Developing Perfect Pitch/Pitch Recognition?

[Gsoul82]

Hey all,

Anybody know of a good system or group of exercises for developing what seems to be known as perfect pitch? When I say perfect pitch, I'm not referring to singing without being pitchy. That's under control as long as I don't rush. I'm talking about the ability to hear a note, and know what note and octave that note belongs to. If you could do this, you can learn to play any song by ear. One of the reasons I'm interested in working this out.

[ronws]

I would call that pitch recognition. I've gotten close. When "Sweet Child of Mine" came out on the radio, before anyone had transcribed it, I picked it out in the key of C. It is actually in the key of Db, so I was half a step off.

 

[Gsoul82]

Yeah, I don't know why I didn't think to just call it pitch recognition. I've seen this type of thing a few different places on the internet and they were always referring to "perfect pitch", so I used that.

Guess that's one of the cool things about being a mod. I can change topic titles not quite sure if I had that ability before, but now it's there with more confidence.

[ronws]

The largest majority of people have relative pitch, which means their hearing can vary as much as .01 from true pitch, or "ten cents." Some, like the Osmonds, seem to naturally have perfect pitch in both hearing and singing. But I think that with practice or exposure to qualifiable accurate notes, we can develope better pitch perception, and possibly better pitch generation. Most times I have gone off pitch, it is because of the vowel.

And that is because I went into a word speaking the vowel instead of singing it. We must sing different than we speak.

 

[Sexy Beast]

Here's a few exercices:

1. Put some music on and improvise with the piano. You don't need to know what key it's in. Just find one note that sounds good, 2 notes, 3 notes etc... Sing everything you're playing!

2. Pick a simple nursery rhyme and a starting pitch on the piano and play it by ear.

 

And some tips:

If you want to learn a song by ear, the most important thing to listen for is the bassline. Once you found that, try different chords and see what works so if the first bass note is C you can try a C major or C minor chord see which one fits best. This will get you started.

Use a program like audacity when you're trying to learn music. You can listen to one note/beat at a time. Pan left/right, slow down, etc...

[Jeremy Mohler]

Learn how to play piano well, you can thank me later.

[KillerKu]

There is scientific skepticism as to whether this is possible to train after childhood years have passed. There is a very high level of perfect pitch in certain Asian cultures where pitch is a required element of the meaning of the language itself, and it is suspected to be more of a plasticity of the brain during crucial formative years.

http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu/study/

 

The closest I know to a real life circumstance, I think it was Steve Vai who would listen to an 440hz A as he slept. He said that he did this every night for some time, and eventually it started resembling perfect pitch but for only this single note, and all other notes were still relative.

 

I'd definitely focus at least equally on relative pitch, which means once you have a reference note established, you can hear the distance to the next note and jump to the exact note. This is much more common and is trainable to a very high level.  The key is to learn to hear and identity the intervals (space between notes). Exercises that are useful for this:

 

1. Drone note (make an instrument drone and then move the pitch up and down in relation, and attempt to hear the distance, then use instrument to check if  you are correct)

2. Interval jump recognition (listen to the space between two notes and try to identity the distance, check if you are right)

3. Sing it and find it (sing the note, do not stop singing the note until you find it on an instrument even if you screw up at first, you'll get faster and more precise)

 

Once you know the root note of the song, you can then leap around with 'accurate pitch' relatively and harmonize, or improvise.

 

But imo, if you are old your chances of developing absolute pitch are slim so don't put all of your eggs in that basket.

[MDEW]

   Relative pitch is a better way to go about things. With songs on the radio and other media the "Pitch" center will not keep to an "A=440" standard anyway Some songs are sped up or slowed down during the copying from one media to another or just because it sounded a little better to speed it up or slow it down and that changes the pitch center. You can't imagine how frustrated I would get trying to learn songs with the records, even on the same albums I would have to retune my guitar to each song because of this.

   Having said that.....Semi-Perfect pitch can be achieved by realizing that a frequency(and its octaves) will have certain characteristics..... F# is a good one to start with because it has a distinct character to it. It is percieved as louder and more aggressive/piercing..........Ab is percieved as somber.......You pretty much have to imagine your own connection to the note........Strike a note on the piano and strike the same note on another instrument.....think about how you would describe that sound......strike the octave of that note and see if you get the same perception of that note.......Pick 2 notes to start with....F# and Ab are good because of what I said before, the characters are so different from each other.

   Bb has a bluesy feel or character......That is why a lot of blues songs were written in Bb......It is no coincidence.   Pitches have their own character. It is up to you to make your own connections through listening to just one pitch and get the feel of that character and give yourself a way to remember that character.

[MDEW]

    For learning songs on an instrument..... I would learn "Basic" Chord shapes and "Basic" chord progressions. After you learn a good amount of songs you start to realise that there are only a few progressions and variations of those progressions. All of that fancy stuff and embelishments are just moving from one chord in the progression to another or breaking up the chord and playing the notes of the chord one at a time in a pattern.........It all comes down to recognising patterns........

 

[MDEW]

I have too much time today.....Take that one song that you listen to or sing every day.....Learn what that starting cord is or that first note that you sing.....There you go, now you have your starting point for general pitch........ Some songs you may be able to hear in your head now.....Cat scratch Fever......A(the chord..not those first 2 notes)........Smoke on the water.....G(chord).........3 Steps.....D 

   I used to tune my guitar by ear....On the live recording of Sweet Home Alabama you can hear someone checking the tuning on his guitar he hits the harmonics on his guitar to check them......I hear that so vividly in my mind that I can play those harmonics on my guitar and tell whether it is tuned to standard or not.

 

[SingBetterIn3Days]

It has to be relative, because a person who is not born with perfect pitch, can't ever have it. 

Yes, you can learn to have AMAZING relative pitch, but it will never be perfect. In fact, sometimes people with perfect pitch are a bit off due to barometric pressure and other factors.

Absolute pitch will get you where you need to go.

Singing in choirs and learning solfege is a great way to develop amazing absolute pitch. I was in a choir once that only used "A" 440 tuning forks to find their starting pitches for all songs. Let me just say, after a year, it was AMAZING how much better I got. (With fairly good absolute pitch to begin with.)

[MDEW]

It has to be relative, because a person who is not born with perfect pitch, can't ever have it. 

Yes, you can learn to have AMAZING relative pitch, but it will never be perfect. In fact, sometimes people with perfect pitch are a bit off due to barometric pressure and other factors.

Absolute pitch will get you where you need to go.

Singing in choirs and learning solfege is a great way to develop amazing absolute pitch. I was in a choir once that only used "A" 440 tuning forks to find their starting pitches for all songs. Let me just say, after a year, it was AMAZING how much better I got. (With fairly good absolute pitch to begin with.)

     "It has to be relative, because a person who is not born with perfect pitch, can't ever have it. "

​    I have to disagree with this. Frequencies do have their own characteristics that can be learned.   Just like colors. It may be a different learning process but just like you can have greens and reds of different values the same can be said of frequencies. What causes this is the different sources of the sound itself.

   The bad thing about developing perfect pitch is that it will drive you up the wall when you hear music or singing that has a note or two that is half a shade off or one instrument is out.

[Tonyy]

Hey all,

Anybody know of a good system or group of exercises for developing what seems to be known as perfect pitch? When I say perfect pitch, I'm not referring to singing without being pitchy. That's under control as long as I don't rush. I'm talking about the ability to hear a note, and know what note and octave that note belongs to. If you could do this, you can learn to play any song by ear. One of the reasons I'm interested in working this out.

​

It hasn't ever been demonstrated that someone acquired this talent. At least for now, it seems you must be born with it or MAYBE acquire it while young.

[Owen Korzec]

I have perfect/absolute pitch (they are the same thing - I prefer the term absolute pitch better because believe me I am not perfect at it - more like 95%. I met a teacher who is the same way) and if you aren't born with it or develop it naturally (I feel I learned it over lots and lots of exposure to music, but it wasn't a challenge for me like most people) I think it will take a long time to get and not be a worthwhile use of that time. Perfect pitch is just the icing on the cake, a kind of auxillary level of ear development, it gives you an EDGE, but it is not the foundation of having a great ear.

As for "you have to be born with it" I always raise a red flag at that kind of talk because again and again it gets disproved down the line. I am one to argue that anything can be trained at any point but yes it gets a lot harder when you're older and that's why people think it can't be done. But I believe you can learn any skill it's just a question of how much work are you willing to put in, how focused can you be, can you find the right information to train with, etc. Just like with singing.

Relative pitch is the real foundation of a great ear (I had this pretty naturally as well but there was still had room to develop it better later on!!) and this has to be broken into learning to hear not only melodic patterns (most important for singers) but hearing chords and don't forget the importance of RHYTHM in your ear training (second important under melodic for singers).

The funny thing is my ear has improved lately due to my training at Berklee strengthening my relative pitch and as a result I've kind of neglected my absolute pitch ability more than before. It's just not as useful as relative pitch.

Don't put the cart before the horse is basically what I'm saying. Learning relative pitch is a long enough journey and involves years of melodic and harmonic ear training (and don't you dare forget about rhythm!  ), get that all down first. A lot of people learn it naturally just from improving at their instrument so don't look at it like a glorious thing either, just figure out whatever needs to be done to become the musician you want to be and do that and that's all there is to it!

[Tonyy]

I have perfect/absolute pitch (they are the same thing - I prefer the term absolute pitch better because believe me I am not perfect at it - more like 95%. I met a teacher who is the same way) and if you aren't born with it or develop it naturally (I feel I learned it over lots and lots of exposure to music, but it wasn't a challenge for me like most people) I think it will take a long time to get and not be a worthwhile use of that time. Perfect pitch is just the icing on the cake, a kind of auxillary level of ear development, it gives you an EDGE, but it is not the foundation of having a great ear.

Relative pitch is the foundation of a great ear (I had this pretty naturally as well but there was still had room to develop it better later on!!) and this has to be broken into learning to hear not only melodic patterns (most important for singers) but hearing chords and don't forget the importance of RHYTHM in your ear training (second important under melodic for singers).

As for "you have to be born with it" I always raise a red flag at that kind of talk because again and again it gets disproved down the line. I am one to argue that anything can be trained at any point but yes it gets a lot harder when you're older and that's why people think it can't be done. But I believe you can learn any skill it's just a question of how much work are you willing to put in, how focused can you be, can you find the right information to train with, etc. Just like with singing

The funny thing is my ear has improved lately due to my training at Berklee strengthening my relative pitch and as a result I've kind of neglected my absolute pitch ability more than before. It's just not as useful as relative pitch.

Don't put the cart before the horse is basically what I'm saying. Learning relative pitch is a long enough journey and involves years of melodic and harmonic ear training (and don't you dare forget about rhythm!  ), get that down first.

​
Show me the journal or research where an individual acquired perfect pitch at a later age. Even if it's possible, it's bound to take lots and lots of hours to develop. Frankly, you are wasting your time if you embark this journey (and most likely it will lead you nowhere).

I read that some drug had an impact on this sometime ago. I am a bit sceptical personally, but maybe there will be an alternative method to acquire it in the future.

[MDEW]

      What is with this "You have to be born with it"?  Didn't we already disprove that by Vocal "Training". Frequencies have their own distinct characteristics.....Because of the harmonics. You can learn to recognize those characteristics.........

[Owen Korzec]

Almost every useful skill takes lots and lots of hours to develop Tony. Problem is perfect pitch isn't THAT useful  

[MDEW]

Almost every useful skill takes lots and lots of hours to develop Tony. Problem is perfect pitch isn't THAT useful  

​I agree that it is not that useful and you have to keep up with the training to keep it, But it can be done..... Listen to F#........ Get it in your mind the personality of it or the characteristics of it.......Then listen to a few songs that you KNOW have a D chord in it. D chord = D A F# ........ Listen for that characteristic in the notes.........

     Once you do that you will start hearing it in others songs........It will start to drive you up the wall........There is that blasted F# again..........

[KillerKu]

      What is with this "You have to be born with it"?  Didn't we already disprove that by Vocal "Training". Frequencies have their own distinct characteristics.....Because of the harmonics. You can learn to recognize those characteristics.........

​The brain develops differently in childhood. Studies on children who grow up in feral environments (no language, locked in rooms, away from language sources) find significant differences in ability to learn language. Born with it isn't the argument, 'obtained the right stimulation to develop the right connections at a developmental stage of plasticity' is more so.

 

A lot of music aspects are related to language, (auditory comprehension combined with physical reproduction of the sound). If you didn't have it in your childhood you're at a disadvantage in a similar way to if you were never taught a language and then try to learn as an adult your very first language. The same thing could be said, that it is just 'words' they should be 'easy to understand' but  if the brain did not develop that way it can cause enormous difficulty.

 

Feral children lack the basic social skills that are normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright after walking on fours all their life, and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language.^[2] The impaired ability to learn a natural language after having been isolated for so many years is often attributed to the existence of a critical period for language learning, and taken as evidence in favor of the critical period hypothesis.^[3]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

Myself, I didn't have any serious musical education until I self taught relative pitch into my 20s. Every note sounds precisely the same, higher or lower.

[Tonyy]

      What is with this "You have to be born with it"?  Didn't we already disprove that by Vocal "Training". Frequencies have their own distinct characteristics.....Because of the harmonics. You can learn to recognize those characteristics.........

Vocal training has really little to do with perfect pitch. And yes, frequencies have their own characteristics, namely which part of the choclea they stimulate, but the brain just doesn't work this way normally. Also harmonics have little to do with PP, it applies to purer sines as well.

Next, I am sure someone will say that since anyone can tell bass from treble, perfect pitch must be possible. Again, that's just not how it works...

[SingBetterIn3Days]

Almost every useful skill takes lots and lots of hours to develop Tony. Problem is perfect pitch isn't THAT useful  

​It's true. It's more trouble than it's worth. Especially when you are transposing a song.  

I have perfect/absolute pitch (they are the same thing - I prefer the term absolute pitch better because believe me I am not perfect at it - more like 95%. I met a teacher who is the same way) and if you aren't born with it or develop it naturally (I feel I learned it over lots and lots of exposure to music, but it wasn't a challenge for me like most people) I think it will take a long time to get and not be a worthwhile use of that time. Perfect pitch is just the icing on the cake, a kind of auxillary level of ear development, it gives you an EDGE, but it is not the foundation of having a great ear.

As for "you have to be born with it" I always raise a red flag at that kind of talk because again and again it gets disproved down the line.

​Of course saying things in absolutes is going to cause friction, and there might be an exception. Considering only 1/10,000 people have it, and even Owen agreed that it isn't accurate 5 % of the time and HE HAS IT. A person's relative pitch could learn to be that good. PERFECT is just NEVER always going to be perfect.  And since most people can be great singers without it, it isn't worth discussing the philosophies of always and never.

[KillerKu]

​It's true. It's more trouble than it's worth. Especially when you are transposing a song.  

​Of course saying things in absolutes is going to cause friction, and there might be an exception. Considering only 1/10,000 people have it, and even Owen agreed that it isn't accurate 5 % of the time and HE HAS IT. A person's relative pitch could learn to be that good. PERFECT is just NEVER always going to be perfect.  And since most people can be great singers without it, it isn't worth discussing the philosophies of always and never.

​

Off topic, but if people sing better in 3 days, just imagine 4 days. Or maybe the 4th is the inevitable bad day everyone has and expectations should be kept realistic.

[SingBetterIn3Days]

​

Off topic, but if people sing better in 3 days, just imagine 4 days. Or maybe the 4th is the inevitable bad day everyone has and expectations should be kept realistic.

​Singbetterin3days.com is my home base. The free voice lesson video course offered on the page is called Sing Better In 3 Days. It's quite catchy so I decided to name my entire website sing better in 3 days. It sparked your interest, right? Obviously becoming great at something takes longer, but anyone will try anything for just 3 days.  

Small wins help to keep things realistic. If someone can experience a small win in just 3 days, they might be inspired or hooked to continue to improve. 

[MDEW]

Vocal training has really little to do with perfect pitch. And yes, frequencies have their own characteristics, namely which part of the choclea they stimulate, but the brain just doesn't work this way normally. Also harmonics have little to do with PP, it applies to purer sines as well.
Next, I am sure someone will say that since anyone can tell bass from treble, perfect pitch must be possible. Again, that's just not how it works...

​    Try the F# experiment.......relative to other notes played on the same instrument F# rings more than the other notes. (I am  not talking about those notes that may cause resonation of the body of the instrument). There is a sharper "Ping" in the overtones......Eb and Ab have a dull sound they do not "Ping" as much because of the harmonics. The harmonics of different frequencies will effect the sound of the note Because musical instruments and voices are NOT sine waves.  The harmonics make a difference because they are unique to the frequency.   We have to use "Just" tuning because of this. Just tuning is a relative tuning that will get us "Close" to the proper intervals that make TRUE HARMONIC CHORDS, otherwise we would have to retune our instruments every time we changed a key signature.   Let someone with more knowledge explain that..........

   What I meant with the Voice Training comment was the fact that people keep saying that you must be born with the ability to sing.....You can not develop it later in life......We know this not to be true...........

[Tonyy]

​    Try the F# experiment.......relative to other notes played on the same instrument F# rings more than the other notes. (I am  not talking about those notes that may cause resonation of the body of the instrument). There is a sharper "Ping" in the overtones......Eb and Ab have a dull sound they do not "Ping" as much because of the harmonics. The harmonics of different frequencies will effect the sound of the note Because musical instruments and voices are NOT sine waves.  The harmonics make a difference because they are unique to the frequency.   We have to use "Just" tuning because of this. Just tuning is a relative tuning that will get us "Close" to the proper intervals that make TRUE HARMONIC CHORDS, otherwise we would have to retune our instruments every time we changed a key signature.   Let someone with more knowledge explain that..........

   What I meant with the Voice Training comment was the fact that people keep saying that you must be born with the ability to sing.....You can not develop it later in life......We know this not to be true...........

​

If F# rings more, then there is difference in the overtone series and most likely in the resonance as well (that causes such differences in part). Yes you maybe able to easily hear this distinction, but this is not what absolute pitch is. Absolute pitch works with sine waves which have no overtones. From what I know, perfect pitch is equal temperament with A tuned as the 440hz or whatever happened to be the standard, so it's actually not completely in tune indeed.

Being born a singer on the other hand is and always has been nonsense. Being born with a great sounding voice or a tenor or bass classification, however is not. It's apples to oranges.