andrew@hammer.TEK.COM (Andrew Klossner) (11/08/86)
My wife is totally unable to distinguish among tones. Now my
two-year-old daughter seems to be exhibiting the same syndrome: she's
learning to sing, but she hits notes at random.
What causes tone deafness? Is it physiological or psychological?
Is there anything I can do to "cure" it in my daughter?
-=- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew) [UUCP]
(tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA]gasp@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Isaac Kohane) (11/10/86)
There is evidence that just as perfect pitch is inherited, tone deafness is too. It is not psychological, but indeed physiological. The experience in training such individuals is mixed at best. Isaac
zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) (11/11/86)
In article <2376@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> gasp@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Isaac Kohane) writes: >There is evidence that just as perfect pitch is inherited, tone deafness >is too. It is not psychological, but indeed physiological. The experience >in training such individuals is mixed at best. Given that we don't completely understand the mechanism of hearing and that we can only guess, how the information is processed in the brain, I'm really surprised to hear that there is an "evidence" that absolute pitch (perfect pitch) is inherited. What's that evidence? I'm convinced that the mechanism of absolute pitch is not understood. As a result of having done some work in acoustics and being an amateur musician for many years I know, that the ability to distinguish high and low frequencies depends on training. Also note that there is no explicit definition of what "absolute pitch" is. I am not sure how one can claim that there is any evidence for a phenomenon that is not understood, especially in the cases of activities related to human brain. zdenek ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Men are four: He who knows and knows that he knows, he is wise - follow him; He who knows and knows not that he knows, he is asleep - wake him; He who knows not and knows that he knows not, he is simple - teach him; He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, he is a fool - shun him! zdenek@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU or ...!seismo!columbia!cs!zdenek Zdenek Radouch, 457 Computer Science, Columbia University, 500 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027
harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) (11/11/86)
In article <3808@columbia.UUCP>, zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) writes: > > Given that we don't completely understand the mechanism of hearing > and that we can only guess, how the information is processed in the brain, > I'm really surprised to hear that there is an "evidence" that absolute pitch > (perfect pitch) is inherited. What's that evidence?...Also note that there > is no explicit definition of what "absolute pitch" is. Absolute pitch is a special case of what psychophysicists call "absolute judgment" (also called absolute discrimination, identification, categorization, labeling). This is usually contrasted with relative judgment (or relative disctimination, or just discrimination). In relative discrimination, pairs of stimuli are presented, and the subject must perform a relative comparison, usually a same/different judgement, or a degree-of-similarity match. In identification, on the other hand, the stimulus is presented alone, and it must be given its correct (arbitrary, learned) "label" or name. George Miller wrote a famous paper in Psych Review in 1956 about the informational limits on relative vs absolute judgments ("The Magical Number 7 +/- 2"). Identification was governed by the 7-chunk constraint, discrimination varied with the sense modality in question and with the subject's sensory acuity. Identification capacity could be increased by "rechunking" or recoding the stimuli in question. The modern incarnation of this area of research is called "categorical perception," and I'm editing a book by that name which will appear in April, published by Cambridge University Press. (An active discussion on aspects of it is now going on in net.ai under the heading: "Searle, Turing, Symbols, Categories.") Absolute pitch (AP) is discussed in the book. Note that what most people call "relative pitch" is in fact a short-term instance of absolute judgment. The idea is that people with AP can identify all the semitones (C, C#, D, etc.) absolutely, when presented in isolation. Those with "relative pitch" can do the same thing, but only for a short period, while an identified "reference tone" is still fresh in their ears. Empirical questions about AP (and categorical perception in general), include whether it is innate or learned, what role physical, sensory, motor and cognitive constraints play in it, and what is the nature of the underlying representation. (Other examples include color identification and phoneme identification.) I presume that "tone deafness" refers either to absence of relative pitch or to radically diminished discriminative acuity. As long as someone is not entirely deaf, some frequency discrimination must be present. -- Stevan Harnad (609) - 921 7771 {allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad harnad%mind@princeton.csnet
zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) (11/12/86)
In article <210@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes: > >Absolute pitch is a special case of what psychophysicists call >"absolute judgment" (also called absolute discrimination, >identification, categorization, labeling). This is usually contrasted >with relative judgment (or relative disctimination, or just >discrimination). In relative discrimination, pairs of stimuli are >presented, and the subject must perform a relative comparison, usually >a same/different judgement, or a degree-of-similarity match. In >identification, on the other hand, the stimulus is presented alone, >and it must be given its correct (arbitrary, learned) "label" or name. The only problem with your "definition" is that it is as little explicit as those I was complaining about. I'll try to describe the ambiguity. Human ear can detect frequencies approximately from 20Hz to 20kHz. There is INFINITE number of frequencies (or pitches) in this range. The resolution of the ear is not infinite but certainly about two orders of magnitude higher than resolution necessary to identify notes in any musical system. A person identifying the pitch is basically determining if an unknown frequency Fx is from interval <Fmin,Fmax>. It's perfectly clear that the ability to do that will depend on the size if the interval i.e., on ratio Fmax/Fmin. Now some numbers. 1. Human ear can identify the ratio 1.0006. This is my estimate, comments welcome. 2. The distance between two closest tones in western musical system (12 notes per octave) is 1.06. 3. The octave has ratio of 2. If we divide the audio range into two halves (low and high), anybody with normal hearing can tell whether the pitch is high or low. That corresponds to range of abot 30. As a result of my experience in music and acoustics I can tell you the frequency of a tone with approximately octave error i.e., factor of 2. This is a result of an exposure to music, not result of any training. Note that I don't satisfy your definition of having absolute pitch. An individual with absolute pitch can identify interval of 1.06. Since there is nothing absolute or natural in the concept of measuring time and thus frequencies, this individual MUST HAVE GONE through some training, or at least he must have been exposed to the same thing I was. You said "it must be given its correct (arbitrary, learned) "label" or name.". That's crude simplification. The person under test is performing quantization. i.e., labeling the unknown as "nth member of N" (even the person with absolute pitch is going to label all frequencies from <438Hz,442Hz> as "a1"). N=10 (my case) doesn't imply absolute pitch; N=100 does! How about N=73? What's the definition? Anyway, back to my original question. We have three people here. 1. "musical ignorant" that clearly identifies ratio of 30. 2. Me, identifying ratio of 2 after some training. 3. Person with absolute pitch identifying ratio of 1.06 after some training. It's clear that (3) remembered or learned more than (2) and somebody said that there is an evidence that the skills of (3) are inherited. I'd like to know what's that evidence. > ....As long as someone is not entirely >deaf, some frequency discrimination must be present. Why? Seems to me that it'll depend on the actual hearing mechanism. Also, considering that most of the theories prefer acquisition in frequency domain, I would tend to disagree with your statement. zdenek zdenek@cs.columbia.edu or ...!seismo!columbia!cs!zdenek
harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) (11/12/86)
In article <3817@columbia.UUCP>, zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) writes: > The only problem with your "definition" is that it is as little explicit > as those I was complaining about. I'll try to describe the ambiguity. > Human ear can detect frequencies approximately from 20Hz to 20kHz. > There is INFINITE number of frequencies (or pitches) in this range. > The resolution of the ear is not infinite but certainly about two orders > of magnitude higher than resolution necessary to identify notes in any > musical system. A person identifying the pitch is basically determining > if an unknown frequency Fx is from interval <Fmin,Fmax>. It's perfectly > clear that the ability to do that will depend on the size [o]f the interval > i.e., on ratio Fmax/Fmin. The trouble is that your considerations conflate (1) detection, (2) discrimination ("resolution"?) and (3) identification. The psychophysics of each of these is different. Detection (1) is the judgment whether any stimulus at all is detectably present, not whether it is discriminably different from any other stimulus (2), nor whether it is absolutely identifiable (3). Detectability is usually determined using signal detection theory, calculating a d' for the distance of a given signal from noise for a given subject. Discriminability (resolution) is measured, as I indicated, by pairwise same/different judgments. With this method, the "just-noticeable-difference," (jnd) can be calculated. In an isotropic continuum (one that obeys Weber's Law that the perceived relative intensity of a pair of stimuli will be proportional to the ratio of the logarithms of their physical intensities) this jnd can be thought of as a constant minimal increment, the smallest interstimulus difference that you can "resolve" (relatively) along the continuum. The jnd is never (as you correctly anticipate) infinitely small. It is a psychophysical quantum unit. So much for relative discrimination (2). Absolute identification (3) is another matter, and, as Miller (op. cit.) pointed out, it does not generally covary with the sensory continuum in question, or its specific "resolution" properties, but depends on how the stimuli are represented -- i.e., on exposure, learning, memory, and/or possibly also on innately tuned feature-detectors. All things being equal, for a given (Weberian, isotropic) sensory continuum, 7 +/- 2 subintervals are the maximum number into which it can be partitioned before the error rate in absolutely identifying which interval a given stimulus belongs to rises precipitously. The same is true (up to a limit, related to the size of the jnd) for any subinterval of a continuum; in other words, if the range of alternatives (the confusability matrix) is reduced, the resolution "grain" of absolute judgment IN JND UNITS becomes finer; however, it remains 7 +/- 2 "chunks" or subintervals of any given interval. The only exceptions to these general principles are NONISOTROPIC continua -- continua that show discontinuities or local compression/expansions in the Weber function. Another way of putting it is that the jnd size grows and shrinks along the continuum instead of remaining constant (for log ratios). For continua of this kind the "resolving" capacity of absolute judgment may exceed Miller's limit, i.e., we may be able to identify more than 7 +/- 2 subintervals reliably. This phenomenon is known as Categorical Perception. It is exhibited (innately) by the chromatic frequency continuum (the visible spectrum) as reflected in our color identification capacity, by several acoustic continua (e.g., the "2nd formant transtition" along the ba-da-ga continuum -- a one-dimensional variable in the spectrogram) as reflected in our phoneme discrimination capacity, and in the auditory frequency continuum, as reflected in the pitch identification capacity of those with "perfect pitch" (including, as I said last time, those with short-term perfect pitch -- "relative pitch" -- while they retain a reference note in immediate memory). Typically, in categorical perception, the boundaries of the absolutely identifiable subintervals correspond to the compression maxima in the Weber function: the regions where the jnds are the smallest. Here a small physical difference (between categories) is perceived as being larger than a large difference elsewhere (within categories). The book I mentioned is concerned with the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon, including whether it is innate or derived form exposure or learning. > 1. Human ear can identify the ratio 1.0006. This is my estimate, comments > welcome. > 2. The distance between two closest tones in western musical system > (12 notes per octave) is 1.06. > 3. The octave has ratio of 2. > If we divide the audio range into two halves (low and high), anybody with > normal hearing can tell whether the pitch is high or low. That corresponds > to range of abo[u]t 30. For the correct psychoacoustic parameters of pitch discrimination I must refer you to a textbook of psychophysics or audiology. However, I again have to point out that "identify" is being misused, because identification is an absolute judgment and is not, in general, predictable merely from a knowledge of discriminability and sensory ratios (apart from the 7 +/- 2 rule for any given interval). [I should also add that, because of physics (the "overtone" series, or upper harmonics of any raw fundamental pitch) as well as physiology (of the cochlea and the auditory representation), the octave has a privileged status in perception, so we should probably only be considering sub-octave subintervals in calculating our resolving capacity, relative or absolute.] And again, high/low identifiability is predictable from Millerian considerations alone (so is hi, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 lo), but no more than that can be said a priori, especially if it is not known whether or not the continuum in question is isotropic. > As a result of my experience in music and acoustics I can tell you the > frequency of a tone with approximately octave error i.e., factor of 2. > This is a result of an exposure to music, not result of any training. Note > that I don't satisfy your definition of having absolute pitch. > > An individual with absolute pitch can identify interval of 1.06. > Since there is nothing absolute or natural in the concept of measuring time > and thus frequencies, this individual MUST HAVE GONE through some training, > or at least he must have been exposed to the same thing I was. I can't follow you here. What is "octave error" if I present you with 440 hz? What error range will you have? Semitone? Tone? Fifth? Octave? Also, what is the difference between exposure to music and training? Do you mean listening only? Have you never hummed a tune? And which of my definitions of AP do you fail to satisfy? What most people call "relative pitch" (i.e., temporary absolute pitch while remembering a reference tone) is a kind of (temporary) "absolute pitch" too. Do you have that? Finally, I can't follow at all the part about the unnaturalness of frequencies. Would you say the same of colors (i.e., that they must have been trained)? It seems to me it's an empirical question which instances of categorical perception arise from training, which from exposure, which innately, and which not at all. > You said "it must be given its correct (arbitrary, learned) "label" or name.". > That's crude simplification. The person under test is performing quantization. > i.e., labeling the unknown as "nth member of N" (even the person with absolute > pitch is going to label all frequencies from <438Hz,442Hz> as "a1"). > N=10 (my case) doesn't imply absolute pitch; N=100 does! How about N=73? > What's the definition? A person has (long-term) AP if he can identify (or produce) -- in isolation, and without a reference note -- any audible pitch to within, say, the nearest eighth-tone. There may be an additional phenomenon of the individual who can remember (hence identify or produce in isolation), say, an A-440 to within a jnd, and using that, can generate all the notes in the well-tempered A-440-based system to within a jnd using that as a reference note (consciously or unconsciously). This potential reference-based RECODING of the entire continuum, however, seems to me to remove part of this problem from the arena of sensory psychophysics and into that of cognitive representation. [Note that such a person would not have the same resolving capacity for stimuli in an A-445-based system, i.e., all the jnd's in-between.] Miller gave a similar example of recoding when he showed that, in general, we can only remember a string of 7 +/- 2 digits, e.g., strings of 0's and 1's. If, however, we overlearn the decimal names for binary strings of, say, 1 - 20, then, using those larger, recoded "chunks," we become capable of remembering a correspondinly longer string of binary bits. [Note that all you need is an absolute memory for one pitch, e.g., A-440, plus relative pitch for the well-tempered scale, plus octave invariance, to accomplish all the rest of "perfect pitch" by recoding.] According to the theory of categorical perception, by the way, "quantization" consists of the "bounding" of subregions of a continuum by compression and/or expansion of the Weber function. > Anyway, back to my original question. We have three people here. > 1. "musical ignorant" that clearly identifies ratio of 30. > 2. Me, identifying ratio of 2 after some training. > 3. Person with absolute pitch identifying ratio of 1.06 after some training. > It's clear that (3) remembered or learned more than (2) and somebody said > that there is an evidence that the skills of (3) are inherited. > I'd like to know what's that evidence. The empirical question is not settled. J & W Siegel (in several articles in the Journal of the Acoustical Society, reviewed in the forthcoming categorical perception book I mentioned) found that categorical perception for pitch could be trained, but it is not clear that what they demonstrated was the long-term version or the familiar short-term ("relative pitch") version, or whether or not there are individual differences in how readily or to what degree people can be trained in this. > > ....As long as someone is not entirely > >deaf, some frequency discrimination must be present. > > Why? Seems to me that it'll depend on the actual hearing mechanism. Also, > considering that most of the theories prefer acquisition in frequency > domain, I would tend to disagree with your statement. I can't follow this either. Hearing may vary in acuity for frequency discrimination, amplitude discrimination, temporal resolution, and verious aspects of timbre and acoustic pattern. I am just suggesting that most people who call themselves (or are called) "tone deaf" probably retain considerable frequency discriminative ability, and have probably been called tone deaf either because they cannot carry or or identify or recognize a tune, or perhaps they have demonstrated diminished frequency discrimination. Production is clearly a different problem from discrimination. So is tune identification and recognition. I doubt that there is a condition (short of total deafness) in which amplitude discrimination, etc., are relatively spared and frequency discrimination is flat. Finally, what do you mean "acquisition"? There are acquisition theories for identification and categorical perception, but none that I know of for relative discrimination, which most psychoacousticians and audiologists consider innate, requiring, at most, some auditory exposure (i.e., something short of total sensory deprivation) in order to become fully functional. -- Stevan Harnad (609) - 921 7771 {allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard} !princeton!mind!harnad harnad%mind@princeton.csnet
jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) (11/12/86)
In physics class in high school, my teacher asked if any of us
knew what tone was being produced in his demonstration of wave
phenomena. I thought, "why not?" and came up with the correct
answer ... just as he said, "good, i hate people with perfect
pitch." ... I explained later that I hadn't used perfect pitch,
but rather counted up from middle-C (a technique harnad mentions
in passing in a later article). I was told that most people
with perfect pitch do in fact use this technique, either
consciously or unconsciously. One frequency is well-remembered,
which is easier than memorizing all (perfectly-tempered) notes;
and then octaves can be easily generated and any other notes
counted. This appears to be a learned trait. My sister,
however, memorized my answering-machine tone by hearing me
whistle it (!@#$); and my mother recognized it as a fractional
tone (not a pure natural, sharp, or flat). Perhaps there is
also an inherited factor. This is all speculation, though.
The jnd is much smaller in the presence of a reference tone.
When I tune my instruments by myself, I get pretty close; but
when I tune (by ear) against other instruments simultaneously,
I can get almost perfect equality of tone. Better than other
people, sometimes. (Actually, I tune by trying to phase out
the "beat" frequency; but I can tell the direction and the
approximate amplitude of the difference, when others can't.)
Harnad's book sounds interesting; but I wish he would post
title and projected publication info. That's not advertising,
that's giving a reference [;-)].
--
Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP}
jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)bcase@amdcad.UUCP (Brian Case) (11/12/86)
In article <3808@columbia.UUCP> zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu.UUCP (Zdenek Radouch) writes: > I'm convinced that the mechanism of absolute pitch is not understood. >As a result of having done some work in acoustics and being an amateur >musician for many years I know, that the ability to distinguish high and >low frequencies depends on training. Hmmm, I was singing at age 3, rather on pitch I might add (Lemon Tree was one of my favorite songs). I don't think I had much training. I, for one, believe that musical ability (perhaps aptitiude is a better term), like athletic ability (aptitude), is inherited. Now, one can certainly choose to leave that aptitude undeveloped, but the ability to distinguish between high and low frequencies is one that will almost certainly make itself apparent because of the pervasiveness of music in modern life. What I am curious about is why music is appealing to those people who really are tone deaf! Maybe being tone deaf doesn't necessarily mean that one is harmony deaf? Wait, what group is this again? Oh, sci.med, maybe I am a little off the track now....
salem@sri-unix.ARPA (Bruce B. Salem) (11/12/86)
I have known people with absolute pitch and many more who are tone deaf. I myself am neither. I taught myself to sight sing, and so have good intervallic ear training. I do have some kind of absolute pitch memory, for I can recall a piece on pitch, testing with written music and tuning fork, when I don't try too hard. I believe that it is easy for me to have absolute pitch on the piano, when I am playing alot, but very much harder otherwise. In any case I carry a tuning fork around with me and use my interval training to get pitch. I think that the practical problem of using absolute pitch, really pitch memory, is more complicated than remembering frequency. I`d guess that more poeple have pitch with their favorite instrument than with a pure wave oscillator because they rely on the timbre of the instrument to cue them as to pitch. Even I can tell the open G string on the violin. As for the value of absolute pitch as a musical skill, I have heard that it is in fact not the great asset it would seem, for a person relies too much on it and not on interval and harmony ear training which are really more inportant most of the time. One must also distinguish between pitch discrimination and absolute pitch. About 15 years I was a subject in an expeiment that was done at a medical school that sought to test how well a listener could choose harmonic intervals up and down and distinguish two pitches closer than a minor second. By the way the chromatically trained ear tends to call pairs closer than a semitone, a semitone. I could distinguish spearations of less than 5%, I recall. Bruce Salem
suhre@trwrb.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) (11/13/86)
In article <3817@columbia.UUCP> zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu.UUCP (Zdenek Radouch) writes: >Anyway, back to my original question. We have three people here. >1. "musical ignorant" that clearly identifies ratio of 30. >2. Me, identifying ratio of 2 after some training. >3. Person with absolute pitch identifying ratio of 1.06 after some training. > >It's clear that (3) remembered or learned more than (2) and somebody said >that there is an evidence that the skills of (3) are inherited. >I'd like to know what's that evidence. Operating on supposition, the evidence might be that many many people learn to play the piano. Of those who have had lessons, very few "learn" absolute pitch. It would seem that if it is a learned skill, very few have the ability to learn it. Mine just happened. One day I knew I could identify notes from the piano without seeing them (or having a previous reference). Obviously, the absolute pitch capability cannot pick out 400.132956 Hz :-) However, someone who is good can identify pitches, and probably also identify them as "flat" or "sharp" from the true pitch. Finally, my ability (i.e. accuracy of determination) as declined with age. I think it first went when I started playing in the high school band, which seemed flat to me. -- Maurice Suhre {decvax,sdcrdcf,ihnp4,ucbvax}!trwrb!suhre
anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson) (11/13/86)
Radouch and especially Harnad have been giving us the technical lowdown on so-called tone-deafness (I do not believe it exists), pitch discrimination, and allied topics. As always, very useful and illuminating. I'll try to add something, since I have some relevant experience. As a freshman in college (you don't want to know when! :-), I entered the School of Music (Urbana). We were given very extensive hearing/apptitude tests. On the basis of the test, the new freshpersons with "perfect" pitch were all (about 16) placed in a special theory class and taught by the theory chair, a composer named Gordon Binkerd. I most assuredly do not have perfect pitch, but I had three jobs, and this special class was the only one I could fit into my schedule. That meant that the instructor and I were the only ones in there who did *not* have perfect pitch. For sight-singing we did madrigals by Gesualdo the first day; rather a large challenge. Among other things, from this atypical experience I got fairly good relative pitch (interval recognition) fairly quickly (one has to survive :-). While I am a great believer (word used advisedly) in talent and innate abilities, I think we've been making too much of the matter here. While there are people who have almost no trouble finding the correct label for what they hear, I think it's 99.9% a matter of training *in hearing* (this is my big point!). As for one's ability to differentiate two adjacent tones, Zdenek may have the right ratios. According to what I've learned and directly experienced the resolution of the ear seems to be in the neighborhood of 4/100 of a semitone. BTW, now that I'm a harpsichordist for a longish time and have had to tune instruments countless times, my ear is somewhat better than it used to be. "Out of tune" is how I'd characterize almost all performances (shockingly, most recordings!). Finally, there are A's and there are A's -- that's a pitch that can be anywhere from 385 Hz to 448 Hz. Since I usually tune to 415, most people's A is my B-flat, and the first thing that annoys me about hearing Baroque music on modern instruments is that it's all too high and piercing. Last of all (promise), is sci.med the place for this? Of course, the medical community are among the more ardent amateurs (root sense) of music, and the hearing questions are to a degree matters of physiology, but are our *musicians* tuned in? --- Sorry to run on at such length. -- ==ARPA:====================anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu===Jess Anderson====== | UUCP: {harvard,seismo,topaz, 1210 W. Dayton | | akgua,allegra,ihnp4,usbvax}!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson Madison, WI 53706 | ==BITNET:============================anderson@wiscmacc===608/263-6988=======
zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu (Zdenek Radouch) (11/14/86)
Since the discussion is somewhat digressing from medicine I am going to post my replies to Matt Fichtenbaum and Stevan Harnad to sci.misc. zdenek zdenek@cs.columbia.edu or ...!seismo!columbia!cs!zdenek
artm@phred.UUCP (Art Marriott) (11/14/86)
In article <510@sri-unix.ARPA> salem@sri-unix.UUCP (Bruce B. Salem) writes: > > As for the value of absolute pitch as a musical skill, I have heard >that it is in fact not the great asset it would seem, for a person relies too >much on it and not on interval and harmony ear training which are really more >inportant most of the time. In addition, someone with absolute pitch tends to get VERY irritated when forced to deal with an out-of-tune instrument that can't be retuned immediately i. e. a piano or organ (or an extremely stubborn singing group!). Then not only is absolute pitch not an asset, it's a bloody curse! It's my personal impression that absolute pitch perception is a (learned) special case of relative pitch. I'm pretty sure I determine pitch by having the sound of middle C on the piano firmly committed to memory and figuring the interval of a given note relative to this mental reference. I'm also involved in a choir on an intermittent basis, and I'm certain that my pitch judgement is better when I'm singing regularly and deteriorates when I'm not. Art Marriott tikal!phred!artm .............................................................................. My opinions are strictly my own, in case anyone actually cares. ..............................................................................
mwg@bellcore.UUCP (Mark Garrett) (11/18/86)
++ > 1. Human ear can identify the ratio 1.0006. This is my estimate, comments > welcome. > 2. The distance between two closest tones in western musical system > (12 notes per octave) is 1.06. > 3. The octave has ratio of 2. > > An individual with absolute pitch can identify interval of 1.06. > > zdenek I think it must be higher precision than that. I've heard that people with perfect pitch can notice the fact that some orchestras (Boston Symphony?) tune to A = 444 Hz, instead of 440 Hz to get a brighter tone. They perceive the music as being somehow off-key. This gives a resolution of at least 1.009. -Mark Garrett