No, You Can't LEARN Perfect Pitch Like Charlie Puth

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[blumenmusic]

"... but well-trained relative pitch is just as useful for transcribing/tuning/party tricks"

[richardplaysguitar]

Interestingly, there was a study conducted in by a Japanese psychologist who taught perfect pitch to a number of students with a 100% success rate. However, the catch was that they were all between the age of 4-7 (or thereabouts). He trained them daily 3 times a day by playing keys on the piano and having them guess the notes. I believe the training went on for a number of years and by the end of it, they all developed perfect pitch. However, they tried this with adults, and it was unsuccessful. Adults could get good at identifying notes but never fully developed perfect pitch. (this is all published in the book 'Peak' by K. Anders Ericsson. A psychologist who specializes in the research of peak performers. He suggested that children's brains are a lot more malleable and easily able to learn and develop new concepts that adult brains cannot. Hence, with the proper tutorage, children can perform spectacular learning feats, such as learning a language much faster than an adult. He also suggests that Mozart most likely had perfect pitch and that it was not a random stroke of luck, instead, he believes that as he came from an extremely musical family and that he learned many different musical instruments in those crucial developmental years he actually learned perfect pitch. (I'm going from memory after reading this book so some of these details may not be exact but please look up the info as it is extremely interesting).

[skyehcarranza]

One interesting thing I’ve learned about perfect pitch over the years is that people who have perfect pitch don’t usually have the same pitch center - it’s almost always a little off from each other. I have a few friends who’s perfect pitch is a little over A = 440. Mine is slightly flat. I had a professor in college who’s perfect pitch is exactly a quarter-tone flat because his piano growing up was a quarter-tone flat.

Also that perfect pitch and relative pitch isn’t separate from each other. People with perfect pitch also have relative pitch, but it’s usually very weak because it’s not used as much.

[ryan.noakes]

After singing in an a cappella quartet for several years I developed really solid pitch memory. Pretty much every song that we sang started with me going "Doom doom doom" to start it off, so I got to the point after we'd gotten pretty busy with regular gigs where all I had to do was think about a song and I could consistently start in the right key.

[matthewdragomir]

I had a guy in my college choir that had perfect pitch but we transposed a song at one point because it was too high for the sopranos and he got visibly angry because the notes he saw were not the notes being sung/played so it can be a blessing but also a curse in certain situations.

The only way I can determine a pitch is by singing it. I notice how it feels in my voice and based on that I'm never more than a semitone off but that's definity not based on color or anything else. I've just sung certain notes so often that I know what they are based on feel.

Great video though. It was very informative.

[tdcascade]

I have perfect pitch, and my grandmother does too. We like to say she passed her musical prowess down to me. I didn't really know it was such a talent until I was hanging around with a friend of mine in college, a music education major, while he was working on a transcription of a solo on Pat Martino's "Blue Velvet". There was a section he was struggling with and myself, with no piano experience whatsoever, walked over and sounded out the whole section note by note and he was completely awestruck. I'll never forget that moment lol.

[jtbsax]

I learned something interesting working on my masters this summer. Infants are born with a lot of neural connections, more than what we have as adults. A lot of these connections get "pruned" as the brain learns which connections are needed and which aren't. When you sing simple melodies to young children, if you sing it in different keys, kids with perfect pitch will perceive it as a different song. It's quite possible that a lot of us are born with the capacity for perfect pitch but that those connections were pruned because it wasn't deemed important, or that it was more important to recognize that specific melodies or speech or speech patterns were the same regardless of what pitch they were at. And if I remember correctly, cultures that have a tonal language tend to have a higher percentage of children with perfect pitch because pitch is more a important component when those kids are learning language.

[dr]

I have a friend with perfect pitch. I asked her to play in the orchestra for a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass that I conducted a few years back. The performance, had the orchestra playing on period (baroque) instruments. Which, among other things, means that A was tuned to 415, vs 440; almost Aflat on modern instruments. Given she’s plays modern violin, I had to rent an instrument for her. She found the experience so confusing, that she had to have the second seat chair tune the instrument for her. I can’t imagine the cognitive AND musical dissonance she was experiencing looking at her part, and hearing music that registered approx 1/2 step lower than she was expecting

[rabidfish]

As a colour blind person I want to thank you for correctly describing it. It is surprising how many people think it means seeing in black and white. Usually followed by being "tested" and them concluding that you see colours fine. Funnily enough there is a strong relationship between how I discern colour and how I discern notes. If I am uncertain about the colour I am seeing I sometimes require additional context for comparison to help me. I may not be able to tell if something is green or yellow, for example, but if you put a more obvious green or yellow next to it I can tell more easily.

[ethanfosterYT]

I’ve played the violin from a young age, and the string notes, E, A, D, and G are ingrained in my head since I’ve tuned my violin a million times. I can use those notes to figure out any other note or what key something is in. Still takes a few seconds tho.

[Paskomach]

I heard that it's easier to have perfect pitch if your mother tongue is a language with lots of tones (eg Cantonese which has 9 tones). I've always thought perfect pitch was a common thing coz my sibling and close friends have it as well, until I was told that it isn't

[Jwoyal]

This is essentially how I "learned" perfect pitch as a child. In elementary school I memorized what the four strings of a violin sound like (G D A E), and other starting notes of the short exercises in the method book (e.g. Rolling Along started on an F#), then used relative pitch to fill in the other blanks. By the end of 6th grade I had all 12 notes, but who knows if it's something I just taught myself or if it's an actual ability.

[NewBritainStation]

My daughter has perfect pitch, and the thing that I’ve learned is that we hear music differently.

I have decent relative pitch and can pick out things by ear.

But if you play me a song that’s in a different key than it normally is, or even just slightly high or low, it still sounds like that song. To her, most of the time, if it’s not in the original key, it sounds wrong. In some cases to the point where she doesn’t want to listen to it.

The first time we picked this up was when she decided she wanted to watch Pink Floyd in Pompeii. She remembered watching it when she was a kid, but had been a while. When the first note of Echoes started she said, “it’s wrong.” Huh? “It’s too high. It’s wrong.”

Of course, this is the official release. That’s absurd. So I grabbed a guitar.

It’s wrong.

Apparently in the original PAL to NTSC transfer, it ended up roughly a half-step sharp. They didn’t correct it (except for the audio CD in the box set). The whole film is this way, which explains why the drum section of A Saucerful of Secrets seems so fast, and even the interviews sound a little off.

We were at an event, Love Shack came on, and again she said it was wrong. We checked it, and it was. I don’t know what the DJ was using, but sure enough it wasn’t the original key.

The only thing I can compare it to is of the color balance is off on the TV. Like an old TV where the tint was either too green or too red. It’s so noticeable that it’s really difficult to watch without fixing it. That’s what listening to music is like for her, I guess.

She also has certain notes and keys she prefers. She had a very strong affinity for C# minor.

I often tune my guitar to her now…

[alexplayspiano]

I definitely taught myself perfect pitch at a young age, but I didn’t know what it was until my junior year of high school, so at first I didn’t even know there was a name for what I developed. I would sit at the piano and try and pick up songs by ear. Eventually, I got really good at it. And once I got good at it, I started to remember what specific pitches sounded like. I always associate certain notes with certain songs. Having a good ear for intervallic relationships also helps a lot.

Just my personal experience.

[dwatts]

I've heard many arguments that relative pitch is actually better. People with perfect pitch are sometimes less able to break out from the known chord structures and what they know, where those with learned relative pitch are a bit more willing to branch out and experiment.

[musicfxmaster]

I memorized the standard guitar tuning from higher to low ( E-B-G-D-A-E) within the first few months of starting my studies at age 9.. The only 2 open string notes missing are C and F, both half a step higher than the 1st and 2nd strings on the guitar. So, although I'm sure I don't have perfect pitch it is RELATIVELY easy for me to figure out what notes I'm hearing. The only requirement is to sing the guitar tuning in my head until I either land on the note (because it belongs on the guitar) or come close to it by the half step as in the cases of C and F. The interesting thing is that my teacher would always check that the tuning was correct before every lesson (although I don't know if he had perfect pitch, he would sometimes either play or just sing an E to me so I'd correct the overall tuning relative to that first E string which is also the pitch on the open 6th string on the guitar) I remember his nodding smile the day I sang all the guitar tuning back to him.. ;-) So I guess I learned it from him that I was supposed to also remember the notes, and so I did... (like Charles similar explanation about remembering those jazz tunes openings)

[agenericnerd]

For me I memorize notes just from things I hear/play a lot. A, D, G, C from tuning (I'm a pianist/cellist), e from fur elise (one of my favorites since I was little), and c-sharp from Debussy's arabesque #1. It was super interesting to learn where this came from!

[tucker]

This is exactly how my jazz band director explained it. I took it and ran with it. I can now identify almost all 12 pitches now and it's quite useful. Thanks Mr. Bordelon.

[tomasdahuabe]

YES this is exactly what I've been doing to recognize notes without reference, just acknowledging either which note does this X melody start on or which key this X song is on and reference myself from there, i call it Partial Pitch lol
i.e. Coldplay's Clocks melody starts on Eb, Hallelujah is on C, Don't stop me now is on F, etc

[conradsmith]

I am a singer and I determine pitches by how they feel when I sing them. If I sing the note high or low, then I can determine what the note is by how I strain to hit them. I don't always get it, but I'm usually always less than a step away. I have a few friends that have perfect pitch. I have about 5-15 friends with it. I've kind lost track. a couple of my best friends have had it. That may sound like a lot, but I'm in really good choirs. If you are in high quality music groups, then you will make friends with perfect pitch.