Improving existing Perfect Pitch?

Yesterday I made a remarkable discovery; my brother seems to have perfect pitch.

He played the trumpet and detested it when he was much younger, then gave up music of most sorts until about a year ago, when he took up the bass guitar. Since then (his fifteenth birthday) it has never left his side. He plays it constantly, and has got (apparently, though I'm not a wonderful judge of this sort of thing) rather good. The thing is, his knowledge of musical theory prior to taking up the instrument, even of note names, was so weak that there'd never have been a reason for anyone to suspect he might have perfect pitch.

I first detected something unusual about a year ago, when he regularly complained people were singing things in the wrong key. I did a quick test at the piano, asked him to name the tones, and he couldn't do it. Case closed ... or so I thought.

A week ago (after a year of bass guitar playing), we were watching some James Bond films together, having just discovered a CD of all the theme tunes. He claimed nonchalantly that the opening title music (that is, the 'song' for each film) was usually transposed for the titles. In the car, I asked him to sing a C#. I had no idea if it was right or not, but he did it so confidently that I decided it was worth investigating. As soon as we got home, I tried again. He got about 95% of the notes correct, struggling not with identifying the pitches, but remembering what they were called. He could also sing notes at will, and name the notes of intervals, after several seconds of concentrating.

How can I help him to hone this skill? How can he hone it himself? I suspect that now he realises he has this ability (or so it seems), and now I've lectured him on how ludicrously amazing it is, he'll take it seriously and start trying to improve it. Up until that moment, he seemed to have assumed it was something everyone could do.

I first detected something unusual about a year ago, when he regularly complained people were singing things in the wrong key.

:D I know how he feels!

Firstly he needs to stifle his impulse to tell people they are singing in the wrong key, from my experience it just pisses people off! Secondly as a little test, get him to sing a few songs/pieces from memory and see if he's in the right key by playing the pieces afterwards. If he can do this, then I think he should be able to memorise all 12 pitches or at least a few, but I don't know how long it would take!

My advice would be to get him to spend maybe a few minutes each day trying to memorise a pitch, either by playing/listening to music in a particular key or simply by playing the note over and over. When memorising pitches it can be helpful to associate a note with a song that begins in the same key. However, in order to be able to indentify or recall a note instantly it will take a bit of work and I'm not 100% sure whether it is possible to remember all 12 pitches unless you are 'forced' or encouraged to do it from a young age!

Another thing, procede through the notes in a logical fashion. Learn the notes nearest to C first.

Also while he is learning the pitches, if he can get one note imprinted in his mind (I'm assuming he's already done this), eg C, he can work out the other notes by comparing them to C. With C, E and G are very easy to work out, because you simply arpeggiate the chord of C major. Of course from C, you can work out all the other pitches by thinking of or singing the chromatic scale until reaching the desired note.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the advice almacg.

He already knows all the pitches, and seems always to sing things in the correct key. It just takes him a few seconds to remember their names - his knowledge of theory is rather basic.

He knows all the pitches already? Do you mean he can indentify them without a reference? Sorry I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that, could you clarify!?

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but how about instead of spending, say, fifteen minutes or whatever per day developing his perfect pitch, why don't you instead have him spend those same fifteen minutes practicing relative pitch, rhythm, chord identification, music theory, or playing an instrument? Any of these will benefit him greatly in growing up to be a good musician--whereas perfect pitch, though a great party trick, really has little if any practical value or use.

I think that's the way to do it, EldKatt. He'll improve both things that way.

Just to clarify, he already *has* perfect pitch, but it takes him several seconds to recall what the name of the note is, due to his lack of theory knowledge.

Does he want to learn music theory?

Good point.

Try untuning his Bass Guitar and telling him to tune it without a tuner or reference.

If he can do that, then he'll figure the rest of the perfect pitch thing out with time anyway.

And as if perfect pitch isn't a useful tool?

The best musicians at my Conservatory have perfect pitch. There is a first-year here who can play violin better than most 3rd years because he has such great intonation and accuracy. (Not to mention he has great musicality as well)

One does not need to know what a noun is, or an adjective, to type a perfect sentence. He is using his imagination, whereas the trained muso is using his logical mind.

Immanuel Kant called these the analytic (logical) and the synthetic (creative) in his critique of pure reason.

Two differing methods : the same answer.

But to be a bit pedantic, one cannot improve on perfection.

But to be a bit pedantic, one cannot improve on perfection.

This is also in reply to your post in the other thread on perfect pitch:

"Perfect pitch" is a composite term with a specific meaning, i.e. the ability recognise a pitch without a reference pitch. It has nothing to do with "perfection" really, it's just a contrast to the other composite term "relative pitch". Having "perfect pitch" therefore has almost nothing to do with precision, which is a slightly different topic. One person may be able to identify a note to the nearest Hertz, another person may just be able to say "it's a G", so there is a difference in precision, however both are called "perfect pitch".

You can of course criticise the term "perfect pitch" itself and propose a better name for the phenomenon, but if we accept the term it has been correctly used in both threads you replied to.

This is also in reply to your post in the other thread on perfect pitch:

"Perfect pitch" is a composite term with a specific meaning, i.e. the ability recognise a pitch without a reference pitch. It has nothing to do with "perfection" really, it's just a contrast to the other composite term "relative pitch". Having "perfect pitch" therefore has almost nothing to do with precision, which is a slightly different topic. One person may be able to identify a note to the nearest Hertz, another person may just be able to say "it's a G", so there is a difference in precision, however both are called "perfect pitch".

You can of course criticise the term "perfect pitch" itself and propose a better name for the phenomenon, but if we accept the term it has been correctly used in both threads you replied to.

aah. I see.

Thank you for informing me so eloquently.