The Perfect Pitch
Michael Subotin
a zoophilic reference to qualify as a slam on C&W around here?
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On Nov 1 mama n wrote:
> Well . . . there's this discussion going on over on the choraltalk
> list about perfect pitch. Some say you're born with it, and if ya
> ain't you're never gonna get it. Others say its a learned thing.
>
> I think it's a learned thing myself, although it's possible to be
> incapable of learning it. I mean, there are people who just can't
> seem to hear and reproduce the same pitch. And they don't know it.
> And they still insist on singing loudly with the choir. I know
> I'm capable of singing on pitch. But I don't know how to see a note
> on paper, hear that pitch in my head and then reproduce it, nor am
> I capable of singing a note and telling you what note it is. I'm
> also a little woozy about steps. If you play a note for me, then
> have me sing it, then tell me to go up a third, I'll probably go flat
> unless you play that third for me.
>
> Is this all learnable? If so, what's the best way to do that?
>
> mama n
This is a bit old but I haven't noticed anyone answer that.
You're refering to two different skills: "Relative Pitch" and "Absolute
Pitch" (aka "Perfect Pitch")
The Relative Pitch is easier, it's the ability to recognize by ear the
relationships among notes. The basic shit is interval recognition,
the ability to sing intervals and recognize them by ear.
Learning that doesn't take very long, a couple of months at most.
Then there are more advanced things like singning atonal melodies off
sheet music *and* staying in tune for prolonged periods of time, or hearing
a Bach fugue and knowing exactly what notes are being played. That can take
some time. They teach the Relative Pitch in every college and if you
prefer the company of your couch you can get a good course on tapes.
The best I know is by David L. Burge. Very well designed and quite
comprehensive (20 90-min tapes). There are also shorter courses,
mostly aimed at jazz students.
One place where interval recognition aint gonna help you is in naming the
pitch of a garbage truck or tuning up pianos without a tuning fork.
That's where the Absolute Pitch comes in. BTW, contrary to a popular
belief the "perfect pitch" is NOT a really really REALLY good Relative Pitch.
What it is is the ability to recognize and sing notes by themselves,
without a reference tone and that's a bit trickier. Until recently it
has been believed to be a unique inborn ability, but a few good men have shown
it to be otherwise. Think of the analogy to colors. Both yellow and green
are perceptions of oscillations, the only difference is that green has
a slightly shorter wavelenght. Yet you can tell yellow when you see it.
Same thing with A and Bb (nevermind that these are matter not electromagnetic
waves). But most poeple can only tell that one is "higher" than the other.
The explanation is that since visual senses are much more important to us
than aural senses, we learn to discriminate between "visual" oscillations
at a very young age and assign them tags (colors), but only a few
learn naturally to do the same thing for sounds.
Here's a good example. Go to a well tuned piano and listen closely
to Eb and F#. Try to listen "inside" the note. Can you tell the
difference? Does the F# sound kinda more "bold", "twangy", "open" and
the Eb kinda more "rounded", "smooth", "closed" to ya? Ain't nothing
wrong with your piano, that's what they call the Perfect Pitch.
The first guy to come out of the closet about the Perfect Pitch,
driven by a noble cause (to make money off his fellow musicians)
was that same David L. Burge. He has a Perfect Pitch method out on
tapes as well (you can spot his cheerful ads in most any music-related
mag). Be warned though, there are no exersises on tapes in this one,
just a description of them. And you WILL need a sparring partner who
will stand to see your face for half and hour daily for several months.
Sounds like too much? Well, three words: art.. sacrifice.. no social
life. Good luck!
One place where a mature Absolute Pitch is really indispensable thou
is in concieving and hearing (or reading and hearing) complex scores in your
mind's ear with the clarity of a dumb top40 melody that has invaded your
brain and keeps playing itself there against your will. That's "inner
hearing", an advanced function of the Absolute Pitch. Almost impossible
to do things like that without it.
hmm.. this one's a looong muthafucka. hope your systems don't crash
Michael (Gloves) Subotin mvs...@vms.cis.pitt.edu