Perfect Pitch: How does yours work?

[theironfreak]

Sorry Cheez for another perfect pitch thread... but this one's different.

I wanna ask... how do YOU remember and recognise pitches? What is the "mental mechanism" yall use? assigning a mental image to pitches? assigning colours to pitches? listening out for tonal qualities?

I wonder whether it's different for everyone...

 

[pf]

I think you can read this book. Sheds some light. Won't give you an 100% satisfying answer, coz the neuroscientists still don't really know.

http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0525949690

Its in the esplanade library.

Ok, the gist of perfect pitch in the book is some people are born with it. However, people can train themselves to do it. Has got to do with certain parts of the brain which memorises pitches.

The author is a musician. He graduated from Berklee. He's interested in accoustics. Later on, he went into Neuroscience. So, this book is a combination of his music and neuroscience knowledge.

However, I find that his organisation of the materials are not fantastic. This gives me the impression that he didn't integrate his knowledge on both fields as well as it can be. Certain parts of the book neuroscience are very very technical, scientific terms and all. But parts on music were written in layman terms. But the links can be better established for non scientists to understand better.

 

[iansoh]

I wasn't born with perfect pitch, but i could play a tune by ear naturally. i remember being able to do that since i've ever had a piano.

did a fair bit of solfege in yamaha JMC, and eventually learnt to associate piano notes with solfege, so i would imagine the C as "doHH" and D as "raaayy" on piano. but that didn't really manifest in any way until 8 years later in sec 4 when i found myself able to jam along with other musicians without asking for the key. it's a bit odd that way.

after i became conscious of my ability, i've honed it until i can recognise pitches and tones without associating it with solfege. one timbre which my perfect pitch doesn't work on is solo human voice, for unknown reason. group vocal works, not not solo vocal. oh yeah, and if the music is too loud and blasting in my face (like when i once stood in front of the FOH at a rock gig), i get disoriented and it doens't work too.

 

[Cheez]

It's nothing to do with memory - at least not to my ears. It's extremely hard to describe. I don't even know when I associated the notes with what I hear. Just like when one first learn colours. When we see red, we know it's red. There are different shades of reds, but it's still red. How do we know it's red? We don't "memorise" the colour. In the brain, connections are made and the colour is assoicated with the word "red".

Using colours is not a good way to describe either. Because if I hear an Eb, I don't see a colour. It's just...Eb. Same way you ask a person how he knows a colour is green. It's just...green. Particular notes have a certain "feel" to it which I can only use words like "mellow" or "harsh". Example - if you play Eb, I would say Eb and not D#. For some reason I don't know. They are the same. But Db, Eb and Ab has a "mellow" feel. Other's are "harsher". Example is F# and B. If you play an F#, I would say "F#" and not "Gb", again for some reason. This is a poor example. That's because I can't really describe it properly, just like it's hard to describe what green or red is.

 

[pf]

Here a very interesting a article.

The argument is that on recovering absolute pitch. Previous studies suggested that babies were born with absolute pitch and then gradually lose it as they grow up.

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/AbsolutePitch.pdf

If I remember correctly, this study or similar study was discussed in the book.

Not sure if its true. But its quite interesting to read to pass time.

 

[Vocalistman]

I guess to me it's just about me trying to add a suitable pitch sound to the music. It kind of going in layers after layers and it starts to build up syncing myself with the music. When a 'layer' just don't fit, that's when I'm in the wrong key or pitch.

One thing that got me bothered is that I want to know how I really sounds. Yea been to recording, but I have this belief that what you personally hear is not what other people hear. Just like seeing, some people see it, others don't. Kinda creeps me out sometimes..lol

 

[KDY]

Using colours is not a good way to describe either. Because if I hear an Eb, I don't see a colour.

Actually, there are a few people in the world with that ability. For example, there is this lady called Elizabeth Sulser. She has this rare neurological condition where the part of the brain which controls the senses is fused together. So when the hears a C, she can see a ray of red and taste cheesecakes. Pretty cool.. A condition that actually "benefits" them..

 

[HeyJoeILoveYourSis]

Actually, there are a few people in the world with that ability. For example, there is this lady called Elizabeth Sulser. She has this rare neurological condition where the part of the brain which controls the senses is fused together. So when the hears a C, she can see a ray of red and take cheesecakes. Pretty cool.. A condition that actually "benefits" them..

Hehe, watched something like this on Discovery Channel a while back. :mrgreen: This woman that was featured literally sees the colours in a wave or a certain pattern which is related to the tonal qualities, like say it's "aggressive", she sees a crooked and violent wave of a certain colour, and if it's "smooth" she sees a nice pattern of a certain colour. This all happens as she hears pitch. Even like a car horn on the busy streets or the sound of metal drills in a construction site. Pretty cool indeed, and colourful too.

Joe

 

[visa]

strive to learn relative pitch! we all have the ability to do it.

 

[theironfreak]

yeah i watched that discovery channel program too. so cool. haha freaky though if you ask me.

 

[ruixist]

strive to learn relative pitch! we all have the ability to do it.

yeah, very little people have perfect pitch. relative pitch is good enough! however i try to remember a couple of pitches such as middle C, and the G and A notes above that. i do that by recognising the timbre of my humming when humming those pitches. i think knowing solfege helps as well, with respect to relative pitch.

 

[KeDraiv]

are you considered to have perfect pitch if you tune the keys sharp everytime?
like say instead of A = 440Hz it becomes A = 442Hz.

 

[illuminationexcursion]

i would think perfect pitch is more perception than memory. you can't memorise.

so tuning to 442 or 438 is still A. its just not standard concert A which is just an adopted convention.

the reason why we confine a pitch to a specific frequency is because modern music has adopted a tempered chromatic scale. in actual fact, a C natural in C major as the root will be different from a C as the 3rd in A minor.

perfect pitch is a a bonus, but relative is much more important. a musician well trained in relative will be more valuable than a musician with perfect pitch but poor relative pitch and understanding of music theory.

 

[Vocalistman]

Mann..I really lost in what you guys are talking about. So it's good to have relative pitch yea? Is there a topic like this in the web that I can read up? I thought as long as I can sing in tune and sounds good as a music that would be all...

But I do tend to miss certain pitch that I didn't notice during live, but was heard on recording. Its kind of awful..lol

1 question: Then why do we hear ourselves differently from live and recording? Is it got to do with the sound wave and stuffs? Thank you

 

[illuminationexcursion]

its possible that what your hear yourself singing be in tune to your own perception YET others on the outside hear it as being out of pitch.

you're human, you make pitching errors from times to times. accept that.

i suspect the problem is not so much your pitching but a lack of or poor feedback/monitoring system.

if i'm not wrong, your probably did all those gigs, which people gave negative remakrs about, without a feedback monitor. if you had a feedback monitor properly setup which you can hear clearly from and you're still out of tune then its likely your own pitching problems which you have to work on.

anyway, there's no such thing as a perfect performance on stage. only one that is not too far from being perfect.

ever once heard a quote that goes something like: "trust not those who say they have found perfection. trust only those who say they are still working towards it"