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What does it really mean when you say a person has perfect pitch?
And what if, say, it was important that a person have perfect pitch, what types of tests might you do that would determine if in fact they do have it? Tests that wouldn't rely on modern equipment.
Yes, it's for my NaNo novel. Please help me. *makes puppy eyes* Please?
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kat, that is the extent of my knowledge also. So I figured before I started writing about a system of magic that relied on music and had practitioners with perfect pitch, I should learn more than Anne McCaffery could teach me.
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Perfect pitch is when you can hear a pitch played and say "That's a G." It's when you can hear a symphony and tell me what key the orchestra is playing in. It's like you're a walking piano, pitch pipe or tuning fork. If your choir director needs an E flat above middle C, you can hum it for them. The real thing.
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I know that perfect pitch is much more common among speakers of tonal languages than it is of speakers of non-tonal languages. That might be of use in your novel. Or not.
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Perfect pitch means that you are able to hear and identify-- not necessarily reproduce, but name-- different notes. It is also possible to have near-perfect pitch.
Tests: the classic one is to play notes on a piano, tell the person what they are-- A, B, C, etc.-- and then play notes without allowing them to see the keyboard and ask them what it is. Also, people with perfect pitch are usually very good with intervals and beats, so someone with perfect pitch would be able to hear if said piano was out of tune and tell you, providing they knew what a scale should sound like.
*has a sister who has perfect pitch* *has near-perfect pitch herself*
Perfect pitch also makes it much easier, with a little training, to take musical dictation and identify the key a piece is in.
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Perfect pitch means that when you hear a pitch, you know the note name, without reference to any other sounds. Most people can sing a major scale, but someone with perfect pitch can sing a specific major scale (say, D major) without first hearing the pitch D or any other pitch that would give them a frame of reference for the key.
I don't know if that's specific enough for what you're asking.
In order to test a person for perfect pitch, you would play notes with long spaces of silence in between and ask the person to name the notes.
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JemmyGrove could tell you more about it. He himself has perfect pitch. (the bum!) It's funny because if he hears a song on the radio, he'll sing it back to me a week later in the same key, while I would just pick a key out of thin air and start singing the song....He would of course know that I'm wrong and I would be blissfully ignorant. Must drive him crazy.
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quote:Perfect pitch also makes it much easier, with a little training, to take musical dictation and identify the key a piece is in.
Unfortunately, though, people with perfect pitch who rely on the skill to get them through aural skills classes usually end up with no sense of understanding of how key works.
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Here is an article that discusses the relationship between perfect pitch and tonal languages, and gives a bit of background on perfect pitch as well.
The article's blurb:
quote:
A new study concludes that young musicians who speak Mandarin Chinese can learn to identify isolated musical notes much better than English speakers can. Fewer than one American in 10,000 has absolute pitch, which means they can identify or produce a note without reference to any other note. Also called perfect pitch, this skill requires distinguishing sounds that differ by just 6 percent in frequency.
posted
EDIT: Apparantly my definition is sort of wrong. It's more the hearing than the reproducing bit. Odd, I always thought that the two kind of went hand in hand.
A person with perfect pitch knows exactly where a note is. Ask them to sing a C and they will be able to. If a musical instrument isn't exactly tuned it may be annoying to them.
Testing them, if they have previous musical knowledge (which I think that they'd probably have to), would be as simple as telling them to sing a note and then playing the corresponding note on the piano.
Some people have a semi-perfect-pitch, and they seem to be able to tell if the note sung is approximately right. At least, that's what they claim.
Relative pitch is where you can tell if relative to another note the note's in the "right" place and is far more common and can be largely learnt.
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quote:A person with perfect pitch knows exactly where a note is. Ask them to sing a C and they will be able to.
Not necessarily. Some people who have perfect pitch can identify notes but not necessarily reproduce them perfectly.
And when that happens, it usually annoys the heck out of them. People with this problem often refuse to sing because they always know exactly when they're doing it wrong.
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posted
but assume there is no common method of musical notation. How would someone test for perfect pitch if he couldn't ask the person to "hum an A?"
Would it work if say he played harp strings and one of the strings was out of tune and asked her to tell him which one was "off?" Could he sing part of a scale and ask her which note came next and she be able to do it?
Could he play her several notes and ask her to sing them back and she be able to do it perfectly?
Would all these things indicate perfect pitch? Or at least some type of "special" musical aptitude that might tell him yes, this girl is worthy of being trained?
Any other ideas or suggestions that might help my master musician/magician find him an apprentice?
Edit: WHOA you guys are fast - this was typed after seeing Narnia's reply.
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If there are harps, there are ways to name the notes. Trust me on that one. They may be different names, but anywhere with instruments there will be some way to distinguish "first string" from "third string".
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If I actually do write this thing, I will probably ask for some musically trained folks to read through those parts and make sure I'm not way off base with something.
posted
Well Belle, 'perfect pitch' is usually only used in reference to the scale system used by Western music. If you're dividing the tone into more than half (quarters and eighths) like many Eastern music systems do, it gets funky. I don't know if perfect pitch is the way to work it in your novel because if a string was 'off,' that would mean 'off' in reference to the Western 12 tone system.
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quote:Would it work if say he played harp strings and one of the strings was out of tune and asked her to tell him which one was "off?" Could he sing part of a scale and ask her which note came next and she be able to do it?
Could he play her several notes and ask her to sing them back and she be able to do it perfectly?
Would all these things indicate perfect pitch? Or at least some type of "special" musical aptitude that might tell him yes, this girl is worthy of being trained?
All these things can be done by people with good relative pitch, as Teshi described.
Unfortunately, without a system of notation or at least some form of knowledge of musical organization, there really isn't "perfect pitch."
Add to that the fact that, depending on what tuning system to use, perfect pitch isn't really perfect. Most people described as having perfect pitch today have perfect pitch for the system in which A4 is 440 Hz. But, in the past, A4 has been as low as 435 Hz, so early instruments sometimes throw people with perfect pitch into fits.
Belle, how does the training take place if there is no system of notation? Is it purely "hear and repeat"? This would help me give better suggestions. Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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In a guitar context, I can always tell by the sound of it whether or not it's in tune, and lately I can even tell which string is out of tune. This is kind of cool. Last week when my buddy and I were jamming and I stopped the song to tell him, "Dude, your B string's flat."
He checked, and sure enough it was flat. I felt very cool, even though this is far removed from perfect pitch. Using Teshi's conventions, I have very good relative pitch.
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Megan, there is notation but only the magicians learn it and know it. There isn't one that the general populace uses. Mostly you just have minstrels with lutes or harps.
So at the time the master magician encounters her she would know nothing about musical notation. He is trying to determine if she's worth training and for that she'll need excellent pitch - the ability to not only learn notes but reproduce them exactly - the spell depends on getting the pitch of the notes exactly right every time.
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Bev, the people I know how have it describe it as a mixed blessing at best. They can't enjoy historical performances. There are also arguments that the intervals in the equal temperament tuning system (the one everyone is most familiar with) aren't the "nicest" intervals. But that's wading into the history of music theory... Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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afr, the woman who taught me music appreciation in college had perfect pitch, I wish I could have quizzed her but I don't have even her email addy anymore.
At any rate, she was an accomplished pianist but couldn't sing at all.
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Belle, sounds like you're hearkening back to pre Renaissance when music was a 'church' thing and notation was just being tried in different ways. You should read some music history to get an idea of how that all played out.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: Some people who have perfect pitch can identify notes but not necessarily reproduce them perfectly.
And when that happens, it usually annoys the heck out of them. People with this problem often refuse to sing because they always know exactly when they're doing it wrong.
Yep. I don't have perfect pitch myself, but I'm not bad, and I can tell when my singing is a bit flat. It drives me bonkers.
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Hmm. Ok, no one knows exactly what causes people to have perfect pitch, but it most frequently arises in people that have been playing musical instruments from a very, very early age.
You could have children who showed musical aptitude very early on trained on instruments, and those who show extraordinary talent might be given a test in which they have to reproduce an extended melody on their given instrument with every pitch being exactly right. Then, if they did that, they could become apprentices, learn the notation, and THEN be tested for perfect pitch to see if they could move on to be masters.
So, the girl in question might show amazing, extraordinary talen on her instrument in question, maybe producing some magical sparks or something without realizing it.
You could make the magic, rather than the music, be the test.
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Belle, you're not looking for someone with perfect pitch-- you're looking for someone with perfect or near-perfect pitch who can sing on pitch and has a good range.
Best test I can think of in your scenario would be to gather the children who are the best singers and remember the village songs in each village-- ask the adults to single out children with musical talent and a good memory-- and bring them up one at a time. Play a tune for them, or sing a melody, and ask them to reproduce it exactly as they heard it.
The one in every few hundred who can do it several times should be taken to a central location for further testing by a group, if possible, to see if with training they have ability. If not, they are either sent home or kept to assist; your choice since it's your story. If you don't want there to be an organized "guild" so much as a master-apprentice type of learning system, then I think the master should take the child he finds to a secluded spot in the woods or whatever and spend a few weeks to a month intensively training the child to see if it will work out.
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My mother has perfect pitch. I have good relative pitch.
In the scenarios you described, someone with good relative pitch would perform well. I don't know that there would be a way to test for perfect pitch.
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I have pretty good relative pitch. Combined with a fair understanding of musical notation, I can sightread pretty well.
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Belle, most people who have perfect pitch received musical training before the age of four. You need an aptitude for it (which appears to be at least somewhat heriditary) and then you need to hear music and work with it at a young age. Your main character would not need to know the notation, but she would have needed to be around people who were performing music within that notation system, and to have been singing along herself when she was young. Perhaps her outcast evil mother??? I dunno, this could get fun.
There is (or was, he may have retired) a professor at the University of Colorado who could not sing a note because he was born with screwy vocal cords (he could talk) but had perfect pitch. So he could tell other people when they were off or on but not sing himself. Also people with perfect pitch can tell you what key you talk in, which is a highly entertaining parlor trick, at least around musicians.
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quote:People with this problem often refuse to sing because they always know exactly when they're doing it wrong.
Porter has a bit of this problem. He may not have perfect pitch (his dad does), but his relative pitch is good enough that he can hear how off-key he is and doesn't know quite how to fix it.
quote:Bev, the people I know how have it describe it as a mixed blessing at best.
I guess it is true that I am blissfully able to throw myself into whatever key people are trying to play in. My pitch is completely relative. Once I have a frame of reference, everything I perceive revolves around it.
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My theory is that my perfect pitch is related to mild synesthesia. If I hear a C, I can name it. No problem whatsoever. I hear something just sharp of a C, though, I have no idea. I think it's because C is red for me, but "just sharp of C" isn't anything. I hear C, see red, know it's C. I hear "just sharp of C" and see nothing. I know it's generally around a C (maybe a B or a D?), but I couldn't tell you it's just sharp of a C.
I wonder how many people with perfect pitch work this way.
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quote:Hmm. Ok, no one knows exactly what causes people to have perfect pitch, but it most frequently arises in people that have been playing musical instruments from a very, very early age.
I can believe this. In fact, what Noemon said about the link between perfect pitch and tonal languages is *very* interesting to me.
There are so many things that if we learn them at a young age, we learn them in ways that adults never can. Children are amazing: Best Programmed When Young. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Your main character would not need to know the notation, but she would have needed to be around people who were performing music within that notation system, and to have been singing along herself when she was young.
I like the idea that common people just sing work songs, ritual songs, etc. in every day life, while the musicians are the ones who play instruments and do magic with them. Or something like that. So the child can be around music and singing-- after all, it occurs in every culture I know of in some form or another-- from a young age, be drawn to it, be the one who remembers all the village songs and can sing them exactly as they were sung to her.
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Belle, sure! Just email me, and let me know.
I like music-related fantasy in general, when it's accurate. Mercedes Lackey has a music-related series that I enjoyed.
Actually, I have to say, I seem to remember reading bits of the Anne McCaffrey thing y'all are talking about up thread, and thinking, what a load of horse puckey.
But that was a loooong time ago, and my views may have changed since then.
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I want parents out of the way so she can be immersed totally in her training so I was planning on having her abandoned at a convent type place by parents that had contracted the plague when she was very young. The master magician finds her when she's around eight.
Maybe the parents can have been court musicians or something, and so she can have been around music since before birth. And if music is used in worship at the convent, she can have continued to be exposed to it there.
kq - good idea on everyone else using traditional songs, maybe those village songs can have some magic in them too, maybe the song the mother sings to soothe a crying baby really has some healing power, except that only the trained magicians are able to master it and work really big magic.
Hmm...opens up another dimension to the novel...another reason why I love this place!
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I've got it. I didn't always have it, but to tell the truth, most instrumental musicians of a certain age either have it or have picked it up. I have yet to meet a professional pianist over twenty without perfect pitch. There are only twelve notes, and they don't change. If you practice long enough, they are going to stick. It's not that big of a deal. Imagine if there were only twelve words in a language, would we be making this hubbub about someone's ability to memorize and recognize all twelve words?
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I know lots of professional instrumental musicians who don't have it. I don't think it's as universal as you think.
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My dad, who has been playing guitar since he was 12 and is very good at keeping in tune-- he will hear when something is "off"-- will still ask me which string is out of tune if he's in a hurry. I'll listen for a second and say, "It's your D string-- slightly flat" or whatever.
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I agree. I was too loose with the term "professional." I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to music practice and I think that most musicians don't listen to themselves when they practice, and this goes for all levels. Of the people who listen to themselves when they practice, for 15 or 20 years of practicing every day, I really haven't met too many who haven't picked up perfect pitch.
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quote:Actually, I have to say, I seem to remember reading bits of the Anne McCaffrey thing y'all are talking about up thread, and thinking, what a load of horse puckey.
posted
Irami, most musicians I know practice very hard. They listen to themselves. They record themselves. Some of them have perfect or near-perfect pitch.
Most do not.
I think it's a combination of early exposure and a genetic component; at least, that has been reliably established by many studies. Maybe you are lucky enough to know a lot of musicians who have been blessed with both or have overcome lack of one or the other to be gifted (or cursed) with perfect pitch.
How many musicians do you know, anyway?
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I know very little about music. I've studied it several times in different ways, but of all the things I have been blessed, that simply isn't one of them. I can get better with practice, but it's never clicked, the way other creative things have, so I give up. I've given up many times so far. I'm sure I will do so many times in the future.
---
Irami is a very real musician, however stringent your definition. The hours a day, every day, are not theoretical.
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