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Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

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Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#91

Post by SwellJoe »

gmjoe wrote: post #70
tbirrell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way around. There are 7 notes and the accidentals give us a 12-tone chromatic scale.

Is this a cultural thing? I was always taught there are 12 notes, while any standard scale contains only 7 of them. (The chromatic scale obviously being the exception which contains all 12.) Accidentals are just for notation -- obviously B-flat and A-sharp are the same "note", just as F-sharp-sharp and G are. Our entire turning of equal temperament is based on 12 equal intervals, not 7. So I'd argue parent commenter…

Scales are based on ratios, and our equal tempered scale is a compromise to get equidistant steps that can be used to closely approximate those ratios. The idea being to be able to use the same instrument to play in any key without retuning the instrument and adjusting the intonation.

So...one could argue for either or both interpretation and explanation. The note names, sharps and flats, is what is most arbitrary about it.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#92

Post by baccheion »

opportune wrote: post #88
baccheion wrote: post #79

There are supplements/nootropics that make such a thing possible.

lol, the entire nootropic industry is just one step above pseudoscience. Nobody I know who has started taking nootropics has seen any measurable benefit from them aside from side effects, assuming we are excluding normal stimulants from "nootropics" and mostly referring to *racetams. Additionally, most studies on nootropics that show promising results focus on things like NGF rather than actual changes in intelligenc…

SEMAX + selank + alpha-GPC 5 days/week alternating every 4 weeks with p21/cerebrolysin. Also add a multivitamin, D + K, and chelated/TRAACS magnesium supplement.

Nootropics, if they have an effect, tend to improve aspects of cognition. For example, focus, creativity, mental energy, verbal fluidity, ability to multitask (ie, listen to music while reading), etc.

Not all benefits are perceivable without monitoring via sites like Cambridge Sciences.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#93

Post by opportune »

baccheion wrote: post #92
opportune wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, the entire nootropic industry is just one step above pseudoscience. Nobody I know who has started taking nootropics has seen any measurable benefit from them aside from side effects, assuming we are excluding normal stimulants from "nootropics" and mostly referring to *racetams. Additionally, most studies on nootropics that show promising results focus on things like NGF rather than actual changes in intelligenc…

SEMAX + selank + alpha-GPC 5 days/week alternating every 4 weeks with p21/cerebrolysin. Also add a multivitamin, D + K, and chelated/TRAACS magnesium supplement. Nootropics, if they have an effect, tend to improve aspects of cognition. For example, focus, creativity, mental energy, verbal fluidity, ability to multitask (ie, listen to music while reading), etc. Not all benefits are perceivable without monitoring via s…

I'm interested in large double blind studies regarding increases in IQ or alertness, as well as studies into the long term effects of taking these mostly untested drugs/supplements.

A bunch of guys on the internet taking Lumosity tests doesn't replace a study

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#94

Post by mwcampbell »

toolslive wrote: post #74
SeanLuke wrote: post #4

More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start to lose it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem t…

Earlier studies show that people with 'absolute pitch' can be 'detuned' quite easily. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-... Like any measuring tool, you need to calibrate it from time to time.

Wouldn't routinely listening to music be enough to calibrate it? Maybe my memory is unusually good, but I think I remember the key(s) of all the songs that I listen to frequently. So I think I'd notice if my perception of the key of a song changes.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#95

Post by SwellJoe »

mistersquid wrote: post #18

(Disclosure/Disclaimer: I don't have perfect pitch nor do I aspire to acquire it. I am, however, fascinated that some people do have perfect pitch.) Rick Beato provides a lot of (too much) context before explaining "Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch". [0] (Timecode link to Beato's point.) Beato's video was featured on MetaFilter a couple of months ago. [1] [0] https://youtu.be/816VLQNdPMM?t=364 [1] https://www.m…

Not sure why this was downvoted. It's an interesting video from a smart musician with a ton of training and experience. He might be wrong, but he's not wildly wrong. Despite this and the one study of valproate that indicated adults could start to learn perfect pitch while using the drug, the preponderance of evidence is still that learning perfect pitch as an adult doesn't really happen all that often (if ever).

Think of all of the musicians who do ear training for years and never develop perfect pitch (but develop very good relative pitch). That's a tremendous amount of evidence that developing perfect pitch as an adult is vanishingly rare. I'm not sure why a couple of tiny studies with somewhat inconclusive results would be considered enough to ignore thousands of musician's experience.

I'd love it if perfect pitch could be acquired as an adult, but I've mostly accepted that pretty good relative pitch is the best I'll ever have, and a couple of small studies don't really convince me otherwise. It's interesting how "amazing new cancer cure" studies are brutally beaten down with "this is a small study, don't get your hopes up too high yet" here, but this tiny study has everybody convinced perfect pitch is totally do-able for everyone.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#96

Post by baccheion »

opportune wrote: post #93
baccheion wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEMAX + selank + alpha-GPC 5 days/week alternating every 4 weeks with p21/cerebrolysin. Also add a multivitamin, D + K, and chelated/TRAACS magnesium supplement. Nootropics, if they have an effect, tend to improve aspects of cognition. For example, focus, creativity, mental energy, verbal fluidity, ability to multitask (ie, listen to music while reading), etc. Not all benefits are perceivable without monitoring via s…

I'm interested in large double blind studies regarding increases in IQ or alertness, as well as studies into the long term effects of taking these mostly untested drugs/supplements. A bunch of guys on the internet taking Lumosity tests doesn't replace a study

You can look them up on Pub Med (eg, "semax site:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed").

Sites like Cambridge Sciences are mentioned as another way to see if nootropics are having an effect. Even if studies claim benefits, some may experience nothing. That is, many things health-related tend to vary on a per-person basis.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#97

Post by retsibsi »

SwellJoe wrote: post #83
SeanLuke wrote: post #4

More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start to lose it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem t…

"For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem to do better." It is common for musicians with relative pitch skills to be better at it with their own instrument(s) than others. For example, I hear guitar parts better than most other instruments, and I've played guitar for three decades. I can do pitch reco…

> I think absolute pitch is fascinating and confusing...because pitch is arbitrary.

> So, absolute pitch is clearly a learned skill.

Being able to name a note as an A or a B or whatever must be learned, because those labels are arbitrary -- but isn't that just a matter of translation? It seems that the fundamental ability (perceiving and identifying absolute frequencies) could still be innate.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#98

Post by retsibsi »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #72
beat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely that you're tone deaf. It's quite rare. Truly tone deaf people can't really hear music, because they can't hear the relative relationships of pitches properly. It's the relative pitches, not the absolute pitches, that create the ebb and flow of music. I've been playing music for thirty-odd years, and I couldn't name pitches by ear most of the time, certainly not without thinking about it. I often hand-t…

It's entirely possible he could be tone deaf. Congenital amusia (tone deafness) affects about 4% of the population.

Definitely possible, but I suspect there are also quite a lot of people like me, who have a fairly poor ear for intervals (let alone absolute pitch) and are baffled by a lot of the things that seem 'obvious' to others, but wouldn't meet the criteria for amusia.

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#99

Post by retsibsi »

klipt wrote: post #33
notatcomputer68 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that's a fascinating possible explanation

Unlikely true though, you don't analyze pitches using an internal clock, rather you cochlea acts like an analog fourier transform.

> you don't analyze pitches using an internal clock, rather you cochlea acts like an analog fourier transform.

I'm out of my depth here, but wouldn't that process still require some kind of 'clock' (albeit not necessarily the one used for conscious time perception) in order to resolve the signal into absolute, rather than relative, frequencies?

Re: Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible

#100

Post by eigenstuff »

beat wrote: post #53
SeanLuke wrote: post #4

More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start to lose it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem t…

I have two musicians I've played with who have perfect pitch, and I've seen it fail for both. One is an older man, whose legendary perfect pitch started to fail in his early 60s (not much later came the onset of early dementia, so...). The other is a bandmate of mine, a woman in her late 20s/early 30s when i saw hers fail. She's genetically predisposed - both her father and her brother have perfect pitch; plus her fa…

Late 20s woman, started playing violin when I was 4, genetically predisposed. I had that SAME moment of shock and panic when I practiced with my sister before we played for my cousin's wedding a year ago. It was wild, the best way I can describe it is my ear has flattened out to baroque tuning down from modern 440 turning. I don't like it! I'm losing my best party trick to age but oh well, I don't think anybody's really gonna fault me if I'm off by a half step when I figure out what note a door is squeaking in lol
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