Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rphroy!caen!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!mucs!logitek!hrc63!mrcu!yj05 From: yj05@mrcu (Steve Collier) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch Summary: It is trainable Message-ID: <872@mrcu> Date: 21 Mar 91 17:03:22 GMT References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar18.104444.29128@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1991Mar18.215252.21611@athena.mit.edu> <1991Mar19.133646.6659@bernina.ethz.ch> Reply-To: yj05@uk.co.gec-mrc (Steve Collier) Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, UK Lines: 54 Being a psychologist by training, I naturally leapt to my nearest reference work on this subject: Sloboda JA (1985) The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-852128-6. If anyone can recommend any books on this subject, that would be nice. I quote from the book: "People with the ability to name individual heard pitches , or accurately sing named pitches, are said to possess `absolute' or `perfect' pitch [refs given]. This ability appears to be learnable by anyone prepared to undergo lengthy and systematic training [refs given]. "However, by no means all musicians have absolute pitch....among a sample of 1156 professional musicians, there was a high inverse correlation between age of commencement of musical training and the possession of AP. Almost all musicians who began training before the age of six had AP, but almost none of those who begun after 11 did. "[AP gives a memory advantage, ref given:]..subjects were presented with two noteseparated by either one-tenth of a tone or three-quarters of a tone. ..AP subjects did much better...on three-quarter tone intervals, but there was no difference on the tenth-tone. The AP subjects were able to assign different verbal labels (note names) to the two [more separated] notes... "Verbal coding aids retention over longer time spans...[with up to a 15 sec gap filled with random notes , both AP and non-AP Ss' performance dropped with time for tenth-tones, but the APs did not worsen at all with a semitone] "These results not only exhibit the superior memory performance exhibited by those subjects with AP. They also demonstrate the categorical nature of AP.. It is not the case that those with AP have finer pitch discrimination than anyone else...what they can do is assign the pitch to a class or range of pitches which are given the same name. "...those musicians particularly singers, who need to work with such [contemporary `atonal'] music, have their task made much easier if they possess AP. There are situations where AP can be a nuisance. Listening to, or performing key-transposed music can be very difficult... Goes on to say that relative pitch is much more important and highly prized. It also improves with training. Please could we have some more details on the training tapes, including where they can be bought from, or what they comprise if that would help to make a home-brew. Presumably some of the references cited in the above text would help. If anyone wants them in full, let me know. Steve Collier | Tel: +44 245 73331 x 3233 GEC-Marconi Research Centre | Fax: +44 245 75244 Telex: 995016 GECRES G GEC-Marconi Ltd, Great Baddow | uucp: !mcvax!ukc!gec-mrc!collier Chelmsford,Essex. UK CM2 8HN | Other: collier@uk.co.gec-mrc -- Steve Collier | Tel: +44 245 73331 x 3233 GEC-Marconi Research Centre | Fax: +44 245 75244 Telex: 995016 GECRES G GEC-Marconi Ltd, Great Baddow | uucp: !mcvax!ukc!gec-mrc!collier Chelmsford,Essex. UK CM2 8HN | Other: collier@uk.co.gec-mrc