Perfect Pitch

[zenguan88]

mostly people classified those who have perfect pitch in 3 different ways.

1) in born
2) achieve it by prastice
3) i forget the term used but its meant for those who could not tell the pitch. they hear all pitches as a tone

anyway my question would be if we achieve it by prastice, whats the prastice gonna be like. Is it hard to attain the perfect pitch.? there are just 12 notes but however i try i cannot excatly identify them. i should say i am lost whenever a note is play.

however i know how to detect intervals, but i do need some time although not much to correctly detect the intervals, plus i must sing it out to get the answer.

Is there any prastice we can take on to attain the skill?

 

[The-Warlord]

Perfect pitch can only be obtained from birth onwards or, can be taught, sometimes, at the time the child is learning his/her colours. You can, however, learn relative pitch. This is having a home note and being able to find the note in question from there. Practice is simply doing it thousands and thousands of times.

 

[DoubleDecker]

The exact term for this is "Absolute Tone Consciousness", there may be other names for it.

I did come across a study long ago, and it says Absolute Tone Consciousness cannot be learned. It has something to do with our left ear which enables one to link the tone to an alphabet the moment he/she hears it, without reference to any other sounds or equipment.

That particular report I read, also claims that people without this ability do not have a certain growth in their left ear. (Specifically left ear and I can't remember what they call the growth, like a little lump or lube or whatever.)

However in practical life, I did see band members developing that "tone consciousness" over time and exposure. But if the report I read is accurate, this can be explained that these band members are already "gifted" with such abilities. Exposure and training is only to enhance and bring out that ability.

Here's another report that calls it "Absolute Pitch" or "Perfect Pitch", that I managed to save.

http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/absolute.html

 

[ala_carte]

point 3 looks like tone deaf-ness to me....

 

[DoubleDecker]

I thought tone-deafness refers to as good as total deafness? I don't know how reliable these so-called university studies are, but some of them put it that way, and affected people have to use a hearing aid to detect certain frequencies to make it "audible".

 

[Gr3y]

i have friends that got perfect pitch..to them its a horrible thing sometimes..coz when i'm tuning up my guitar, the out of tuned note just sounds horrible to them...

there are 2 friends of mine that have perfect pitch.1 can tell u exactly the name of the note, another which isnt musically train from young, can sing out exact note of that song w no relative pitch..meaning like for some songs, they are starting w no music and the music will only come in later..

but after all.. i still find perfect pitch amazing.. and something every musician must at least get close to! its juz like and artist that can differenciate different shades of colour! to us.. pink is juz pink.. or maybe we should train our eyes to identify colours too? haha.. that would definately help alot in photoshop editing! at least for me! haha..

 

[DoubleDecker]

Guys, you know sometimes when I see casual guitars at my void deck ... chilling out while tuning their guitars. Now it sets me back thinking, how many of them can actually tune without anything but just their ears? These guys make it look so easy ... but whether is it tuned properly or not, I ain't sure. :lol:

 

[Gr3y]

back at secondary sch.. we play guitar but we dunno for sure wad is the exact tuning suppose to be.. we always take reference.. so meaning if this guitar's "E" sounds ok.. we'll all tune to that particular "E".. so in the end.. that "E" might even be a "D" or even "F#".. nobody knows.. its all about how to press the chords only.. that was the time..

 

[Cheez]

Doubledecker, the left ear thingy is probably not true. There's no difference between the 2 ears anatomically.

I am somebody who thinks it can be trained. Although I had a good ear and started playing songs I hear at 3, I didn't think I had perfect pitch until I was 15 when my piano teacher "for the fun of it" tried playing some notes to test my pitching as part of aural exercises. It was then I found certain notes had a certain "colour" or "character". It's not just hearing the notes - it's almost "seeing" the notes. After that, I tried it one everything else and I could tell the notes of the school bells, the construction site piling machine, the elevator's bell when it reached a level etc.

But after that, I was really busy and so didn't do much aural exercises. Almost 20 years down the line, last year I tried my "perfect pitch" and to my horror, I was out by almost a semitone. I had to "retune" my ears and after that, it was back in shape. This made me wonder about possibility of ear training to obtrain perfect pitch.

Also, I had a friend who tried everyday to train his ears to get perfect pitch. Because he is a violinist, he managed to get "A" right. I believe he slowly trained his ears. I'm not sure how his ears are now. That also made me think that training is possible.

However, one doesn't have to have perfect pitch to have a good ear for tuning. Tuning is by relative pitch. When 2 same notes are off by a few cents, relative pitching comes in. As many will know, one trick is to listen to the resonating harmonic frequencies between the notes. The resonant frequency will slowly decrease in timing as the 2 notes approaches perfect tuning. Great for guitar tuning. To train, don't use electronic tuners. Use your ears first with help from the tuning fork.

 

[unsane]

here's an interesting link to test your pitch perception

http://jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/

i thought i was going to do alot more badly but i got around 92%..

 

[ShredCow]

Guitarists have a BIG problem learning relative pitch if they use the guitar. The guitar is just flawed and will always be out of tune.

Check this out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lb9h0J_ajA

How many of you can tell the guitar is out of tune from the orchestra?

 

[fenderrules]

here's an interesting link to test your pitch perception

http://jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/

i thought i was going to do alot more badly but i got around 92%..

i got a 77.8%

 

[viper]

i got a 83.3 %.

 

[fenderrules]

is 77.8% considered okay for musicians?

 

[DoubleDecker]

I am somebody who thinks it can be trained.

But this doesn't really explains how some people just not able to pick up this "ability". There are people whom never got it despite being trained on it.

Although I had a good ear and started playing songs I hear at 3, I didn't think I had perfect pitch until I was 15...

Maybe you are gifted? LOL! :lol:

But after that, I was really busy and so didn't do much aural exercises. Almost 20 years down the line, last year I tried my "perfect pitch" and to my horror, I was out by almost a semitone.

That's exactly what some reports classify between "active" and "passive" tone consciousness. I can't remember which is which, but one of it require no training even if the person doesn't do tuning for a long time. Throw it to them after years, they can still do it right. While the other, once released from daily exercise, the ability will fade off and it starts all over again.

Not much research has been done on this "absolute tone consciousness" but it's a rather interesting thing to find out more. :wink:

DD

 

[Cheez]

Yes DD, I agree with you some has the inborn ability. I don't doubt that I may have that. But I think there's a degree of learning to it. Otherwise, for people who are not born with it, that's the end of the discussion since they can never achieve it anyway. But I think there's a way to improve. It may not be perfect, but near perfect is good enough most of the time.

 

[DoubleDecker]

Talent need to be discovered and cultivated ... :wink: ... without training still pointless.

 

[shattered]

i got 86.1% >.<

 

[zenguan88]

for me i only could hear A and can sing out A correctly. hmms however when i am playing my violin i can hear if the note is flat or not.

what i mean is i do not know if i am playing C D or E or what but i know if the note i am playing would be either sharp or flat by relying on the note before it.

for now i use A as my main note and when any other note is play i just judge the other note through intervals. however i feel it takes too long for me to detect the note wheras pple with perfect pitch just easily scream out the note.

for awhile i thought if not having a perfect pitch don make you a good musician. sigh.

 

[almondx]

Heh 94.4% =D*bragging rights* joking

But some of the timing of the repeated piece abit the different from the first.