Perfect/Absolute Pitch

It's often described as being able to distinguish notes as easy as telling colors apart. if that doesn't fit to you then you don't have it.

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  On 3/29/2011 at 7:02 AM, Murveman said:

  On 3/29/2011 at 6:46 AM, GORDO said:

is there a downside to this? i mean, is there an ability that's missing when you have perfect pitch? just curious.

Not that I'm aware of. If you detuned my piano several half steps down or up, I probably couldn't play it anymore. If I memorize a series of arps in one key, for example, it's extremely difficult to play it in another.

 

Also, if I hear a classical movement played in a different key, it bugs the fuck out of me. Can't listen to it anymore. Happens with Vavaldi all of the time. Grow up hearing it in A minor, all of a sudden, G# minor. Can't stand it.

 

Any of you others have downsides?

 

Interesting, so would you say that it makes it more difficult to think in terms of... let's say intervals or musical phrases or "licks" and things like that?

Maybe an analogy would be that it is harder to make "sound" abstractions? would that be right? or is it just the annoyance factor that prevents you from it (if it's the case).

  On 3/29/2011 at 7:02 AM, Murveman said:

And yea, Zephyr, I can't handle that. My record player plays things half of a half step up from what it's supposed to. I can't listen to anything on it that I've heard before.

 

Related to this as well. I don't have a clue what it is, sometimes (it's happened 2 or 3 times) music will be detuned a quarter step up or down (can't remember). I assumed I was sick or something, but my brother, who also has perfect pitch to an extent, noticed it too. Wtf could that be? Air pressure? Glitchy iPod?

That sucks. I've pitch shifted songs down a third of a semitone for a desired effect before, never considered that it might actually make it hard to listen to for some people. That's a pretty strange phenomenon --a perfect fifth is still a perfect fifth regardless of what tone its measured off of. Interesting.

I think people tend to hear things as slightly sharper than they really are when they have a bad cold, but i guess that wasn't it if your bro wasn't sick too. Air pressure kind of makes sense, as plugged ears can go with both colds and air pressure. That could be it.

can't tell worth shit

  On 3/29/2011 at 6:46 AM, GORDO said:

is there a downside to this? i mean, is there an ability that's missing when you have perfect pitch? just curious.

No inherent disadvantages but it depends. I found that my ability to write down melodies and chords as they're played back meant that I never had to learn the rules of music theory. Became a bit of a crutch as I progressed in my musical education. Also I started learning piano at a young age and later on took up clarinet. Stopped it within a year because I was used to concert pitch and having to read C and hear a B Flat was deeply annoying to me.

So this only works with equal temperament? That sucks!

  On 3/29/2011 at 2:49 PM, Dan C said:

So this only works with equal temperament? That sucks!

Not at all. I've noticed that the people who are most offended by microtonal music are those with good relative pitch (obviously if you're tone deaf you'll be blissfully unaware either way). Relative pitch means that you have trained yourself (usually not consciously) to recognise intervals. Because of the equal temperament used in pretty much all western music, pitches that fall between the gaps will naturally sound strange and wrong, whereas perfect pitch allows you to accept at face value that such and such a note is a c quarter sharp or an f 1/3 flat etc.

As long as other tunings offend these people, I approve fully of this thread

I used to have absolute pitch when I was a kid. Middle C just sounded like middle C. Can't explain it. When I did my piano exams and they would have you play a phrase back on the piano, I didn't have to watch, I just instantly knew what key it was in.

I lost the ability years ago though, due to neglect. Maybe it's still there and latent. I dunno.

(and I always loved detuned music, drone music, microtonal music.. as long as it had interesting textures. Actually, overly tonal music grates on my nerves after a while)

  On 3/29/2011 at 7:52 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

That sucks. I've pitch shifted songs down a third of a semitone for a desired effect before, never considered that it might actually make it hard to listen to for some people. That's a pretty strange phenomenon --a perfect fifth is still a perfect fifth regardless of what tone its measured off of. Interesting.

No, if I've never heard the song before, it sounds fine. Or if someone is resampling a song and pitch shifts it to fit the key they're making a song in, that's fine.

But say somebody gave me the Beatle's Strawberry Fields Forever, and it was in D Major instead of B Flat Major, I couldn't listen to it (A straight version of the original, if it was a live recording I could listen to it [still wouldn't like it as much though, B Flat fits the song so well]).

Again, I love microtonal, detuned songs. It makes it harder for me to understand, so it's fun.

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:46 PM, chimera slot mom said:

I have perfect pitch and synaesthesia. Music means the world to me.

I've heard of these two going hand in hand before.. especially if you see specific pitches like colors or something.

I suspect I have some mild form of weird-ass synaesthesia as well, not because I see colors but I do tend to 'feel' or 'taste' textures and timbres in very specific ways, it's hard to explain. It's kind of like I was born naturally high on pot all the time or something.

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:07 AM, Murveman said:

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:01 AM, Scrambled Ears said:

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:35 PM, Murveman said:

I've always thought of that as well. I assume that if a person knows anything about music, or is moderately familiar with notes, they would be able to tell if they have it or not.

 

They'd just know what E sounds like, for example. Or, "That doorbell sounds like a G, and then an E".

 

I don't know. Just curious.

You have to draw a distinction between being able to recognize pitch in terms of frequency (which is necessarily linked to our perception of space and time) and the notes that western music has standardized to our "musical" understanding of frequencies

 

ie: G1 48.99 Hz

C3 130.81 Hz etc

 

In my opinion being able to recognize chords or notes from the typical 12 tone equal temperament scale and their respective octaves is a learned skill (though greatly influenced by an acute perception of frequency and tonality)

I'm speaking of note values, not Hz. Though some people can identify sounds by the specific Hz. Amazing.

well essentially you are doing (or within a small ballpark) that but there's an argument of convention vs. perception when it comes to calling pitches based on the fact that we divide our scales evenly and to a reference pitch in western music...so the doorbell being in G would have to be a matter of social/theoretical agreement as well.

  On 3/29/2011 at 7:52 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I think people tend to hear things as slightly sharper than they really are when they have a bad cold...

I meant to say slightly flatter... stupid misfiring brain.

  On 3/29/2011 at 3:27 PM, Murveman said:

No, if I've never heard the song before, it sounds fine. Or if someone is resampling a song and pitch shifts it to fit the key they're making a song in, that's fine.

Ah okay, that's not so bad then. There are so many old recordings I hear where everything's slightly sharper or flatter than standard pitch.

what if you have perfect pitch, then consume a quantity of dxm hbr?

  On 3/29/2011 at 10:00 PM, hahathhat said:

what if you have perfect pitch, then consume a quantity of dxm hbr?

Does Dex fuck with pitch perception?

not quite -- it's more like you got a stereo upgrade, some better speakers.

  On 3/29/2011 at 7:13 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

how do you test for this? this interests me and i need a definitive answer.

play a note blind and decide what it's called.

or, sing an 'a'