Can Perfect Pitch be Developed?

Your thoughts?

Some believe it can be,

Some believe it cannot.

Jeremy

*Edit* I wanted to add

a poll and failed.

Well, let's ask first: what, biologically, is perfect pitch? There is a general consensus on it within the medical community.

It turns out that while relative pitch can be developed, perfect pitch cannot in most people, no matter how much training is done. Perfect pitch depends, physiologically, on small defects in the cochlea, against which the brain can be trained to compare notes. Without at least some damaged auditory hair cells, there is no internal reference to match external sounds against.

I Don't believe perfect pitch can be learned for the most part. I know some people on the site claim to have learned it but I Doubt it.(If you say you have let me test you).

I think after away you can figure out what a note is without an instrument and generally be right. However, I would call that very devloped pitch because you probably know one pitch fairly well and can relate it to that pitch in your head. I know I relate all pitchs to E above middle c. I think people who say they learned perfect just relate to a pitch in their head but do it quickly and sometimes without knowing they do it.

Yes, perfect pitch can be developed. It is a mental skill, not biological.

Learning perfect pitch is not biological as research has shown. For it to develop "naturally", one must begin music lessons at a very early age; the earlier, the better. During this crucial learning/development period, the pitches of the notes and their names become one and the same where you can instantly recall what a note is.

This same process/connection can be developed later in life, but much like learning a second language is much more difficult than your natural language, it will take a considerable ammount of effort and devotion to do so; it is also likely that it won't be as proficient and developed as someone who has had perfect pitch since they were 8.

Learning perfect pitch is not biological as research has shown. For it to develop "naturally", one must begin music lessons at a very early age; the earlier, the better. During this crucial learning/development period, the pitches of the notes and their names become one and the same where you can instantly recall what a note is.

This same process/connection can be developed later in life, but much like learning a second language is much more difficult than your natural language, it will take a considerable ammount of effort and devotion to do so; it is also likely that it won't be as proficient and developed as someone who has had perfect pitch since they were 8.

Personally, that seems the most reasonable

explaination of it.

Jeremy

One can develop very good relative pitch, and even reference to a "pre-set" pitch of some kind, but it's not perfect pitch.

Not that I even see why anyone would want perfect pitch - I've heard that people with it can be highly disturbed at orchestra performances where the oboe A isn't exactly 440.

For CaltechViolist:

I don't know if its like this for everyone, but for me it doesn't bother me if the musicians aren't perfectly in tune. I can tell if an instrument is just a tiny bit sharp or flat, but its ok... there's kind of a range of what is acceptable, if gets too out of tune then it is kind of annoying. Music is a human art and experience, it doesn't bother me if they players don't have the exact tuning perfection of a computer.

Also: Nosferatu, give me citations. The general medical opinion, among every doctor I've asked, is that perfect pitch depends entirely on minor damage to the inner ear.

I believe it can be developed, to an extend. For example, I don't have PERFECT pitch, but 90% of the time I'm less than a semi tone off. This will improve, and it has done, due to the fact that I sing all the time, play and write music a lot.

There's a difference between having pure perfect pitch, and working out quickly in your head the pitches, in relation to a note you can more or less "work out". I'm not going to go as far as saying a strict yes or no to the question. Because simply, I don't know, and I don't care.

-Chris

yes.

I don't understand why anyone would want to develop perfect pitch in the first place. Isn't it arbitrary (within reason of causing instruments to play notes out of the human hearing range) what the standard concert pitch is? A440? It used to be different.

We hear all musical intervals relative to others anyway---so given the arbitrariness of a pitch standard, and this fact of pitches being heard as they clash with each other, why would anyone want to have perfect pitch?

Besides, if you have great relative pitch, you can hear a melody one minute, and the next you can play it in any key you wish. It seems to me relative pitch gives you more options, and a more general undrestanding of the way pitches interact. Perfect pitch seems so...rigid...arbitrary...etc.

arbitrariness is not a word. Arbitrarity**

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arbitrariness

take that Mr. I-Spell-Better-than-you. :w00t:

oh and look!

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arbitrarity

it would seem arbitrarity is not a word :)

Ouch

Well there is this guy who is the band director at a school near ours,.......they call him BobMatchit- you can play any not any time and he knows what it is. For instance if you play a C and it is really Sharp.....hell know it is a C and tell you "in the ballpark" how sharp it is......He is like amazing. He probly has 99% perfect pitches, their school has one of the Gr8est highshcool jazz bands in the U.S.

Perfect pitch can be learned, its a skill just like anything else thats needs to be developed and practiced.

My harmony and theory tutor has amazing perfect pitch, He wants once said that its like : "Seeing with your ears and hearing with your eyes"

"Seeing with your ears and hearing with your eyes"

Well, let's ask first: what, biologically, is perfect pitch? There is a general consensus on it within the medical community.

It turns out that while relative pitch can be developed, perfect pitch cannot in most people, no matter how much training is done. Perfect pitch depends, physiologically, on small defects in the cochlea, against which the brain can be trained to compare notes. Without at least some damaged auditory hair cells, there is no internal reference to match external sounds against.

Interesting but I hope you won't mind me seeing this as a viewpoint. It could be an "assumed truth" that ears with perfect pitch are defective - why not the other way round?

My defect is therefore variable as I can recognise pitches on most days (to the extent that if someone asks me to hum a particular note, I can, +/- my intonation deficiency!) on others, no. Sometimes it depends on the instrument and the range. Higher levels of upper partials play havoc, so do extremes of range.

It's people like Boulez who have trouble, able to determine when an orchestra/soloist is tuned just a few cycles off A=440Hz.

I don't think perfect pitch is at all necessary to enjoy, compose or play music - in fact it can be a nuisance to some people trying to transpose on the fly, or like said conductor, uncomfortable at orchestras tuned to A=443.

M

I wouldnt call perfect pitch a defect.

I cant just name notes upon hearing them, but at times (which I find interesting) when I hear a note I just know what it is. So at times it seems I have it for a moment.

I don't think perfect pitch is at all necessary to enjoy, compose or play music.

I did a research paper on this very phenomenon last year. It should be of interest to those of you willing to read it:

Unfortunately, I can't attach word files, and my pdf printer thing is being annoying. So here's the text :glare:

E-Mail me for the original if you really want to.

I bought the David lucas burge Perfect pitch training course.

He does a GREAT job explaining Perfect and Relative pitch, He says comparing the 2 is like comparing Apples and Oaranges. They both have good things about them, he also de-bunks myths like "perfect pitch interferes with someone at an orchestra" that kind of stuff.

You can be a great musician with perfect pitch but without relative pitch or vice versa.

Or you can be a great musician with both together or without either one.

Also when it comes to being able to hear it sometimes and not others, he says it's like a mind problem.

When we start Trying to really listen we start to lose it, but when we are in a more relaxed state not paying attention we sometimes hear it.

It's all about training the ear and learning to listen to the "color" of the tone.

by the way please pardon any grammar mistakes.

It can be learned. I'm actually getting pretty close, in a fairly short amount of time. I began taking theory in large amounts a year ago working with my assistant band director, and we found I possesed a naturally good ear. I was able to almost master interval recognition, iversion recognition, chord quality including diminished and augmented, and sight singing. My ear was already considerably developed, so I don't have too much farther to go. I know a lot of people that claim to have perfect pitch in my school (and none of them do, I can fault all of them) but I also know a few people from summer activities that do have perfect pitch, and all of them said they've learned it.

[EDIT]:

Adding to what Invisionary said, it does speed up composing greatly, I've noticed, even if your ear isn't perfect. When I started composing, it took me forever to lay a melody down on paper out of my head, but now I don't have to worry about that. I'm especially good at melodic dictation, so I can dictate a melody to myself, in sorts, and I spend that gained time stressing over the rules of voice-leading. Ugh.

I fail to understand how this can be learned. I just don't. I mean, I feel like someone must possess at least the capacity to learn it, even if it just didn't appear to them naturally. I've been extensively involved in music almost my entire life and had a lot of ear training and I can't identify certain pitches worth smack. I mean, a minute ago I thought I heard a chord I'd played earlier in my head so I went to the piano to see if it was indeed the chord and it wasn't even close. I'm not sure what to make of it. I mean, I sure wish I had it but I don't. How does one even begin to think about learning this? I'm not sure it's worth the wondering on my part.

Invisionary and I are talking about this right now. My ear is getting progressively more sensative as time goes on. I don't know how one could learn it, I just know it happens. I wasn't born with perfect pitch, and was actually far from it just a year and half ago, but I've gotten close now.