describe their experience, you will realize that they are experiencing perceptions that you cannot. That is interesting.

[deleted]

Re: Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

#20

Post by jabgrabdthrow »

[deleted] wrote: post #19
jabgrabdthrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in it from a purely philosophical / phenomenological point of view. It is as if most people are colorblind, and some people can see colors. You certainly don't say that yellow is "higher" than red but "lower" than blue. If you listen to how people with absolute pitch describe their experience, you will realize that they are experiencing perceptions that you cannot. That is interesting.

[deleted]

That's the thing, I actually think that's just how people without absolute pitch think it would be like, but everyone with absolute pitch that I've talked to describe different pitches as different "buckets" - categorically, qualitatively distinct.

edit: I suspect this conversation won't lead anywhere because there isn't good language to talk about phenomenology. But I think we both understand the other's hypothesis.

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