update RE perfect (absolute) pitch

[pianomankris]

A few months ago the issue of perfect pitch was discussed in the keyboard section.

It got a lot of interest, and some good debates occurred regarding the nature of perfect pitch.

Here is a link to a very recent study done on people with perfect pitch. Have a read through it - it is very interesting - and is the latest research in this field, so could perhaps give people a new viewpoint on perfect pitch.


Here is the link: http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/23/2/77/_pdf



The language is pretty technical, but reading it is worth the effort.

This should hopefully encourage more debate on the nature of perfect pitch, or help those who are interested in the topic.

 

[pf]

This paper is written to determine how "good" the hearing is for absolute pitchers outside the context of music...which I don't know if it is all that meaningful.

In addition, the authors didn't discuss on the application/implication of their findings. Interesting experiments, but at the end of the day, is it just an academic exercise?

 

[pianomankris]

Yip I understand your points

My interest in it was that every sound weill have some sort of a pitch - so the perfect pitchers should be able to determine the pitch of most sounds anyway (as long as the pitch is within the audible pitch spectrum).

 

[Cheez]

I've not read through the whole study, but already there are some problems after reading the first experiment. Their sample size is very small indeed, too small to detect possible differences between groups. I'm not sure if they have done a sample size calculation. I believe they sample size selection is simply a matter of convenience. Selecting all female is already a selection bias. Their definition of AP, NAP etc are all arbitrary - depending on their perfect pitch testing before the experiment and given an arbitrary percentage score to determine which group they fall into. There is potential spill over and classification bias between groups which may possibly blur the results. These are just some problems from skimming through.

Anyhow, it's an interesting experiment...

 

[pf]

Perfect (absolute) pitchers and how "good" their hearing is has always been a hot topic for discussion.

I wonder if this would discourage those who have not from learning music because their hearing is not "good". I hope not.