Absolute (perfect) pitch, Do you have it? Do your students? Options

[Cyrilla]

I've just come across this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKipZjrkohA&sns=fb

Probably from about 8 minutes is the most fascinating...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[katica]

I've just come across this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKipZjrkohA&sns=fb

Probably from about 8 minutes is the most fascinating...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

You've got to be kidding!!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

[Cyrilla]

I know...have to say what really freaked me was the change octave between the pipe and the keyboard...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[janexxx]

I've just come across this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKipZjrkohA&sns=fb

Probably from about 8 minutes is the most fascinating...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

That's awesome. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Clearly I need to do more training of Liber-Archie (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[katyjay]

I know...have to say what really freaked me was the change octave between the pipe and the keyboard...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

What really freaked me was that it wasn't a whole octave between the pipe and the keyboard (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

[Alicia Ocean]

That dog's not even looking at his hands (paws)!!

[katica]

I've just come across this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKipZjrkohA&sns=fb

Probably from about 8 minutes is the most fascinating...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

That's awesome. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Clearly I need to do more training of Liber-Archie (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I sent it to all my dog-loving family so they can get to work with theirs!

[scrouch]

My 5 year old has perfect pitch. I thought she had a good ear because she refused to play our piano when we got it out of storage until we had it tuned. We found out when she went for a piano lesson, the teacher sat at one piano and asked her if she could copy cat what he was playing on her piano and she could find the correct notes. She can also tell you the names of single notes played on the piano and chords. I am not sure if she sees the notes as colours though.

She has said that playing on an untuned instrument makes her 'feel funny' so she has taken to trying to tune her own violin to get it just right. She had the chance to play on a harpsichord and afterwards she told me it was tricky to play on because the notes did not sound like what they should sound like.

When her sister is playing the piano and it is a piece she has heard, if her sister gets stuck, she will shout out the name of the next note for her from across the room.

We also found out that she can sight sing but I assume the two are related.

She memorises all of her music after playing it a few times and she said she can see what notes she has to play in her head. She doesn't seem to have any trouble transposing music and quite enjoys moving from one key to another.

[linda.ff]

My 5 year old has perfect pitch. I thought she had a good ear because she refused to play our piano when we got it out of storage until we had it tuned. We found out when she went for a piano lesson, the teacher sat at one piano and asked her if she could copy cat what he was playing on her piano and she could find the correct notes. She can also tell you the names of single notes played on the piano and chords. I am not sure if she sees the notes as colours though.

She has said that playing on an untuned instrument makes her 'feel funny' so she has taken to trying to tune her own violin to get it just right. She had the chance to play on a harpsichord and afterwards she told me it was tricky to play on because the notes did not sound like what they should sound like.

When her sister is playing the piano and it is a piece she has heard, if her sister gets stuck, she will shout out the name of the next note for her from across the room.

We also found out that she can sight sing but I assume the two are related.

She memorises all of her music after playing it a few times and she said she can see what notes she has to play in her head. She doesn't seem to have any trouble transposing music and quite enjoys moving from one key to another.

That is all very impressive for 5 years old! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

[anacrusis]

I play instruments variably at modern and baroque pitch, so am very glad that I don't have absolute pitch: it'd be a total pain. It's bad enough trying to learn to play instruments which have the same sets of fingerings to denote different notes: I'm still only a little way into learning to play my voice flute, in D, when normally I play recorders either in F or in C. Even learning those two sets was complicated by having to learn them in bass and treble clef.

When I came down to Egham, I handed the voice flute over to one of the forums members who has absolute pitch.... and I have a feeling the experience of playing that may have been just a little traumatic for her, as it's in baroque pitch as well as in D.

Yesterday I was being accompanied by another forums member who has absolute pitch: he had a full strings score from which to collate his accompaniment, we were again playing in baroque pitch, and he was putting together most of his part from the viola line, ie from alto clef (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) . A more remarkable achievement as he hasn't formally learned to play from that, and couldn't use his absolute pitch to help. He tells me that he can "shift" his pitch perception a little after a while, thanks to having listened to a lot of early music, but hates "playing between the cracks" - so a'=415Hz is okay because that is a semitone out of his reference range, but quarter tones hurt.