is it possible to develop perfect pitch? how?
my teacher told me that people cannot really develop it, he said people born with it. is it true?

As far as I know, you can't develop perfect pitch, it's either inherent or not, but you can develop a very accurate relative pitch. If you do a search there are dozens of threads on it.

I think there is some evidence that early exposure can make a difference. The brain has sensitive periods, during which it can grow new capabilities if given the opportunity, and after they have expired large amounts of exposure make very little difference. Of course, the age at expiry of the period for perfect pitch varies, but for most people it would be before seven years. Some experimental work in Canada* suggests that the ability to distinguish consonants is fixed by the age of two. A consonant sound first heard after that age will usually be indistinguishable from one of those heard earlier.

* I don't know whether it has been replicated.

From the ever-omniscient Wikipedia:


Nature or Nurture?
Until the middle of the 20th century, most people believed that musical ability itself was an inborn talent. Some scientists believe absolute pitch is due to genetics and are trying to map the gene for it; others believe most humans do not typically develop this ability because there is no social use for it, and are trying to teach adults how to develop it. The debate is not yet settled, as data on this highly specialized ability are quite scarce. It is nevertheless becoming increasingly apparent that people can acquire perfect pitch (at least for single instruments) through learning. It has also become apparent that a critical period in early childhood is involved in the acquisition of absolute pitch; this critical period may be related to that for acquisition of speech. Pitch recognition is now taught at the Eastman School of music and various "perfect pitch" courses have been offered since the early 1980s.

Many musicians, and probably most jazz musicians, have quite good relative pitch, a skill which can certainly be learned. With practice, it is possible to listen to a single known pitch once (from a pitch pipe or a tuning fork) and then have stable, reliable pitch identification by comparing the notes heard to the stored memory of the tonic pitch. Unlike true perfect pitch, this skill can also be adjusted up and down as needed.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_pitch

hey

not really sure on this one. I think you can sort of train yourself to some degree. Afterall it is only developing a good acoustic memory. I can sing an A (with no preperation) and get it right most times, yet the other notes.... well! lol! I wouldn't say this is perfect pitch though?!?!

jaime

I have perfect pitch, as in I can tell a key by ear and can tell when something is out of tune (eg, violin A string) without a guide note. As far as I know, I have developed this skill. I have been able to tell keys for about a year and am still developing this, and been able to tell an A which is not very close to 440Hz for about 7 years (makes tuning a violin very easy )
Isn't it meant to be easier to develop these sort of things at an early age? TBH, perfect pitch isn't useful, it can be really annoying when someone is tuned a fraction flat...

Here's a website all about a course in gaining perfect pitch:

http://www.perfectpitch.com/theexperience.htm

I've seen that before. Never sure if it actually was real...

I never had perfect pitch, but after quite a while listening and learning, I can now tell all notes apart and tune my instruments by ear. It just takes time and practice.

Hmm, dunno about that site, I don't think I'd trust it. Also man in the picture looks rather hilariously over-enthusiastic, made me laugh!

Matt

I'm getting a lot better. That new black eyed peas song was on the radio yesterday, and I got one part of it correct ^^ I was chuffed.

I think that it is possible to learn it to a certain extent. I can get C, E, A and F without any help but I could get all of the notes if I was given time.

Don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm but I'm not sure of the intrinsic value of perfect pitch. It's a great party trick but if you can't bear it when the music isn't being played in concert pitch (and what happens when you're somewhere where A isn't 440?), surely life for you as a musician is harder in some ways?

I attended a Greek violin workshop last year; the teacher's violin was a bit dodgy and consequently he had to tune it down a tone; we all had to comply. Anyone with perfect pitch would have found this a complete nightmare! After all, what is perfect pitch but putting a name to a certain number of vibrations?

Surely very good relative pitch is a far more useful skill as this enables you to sight-read in an unfamiliar clef, sight-sing even if everybody else starts off in the wrong key, etc etc. In other words, good relative pitch enables you to be far more adaptable, whereas perfect pitch could leave you completely flummoxed in:

1 the workshop I described
2 an unfamiliar clef
3 a situation where you have to sight-sing with a choir when the others aren't singing in concert pitch
4 a situation where cncert pitch is other than A:440

Well?

Violinia

I think I probably have what I've always thought of as relative pitch - I can sing an A (not necessarily exactly 440 but near enough) and identify the key a piece of music is in. I also used to be able to identify any note played on the piano. And looking at a piece of music, hear the actual pitch in my head - good, but also troublesome, as I had problems transposing when sight-singing as I could hear what the pitch of the note was meant to sound like, rather than the pitch the teacher had given to sing it at. Not sure if I could still do all of this - haven't really tried recently!!!! (Seem to remember remembering this before - hasn't there been a similar thread?)

I'll try to answer as best I can .

I think you're working on the assumption that people with perfect pitch only have perfect pitch at A=440, and anything else renders it useless. To within a few hertz, I can ignore a tuning difference. I'm certainly aware of the difference, but can 'accept' it; there's the odd moment where, if I think too hard, a note could be one of two nearest matches, but if I relax and trust my first judgement it's fine.

If A is further from 440, such that 440 or thereabouts is a different note entirely, then I find it harder to use absolute pitch. Reading discussion from others with perfect pitch, particularly those who work with early music at A=426 or A=404, it is possible to learn several sets of perfect pitch and switch between them as needed. My first piano was a semitone flat, and I had that for a few years but now have perfect pitch at A=440 so I might, myself, have made the switch.

In circumstances where A isn't 440, though, I switch to relative pitch. As I see it, I don't lose anything by having absolute pitch: I can use it when it's appropriate to do so, and use relative pitch otherwise.

Now I'll digress (or ramble ) slightly: Violinia, most of your musical work - as far as I know, and as your forum name suggests - is to do with the violin. Despite my relatively poor violin playing, I see the violin as being a 'relative pitch' instrument - to play it, one needs to pitch intervals between one's fingers to generate successive notes. Position shifting is shifting the frame of reference, much like changing between A=440 to A=500 or whatever. The ability to read successive pairwise intervals between notes on the page and accurately map this to successive intervals between one's fingers on the appropriate strings is important to develop good intonation.

The piano, I'd see as an absolute pitch instrument - you want to play the C# above A=440? Press the right key. One doesn't need to read the interval and pitch the next note accordingly - merely read what the note is, and press the right button so to speak. One can get very far playing the piano merely by pressing the right notes at the right time - there's a famous quote by Bach along those lines. Playing the violin, on the other hand, one's intonation will be terminally shoddy if one cannot pitch intervals reliably.

When playing the piano or harpsichord, particularly when playing unfamiliar pieces, I look at the music and let my hands do their own thing. If there's a leap I miss, or my coordination otherwise lapses, I usually notice the resulting wrong note by expecting a certain sound to be made and there being a discrepancy. Furthermore, by knowing what the note on the page is and what I played (using my absolute pitch), I can move my hand to the right place on the keyboard and continue without significant interruption.

Anyhow, here's my question for you, if you're willing to indulge me: would relative pitch work as effectively in that situation? .

I heard an interview on radio with a singer who does a lot of Baroque and earlier music. She said that she needed two or three days to switch from A440 to A415.

Clearly that's the best of both worlds.

I would agree with that, strictly as presented ("develop"). My string experience is mostly bass with a small amount of 'cello. My 'cello teacher once used the phrase, "make friends with the fingerboard", by which she meant acquire the relationship between the notation and the kinaesthetics of finger positioning; this is very useful for large leaps. I have never acquired it on 'cello, on which I am reasonably reliable in first position so long as I can hear what I am playing, but I have begun to acquire it on the bass. The professional player, at the back desk of violas of a top orchestra and deafened by the brass behind him, nevertheless knows where to put his fingers to play in tune.

I can say "Yes" with some confidence because it pretty much describes my piano playing, and I do not have perfect pitch. I can pitch most vocal lines (possibly excluding Schoeberg and Webern) given a score and a named starting note, and have also enjoyed singing Renaissance music from a part, though long rests need a lot of concentration. However, you don't describe how your hand makes leaps. Some, at least, top pianists (Bernard d'Ascoli, who is blind, is possibly the best example) can play any named note without looking, once they are located relative to the keyboard, so they have absolute kinaesthetics. I have to work by judgment of interval, a sort of relative kinaesthetics. This is not yet totally reliable for leaps of more than an octave, though it has improved markedly over the last 10 years.

I use absolute kinæsthetics; no doubt less accurate than Bernard d'Ascoli .

Thanks for your insights into this; would relative pitch still be efficacious when playing fugue, where there are many lines to follow?

Wow, yetanotherpianist - what a fascinating post! I didn't know, for example, that people with perfect pitch were able to make the switch between vibrations so to speak. So this means perfect pitch is more the ability to decide on a series of vibrations and name them, with a certain amount of room for manouevre between series of vibrations.... Hmmm!

OK, your question:

When playing the piano (I have some facilty in that department), if I miss a leap I also . However, I do this by hearing in my head the expected note. Not quite sure how I do this - it must be to do with interval recognition, which enables me to hear the note in my head just before I play it. It's not perfect pitch because I definitely don't have it, although I can guess notes played on the violin (more to do with string and finger position sound recognition).

Of course this gets very difficult if a note is way up or down on the ledger lines, but if I can immediately read the note - say top F above the treble clef, then I can quickly work out how it should sound using relative pitch.

So am I as well off as you with my relative pitch as opposed to your perfect pitch? Possibly about the same, given I'm not a pianist - but this is what I do with the violin in any case.

Given the fact that the vast majority of professional musicians don't have perfect pitch, I've never heard it said that the perfect pitchers among them play piano more accurately.

In conclusion I'd say to be an accurate sight-reader you are greatly advantaged by having one or the other. If you lack either I'd say you'd be at quite a disadvantage.

Thanks again for writing that fascinating and highly informative post.

Violinia

I can tune my to A without refering to a piano, play things back after hearing them a couple of times with hardly any errors, know when I played something wrong because it wasn't supposed to sound like that in my head and make an educated guess within about 3 semitones as to what key something's in (although it's not right every time) but I don't think I have relative pitch coz I'm rubbish at aurals.

Sorry for being ignorant but what is/are kinaesthetics? Is it relating a note on a page to a certain physical position on an instrument or something like that?

Violina, you are exactly right I think, perfect pitch is a total pain in the ######. It's nice to be able to tune a violin easily, or sound really intelligent by saying "Oh, this is in A minor", but beyond these novelties it is more often annolying than useful, like when the whole orchestra tunes to an oboe which is out-of-tune. Grrrrrrr!!!!! Felt like shooting myself after playing about half a semitone flat for an hour.
Someone mentioned leger lines making things tricky....I think of a ledger line note as the same thing a few octaves lower/higher and then go up and down octaves, I can only really pitch notes from G below middle C up to A 1 octave above concert A, unless going in steps of 1 octave or less...which is confusing!!

Question:
Can everyone here hear multiple lines of music in their heads? Never mind what key you hear it in, but if you see a score for a quartet or piano music can you hear lots of lines at once or not?

Dunno bout other people, but I can only really hear the melody and the chords that are used. I can't hear which notes are being played by which instrument, so i suppose I'm really "guessing" what the chords are by looking at the other parts. As soon as it gets to immitation or something more complex, I can see what's happening, but can't always hear it.

Can you hear what you see?

Yeah, anything I can see I can hear in my head, unless it gets to full orchestral score because I can't physically see that many parts. Makes sight singing a breeze!
I always thought this was normal but apparently not according to my music friends...?

It's odd, isn't it. It was years before I found out that having perfect pitch and seeing double when I look left or upwards isn't normal .

As you say, it makes sight singing somewhat easier; along with name the chord progression (the chords just feel like C major, G major 7th etc.) and the major or minor key question (I answered 'B Minor' in my G8 piano, much to the examiner's amusement ).

Not necessarily. It's knowing by feel where your limbs are and is not specifically related to music.

Your quote is wrongly attributed. YetAnotherPianist uses absolute kinaesthetics; I use relative i.e. I judge where to leap by distance from where my hand is at the start. However, their may be a small absolute component, because leaps towards the centre of the keyboard are easier than leaps to the extremities.

I can certainly hear two lines at once and I can usually detect an error in any of at least five parts when I know the piece. If I'm conducting a piece while sight reading the score, I can miss mistakes in accompanying parts if the harmony remains plausible, because I will be listening to the main line(s).

i have perfect litch but i didnt think it was possible to develop it if you dont have it