Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 55 posts

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

#41

Post by andrewflnr »

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…

There's a strange preoccupation with being able to fly through willpower. It's not very useful today since there are (relatively) inexpensive devices that let you fly anywhere in the world.

Perfect pitch is a real-life superpower for musicians. I'll grant, like another commenter said, that if I had child-like neuroplasticity, attaining perfect pitch would just be icing on the cake.

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

#42

Post by 70forty »

sjtgraham wrote: post #26
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…

Do you have perfect pitch? How can you assess the utility if you don't possess it? Perfect pitch would be very useful IMO, can you imagine what it would do to one's compositional abilities for example? Relative pitch is just recognition of intervals between notes and the qualities of different chords, but you're right in that perfect pitch and relative pitch are quite unrelated.

How do you think it would help with composition?

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

#43

Post by mh_yam »

I have perfect pitch and I find it to be generally enjoyable.

It's useful, to some degree, in a musical setting; I find it very easy to hear music and reproduce it immediately (including chord/key analysis, etc). It's fun to take random songs I hear during my day and go about dissecting them.

However it has its pain points. I waste time analyzing useless things like the hum of the refrigerator or the sound of water dripping because everything sounds like a musical note. Also, I can't stand people / instruments that are not in tune. This includes professional pop artists / singers -- a lot of them sound awfully off key to me, even though in reality they probably are within a tolerance level. Ditto going to karaoke with friends who cannot sing. It destroys my ears and gives me headaches.

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

#44

Post by acjohnson55 »

sjtgraham wrote: post #21
webwielder wrote: post #6

If there's a pill that allows me to learn stuff as readily as a child, perfect pitch is kinda low on my list of to-do's.

I'm guessing you're not a musician.

Perfect pitch is impressive and handy in some cases, but it's a lot more useful as a musician to spend your time perfecting skills based on relative pitch perception.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

70forty wrote: post #42
sjtgraham wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have perfect pitch? How can you assess the utility if you don't possess it? Perfect pitch would be very useful IMO, can you imagine what it would do to one's compositional abilities for example? Relative pitch is just recognition of intervals between notes and the qualities of different chords, but you're right in that perfect pitch and relative pitch are quite unrelated.

How do you think it would help with composition?

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by ismarc »

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…

I was on a medication that did something similar (I believe it may have been depakote or gabapentin). Thing is, I have absurdly good relative pitch, and combined with an 'internalized' sound of 60Hz (I've worked around a large number of generators and high voltage equipment over the years), I have the same net effect as perfect pitch (60Hz is roughly a quarter step above B-flat, a quarter step below B).

What bugged me was the intervals were off. It's hard to describe, but, for those not familiar with how the notes are laid out, 60Hz is quarter step below B, 120 is quarter step below B, 240 is quarter step below B, and so on. However, as you get higher, the frequency difference gets larger (B is actually 61.75ish Hz and B flat is 58.25ish Hz, next higher is 123.5ish Hz and 116.5ish Hz, and so on). Things were translated ~1/4 octave higher, which completely threw everything off because the 60Hz sound no longer fell evenly between two notes or even directly on a note, it was an 1/8th step away. This meant that as the notes got further away from 60Hz (higher or lower), the distance to the note got larger. So while everything was still evenly in tune, my guidepost began to really suck.

Long story short: I have no idea why it did what it did, but it was freaky. However, it was probably the most amenable side-effect I had from the medication.

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

#47

Post by enf »

ismarc wrote: post #46
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…

I was on a medication that did something similar (I believe it may have been depakote or gabapentin). Thing is, I have absurdly good relative pitch, and combined with an 'internalized' sound of 60Hz (I've worked around a large number of generators and high voltage equipment over the years), I have the same net effect as perfect pitch (60Hz is roughly a quarter step above B-flat, a quarter step below B). What bugged m…

Did tempos sound faster too, or did just the pitches change?

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

#48

Post by ewoodrich »

sjtgraham wrote: post #26
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…

Do you have perfect pitch? How can you assess the utility if you don't possess it? Perfect pitch would be very useful IMO, can you imagine what it would do to one's compositional abilities for example? Relative pitch is just recognition of intervals between notes and the qualities of different chords, but you're right in that perfect pitch and relative pitch are quite unrelated.

It would likely have a negligible benefit for composition, even if notating unassisted by any pitch aid.

Since the intervals (not frequencies though) between scales are consistent regardless of the pitch of the tonic, one could compose a piece using relative pitch that they believe to be in the key of C, when actually they are "hearing" it in Bb. Precise relative pitch ability has much more utility in composition, absolute pitch would have more advantage for performance (choral starting note, woodwind tuning, on-the-fly assessment of string fingering).

It would only be useful if for some reason you needed to compose and then perform a piece without a reference pitch.

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

#49

Post by tzs »

OK, so suppose you could re-enable child-like neuroplasticity and use it to help learn something that is harder to learn as an adult than as a child. What would you try to learn?

I would go for chess. The age when you start playing chess seriously seems to have a big effect on how strong you can get. If you want to reach world class strength, it seems you have to start when you are 8 or under. Wait until you are 10 or so, and your potential seems limited to strong GM. Wait until mid teens, and strong IM seems all you can shoot for. Later than that, and maybe you will be able to make national master with a hell of a lot of work. (I may have the ages wrong here...I'm going for weak memory)

This doesn't appear to be just one of those 10000 hours types of thing. If it were just that, the early starts would not reach higher peaks--they would just reach the peaks while younger. It seems that age of starting sets your upper limit, and THEN it is a 10000 hours type of thing to reach that limit.

A foreign language would be tempting, but adults can already learn foreign languages effectively. Yes, young enough children become bilingual effortlessly, but that is if they are largely immersed in the second language for years. Arranging to be immersed in a second language for years would be hard.

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

#50

Post by cosmic_shame »

MichaelGG wrote: post #37
rosser wrote: post #4

For reference, valproic acid (and/or its salt) is sold under the trade name Depakote . This is not a drug you should consider taking lightly, whatever neuroplasticity benefits it might confer.

It's mainly prescribed a mood stabilizer. They'll commonly give it to you with lithium or such things. The list of side effects is rather long, just like most of these psych meds. There's a reason bipolar folks tend to not want to take their meds or go off them.

While it is often used as a mood stabilizer, it's actual pharmacological class is an anticonvulsant (i.e. an antiepileptic).
Post reply on HN