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AKA "Perfect Pitch"....This test is a sequence of 36 simulated piano tones, ranging over a few octaves. (Preceded by four "practice" tones.) An amazing aspect of this test is an associated study, where children raised on a pitch-sensitive language (like Mandarin) scored significantly higher than children raised on a purely phonetic (Western) language.
I went through the whole thing once without repeating anything. Got 33 of 36 correct (91 percent). (37 of 40 including the practice tones.) The three I missed were all erred a semi-tone high.
Follow Ups:
I personally have never found ET other than VERY tricksy and non-intuitive, even dare I say it, unmusical!My old Choirmaster said this was just FINE really, I'd manage to get past it, and made me a 'Leader' and eventually the DHC! all are RSCM terms! *
440Hz is also an arbitrary scaling or classification of the progression of pitches. HIP performers change A with the weather it seems.
All classifications are arbitrary JBTW, but in this case this test is certainly ethnocentric - to modern western 'serious/fine music' - training.
A narrow and standardised version of that, as well.
Snap! - about the choristers who couldn't cope with 'notching it up a third or so' or down a 5th! GOOD one Ted, quite apt!
and owyergoin' maaate, orright!?
in summary - fine relative pitch acuity is IMO far more REAL a phenomenon or human musical trait, and far more usefully to tet for, than is confirming someone's commitment to a laid-down / learned arbitrary pattern and its LIST.
And, I didn't actually / really - LIKE - the sound of the notes, moving quickly to thinking about the above points.
Only then realising that I didn't LIKE the timbre at all.the person playings touch? Grand pianos in general? ;-)!!!!, miking, my 'phones / PC , low sampling rates?
Really, who gives a damn!
That is how I see it!
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
It was 'duh', 'dih', 'dom', 'dee'
...
When I was at Berklee college of music in Boston the girl in the room next to me was a violin player and said she had perfect pitch. So one night to test her we went to a keyboard players room and had him bang out some notes. She was consistently a half step low, well as it turns out his kurzweil had an adjustment that enable its tuning to be changed up or down by I think a full step and it was turned a half step down. The guy was somewhat bummed because he couldn't hear that his own instrument wasn't in tune. I being a drummer was just happy to have a room next to girls....
I can play an instrument in tune, but can't sing in tune worth a hoot. Never been able to figure out why. My wife, a music teacher, was amazed when I was able to tune a cello with no problem (I don't play cello).
absolute pitch is a nearly useless skill to a musician. Interesting about the language thing, though.
Relative pitch is all that matters in music. Intonation is a result of relative pitch, based on both the relationship between the root and the interval being played or between the musician and the other members of the ensemble. Bad intonation is caused by a bad ambature for wind instruments or bad finger position on stringed instruments. All ear training recieved in college revolves around interval training by identifying the intervals in a chord being played or chord progressions.That being said, I always thought it would be neat to be able to do that. I've been a musician for about 25 years and I didn't get any of them right. I think I read somewhere that people with pefect pitch have amazing memories.
I don't believe that is true if you are an oboe player in an orchestra. 8^)....I had a chance to visit, listen, and chat with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and they were critically aware of the importance of intonation, and constantly harped on players who did not have as good an intonation.
My former clarinet teacher and conductor (Eastman Grad, played under Hanson and Fennell) also stressed the importance if intonation. While I do not have perfect pitch (far from it, actually), bad intonation in any ensemble is a aural turn off for me.
Intonation has to do with hearing the pitches around you and fitting into the prevailing pitch world, adjusting as you go, and taking account of things such as major thirds needing to be lower, minor thirds higher, etc.In other words, intonation is relative, not absolute.
You may be surprised at how far away from equal temperament things will get with no keyboard present.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of principal oboists do not have absolute pitch, either. If you stood behind them as they gave the "A" you'd see the electronic tuner on their stand. (Years ago they would have used a tuning fork.)
In reality, in some orchestras an oboist with absolute pitch would be driven crazy, because some orchestras deliberately tune sharp, in the neighborhood of A=443 or even higher.
So, as I said, absolute pitch is of very little practical use to musicians.
I still disagree. While most players do not have absolute pitch, those that do and use it, will have better intonation. I used to have decent relative pitch, but it took many, many years of training. Since perfect pitch is innate, those players willing to utilize it can play more together in ensembles.One player that I know who has perfect pitch is quite open about admitting that very few play in a=440 anymore, and that most seem to prefer a=442, but he can hear it and adapt.
Equal tempered scales were always a man made artifact and never reflect the true nature of frequency doubling for octaves.
Perfect pitch was never a necessity, but pitch and its recognition by your own words is very important in ensemble playing, and that was my point. In fact, that was why the tempered scale was invented, wasn't it(among other reasons)? I do remember using a strobotuner on a piano once early in my music education and was shocked to find it far from being perfect.
I usually always hear problems with orchestras and other ensembles and the fixed pitch of their percussion mallet instruments (xylophones, etc) compared to the strings, etc. Some ensembles have poor precision and intonation and those intonation issues may not be so obvious, but a superb ensemble will usually display such issues of intonation.
For ensemble playing, it still thrills me to hear the precision so many individual players can produce in real time, not just in the timing but in other aspects of music including intonation.
Of course, your opinions may vary.
their and other's music-making, in groups at least!see my post above for my bases for this.
I really do feel that relative pitch acuity is 'the real deal', and not an ability to follow or commit to, ET and A = 440.
If you mean the sensitivity to pitch that some of us can even suffer from, then I think that it just isn't about
ET AND 440 equals A.
Which you have to learn - some of us can't quite - rather than being born with 'it.'
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
You have a lot of them. ;-)Playing with good intonation, playing in tune, has nothing to do with absolute pitch. It has to do with the musicians listening and playing in tune with one another.
It often happens that we have to play with an organ that's quite flat. Yet we play perfectly in tune with it and with each other--while everyone is way off of absolute pitch.
Early music ensembles play way off of A=440, yet everyone plays in tune.
Playing in tune is listening to the musicians around you, hearing your place in the vertical scheme of things, i.e. the harmony, and making adjustments on the fly. Those who do this well are said to have good intonation. Doesn't matter one bit if we're on absolute pitch or not--in fact, it's more often not.
Absolute pitch has nothing whatsoever to do with equal temperament. Equal temperament was arrived at primarily (there are a lot of reasons) to give interchangability of keys. Various temperaments were usually good in one key but not in others. The interchangability meant you could modulate to any key and write highly chromatic music with impunity--Western music wouldn't be the same without it.
However, you should understand that equal temperament is a compromise: we gave up something to get that interchangability, and that was the purity of the intervals. The Pythagorian intervals were based on simple relationships between integers like 1:2, 2:3, 3:4. These give purer-sounding thirds and fifths than with equal temperament. The fifth was squashed; the major third was expanded. In many cases, musicians not playing with a keyboard tend to drift towards the purer intervals that sound better to the ear. Fifths are expanded to the point where they ring; a lower major third sounds much more pleasing than the equal-tempered one. So that's what musicians play when they don't have to stay in tune with a piano. A string quartet or a brass ensemble or whatever will ordinarily play chords with the purer fifths and thirds because it sounds right. Overall you're in the equal-temperament ballpark, but it's not an absolute, just like absolute pitch.
Good intonation requires the ability to hear the harmony, your place in it, and making adjustments that the harmony requires. It also means listening to the other musicians, some of whom might be a little bit off--you still have to play in tune with them, so you adjust, and now no one is on absolute pitch anymore. The better the musicians the closer to the "right" pitch you may be, but that is essentially irrelevant.
There are many more aspects of playing in tune; this is the Reader's Digest version. (For instance, many intonation problems stem from balance , not pitch.
Meanwhile, once again, playing in tune has nothing whatsoever to do with absolute pitch, and only has a passing relationship to equal-temperament. Very few musicians have absolute pitch--the same proportion as in the general population. How do you think we play in tune so well? ;-)
HowdyIn fact I've known a few people with absolute pitch that kept us from pitching the whole choir up or down because they couldn't deal with it.
Conversely I'm sure there are some with absolute pitch that are used to equal temperament and would have problems with just intonation. This does matter since most times a choir or ensemble play and there is no instrument included with equal temperament the ensemble migrates to just intonation. (E.g. barbershop quartet singing or string ensembles.)
Hmmm, no real comment except I point out in the first paragraph that most musicians do NOT have perfect pitch. Intonation, by your words, is the individual adjustment for the betterment of the ensemble's playing. The key is that the player(s) have to be able to hear it. I am pointing out that those with perfect pitch hear it better and can much more easily adapt.
I do not know what you have been reading into my post, but the key is recognition. As I had pointed out it took me many years to be able to recognize the importance of intonation (a performance of the Chester Overture for wind ensemble when I was a junior in high school pointed that out to me, as the brass choir requires extremely good intonation in order to produce the overtones in the harmonies). One of the abilities of those with perfect pitch is pitch recognition, not simply the ability to play a=440.
Those who I have met with perfect pitch (Ben Reitveld being one of them, the bassist for Santana, who was a so-so drummer in high school) can take ensemble playing, not playing in perfect tune, and but playing along seamlessly with the ensemble's relative pitch.
I had a chance to talk to Peter Smith, associate principle oboe at Philadelphia. He has perfect pitch. It was interesting because he pointed out that the orchestra's pitch tends to hover at a=442 and was purchasing an instrument designed around that constant. We were chatting about the acoustics at Verizon Hall, and when I mentioned that I thought the acoustics and the high frequency reverberance changes as the Hall warms up, other members of the orchestra voiced some surprise at my comment, Peter said that he can hear it quite clearly, even when performing.My point, to reiterate, is simple: ensemble playing, among other things, requires good intonation. Those with perfect pitch recognize this easier and can blend in with the ensemble better. I am NOT saying that they only play a=440 regardless of what others are playing. I am NOT saying that without perfect pitch one can not play in an ensemble.
A few years ago an orchestra I play with was rehearsing, and we happened to have a substitute tuba player. His intonation was not good, and it sounded it, so the principal trombonist had the section stay during break to go over some passages with an eye to improving the section's intonation.Well, the guy wasn't doing all that well, and after trying to tune one chord the principal asked him to raise his pitch on his note. He said words to the effect of "I shouldn't do that, the tuner says I'm right!" The fella had an electronic tuner on his stand.
You play into an electronic tuner and center the meter every time, that's the same thing as having absolute pitch: you're "right" every time.
Well, the principal trombonist erupted, something I had never ever seen him do: "Take that tuner off the stand and don't let me see it again!" Never seen him so angry.
You see, pitch is relative, not absolute. There's a passage in Nutcracker where I play a repeated note several times in a row, while the rest of the section changes harmony with each one. I need to move my note for each change, because its function in the chord changes each time. It's an E, but not an "absolute" E. Weird, huh?
But that's the reality of playing in tune. Playing in tune is a skill set that anyone can learn, though it takes a lot of experience playing with others to develop it to the degree necessary to be a professional. It also takes a knowledge of harmony, an ability to hear and understand the harmony just by listening, knowing what function your pitch has in that harmony, knowledge of how the harmonic series shows its pitch tendencies on your instrument, and the ability to listen critically--among several other things.
Sitting in the practice room and nailing the pitch on the tuner every time does you no good, just as having absolute pitch does you no good. I imagine it must be neat to have, but it has no practical value in playing in tune.
I'm not going attempt to expain any further, but I do believe that you are so focused on your agenda that you can not admit any other possiblility.As for relative pitch I did point out that if you attempt to 'tune' a piano with a strobotuner, it will not be correct, at least not at the extremes. You are attempting to say things that I am not saying and twisting it to your agenda.
Those with perfect pitch that I have met can function in ensembles, because I believe that they can hear and compensate for the differences perhaps more quickly. I do not belive their ability is necessarily a liability as you seem to be saying.
Having perfect pitch is the ability to hear the differences, not necessarily meaning that you can not deviate from it.
Stu
Unclestu, I'm just trying to give you the reality of the situation, but you seem uninterested. I've tried to be helpful here, because you have some misconceptions about the topic, as many do. If that's an "agenda" in your eyes so be it.I never in this thread said that absolute pitch is a "liability" when it comes to playing in tune. The plain words of my posts have indicated that absolute pitch is neither necessary nor particularly advantageous to playing in tune.
On the other hand you have maintained that it must be an advantage, yet with no particularly convincing reasoning.
Meanwhile, statements such as "I believe that they can hear and compensate for the differences perhaps more quickly" demonstrate that you don't really understand how the process works. All musicians--we hope, at least--learn the skill set that leads to good intonation, and at some point the process of playing in tune becomes automatic and instantaneous. At this level you don't hear a pitch problem and consciously decide which way you have to go to fix it and go there; it happens without thinking about it and you make the adjustments instantly, on the fly, in the correct direction. Those with absolute pitch don't get there one bit sooner.
I am relying on decades of experience in actually doing what we're talking about. If you'd like to persist with your "beliefs" be my guest. The reality of the situation--no beliefs necessary--is both different and more complex (particularly with regard to deviations from equal temperament) than you think.
"ensemble playing, among other things, requires good intonation. Those with perfect pitch recognize this easier and can blend in with the ensemble better"You have presented no evidence, nor am I aware of any, that this is true. Given that the overwhelming majority of fine musicians do not have perfect pitch and still play commendably in tune, it is an irrelevancy. It is of no practical value in terms of playing in tune.
I've only been a professional orchestral musician for 30 years, and a student orchestral musician for 10 before that, so I bow to your superior knowledge. ;-)
I'll settle for decent relative pitch every time in an ensemble situation. I try to listen...and "blend" in.
...in reading "This is Your Brain on Music" where he talks about absolute pitch and much other interesting research on pitch, timber and the brain's processing of music.In the part I'm reading now, he is talking about how we store musical memories. He did some research where he asks random subjects to sing a song they're familiar with and they pretty much all get the pitch right.
Fascinating stuff.
Does he say that absolute pitch has to do with memory? That's my assumption.I'm capable of singing you a pitch, but you have to give me a moment--I need to use some cues in my mind to remember a given pitch, then relate it to the desired one by interval.
Of course, what musicians need to deal with on a constant basis is matching other musicians' pitch, which I assume is another kettle of fish. (There are other things, too, such as giving certain notes pitch-tendencies depending on their function in the chord, etc.)
I knew someone with absolute pitch once who tried to study the French horn, but had to give it up because it's a transposing instrument--the note he saw on the page didn't match the note coming out of the horn. Drove him nuts!
(nt)
I thought "perfect pitch" was when you threw a banjo into a dumpster from 30 feet and never hit the sides
'kay?{;-)} !
WarmestTimbo in Oz
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio ScroungerAnd gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
with a Sony "wave" radio and get extra bonus points ;-0
Only if it hits an accordion on the way in.
That would be a no-hitter.
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