Absolutely intonation

[Savio]

My daughter 8 years surprised me a lot today. She has played the cornet for nearly one year. Good sound but of course she doesn't allow me to teach her. Sometimes she ask questions but that's all. She always show up in the bathroom when I practice there. But only play a few melodies and then she disappear. I gave her a beginner book in trumpet, but I noticed she likes to figure out melodies that I play.
Both on her cornet and an EL piano I gave her.

Today I really got a surprise. She found a tuner on my iPad and start singing notes. It's the tuner which gives a big green smiley when you are in tune. I accidentally noticed it and could see no matter note, it was straight in tune. I took the iPad away from her and asked her to sing cornet notes. Surprise, whatever note I told she sings it right and immediately in tune. So if I say F the tuner show an Eb.
I tried my self and with some thinking I can figure out notes, but not in tune like her. She doesn't think and it's spot on. Wonder where she got it from, not the mother and not me. But so surprising. I noticed when she speaks, the green smiley is mostly up. Strange? Wonder how to go further, but she don't allow me to do much. She also begin to look at my pBone.... I say wait, keep the piano and the cornet and we'll see.
Leif

[mrdeacon]

Sounds like she might have perfect pitch or something close to it! A real gift!

[imsevimse]

Sounds like she might have perfect pitch or something close to it! A real gift!

A gift and a curse is what I've heard. I don't have that but have met people that swear over this. It would be interesting to hear from people with experience. How to deal with the rest of us who can not play at perfect pitch?

I can also figure notes out. Sometimes I hear the note I'm going to play before I play it, even the starter note. This is not perfect pitch but happens by intuituon and comes only when I have a trombone in my hands or if I imagine I have one. The note comes without thinking. If I think it could be off by as much as a whole tone. I rely on a good relative pitch.

Often I can solve a note if I compare the note to my voice register. If I sing my highest note and my lowest note I can figure most notes from there, because my register does not change much day by day.

/Tom

[Pre59]

Sounds like she might have perfect pitch or something close to it! A real gift!

A gift and a curse is what I've heard. I don't have that but have met people that swear over this. It would be interesting to hear from people with experience. How to deal with the rest of us who can not play at perfect pitch?


/Tom

I've been close to it, and had two years of intensive ear training as a youth where I was taught various helpful techniques, but not "perfect", in the sense that I could be wrong once in a while. I also had powerful financial incentives to hone pitch skills working in "gig" bands on bass or trombone, playing in every key imaginable, especially with girl vocalists.

I have run into a situation where the leader calls the song and quietly sings part of it, and because I've missed the key instruction, I've come in the "sung" key, and not the actual one..

It seems that playing by ear as well as reading was the norm in my youth, is ear playing encouraged now?

[Doug Elliott]

I would not call it a curse.
I have had perfect pitch for most of my life. It's now less perfect that it was. Sometimes I hear a half step away from what it really is.

There is a theory that pitch recognition is developed in the very early years, as language is, from being exposed to complex music at an early age. Blind people often have it because they learn early in life to rely more on sounds. Kids can grow up with complex languages, or multilingual households, and are able to easily distinguish between different sounds and different languages - Pitch recognition is really no different.

Trying to "learn" perfect pitch at a later age is not the same as growing up with it.

[LeTromboniste]

Some people with perfect pitch say they can't seem to hear the "colour" of chords the way they understand others do, so in that sense it might not be just a gift, there might be drawbacks. And it can be a curse if you later start to play in different tuning systems and at different pitches. I have a friend whose perfect pitch has been gradually shifting down since she started playing baroque violin - for a while it was at around 425, so anything she played at either 415 or 440 felt completely out of tune. And she hated playing in meantone tuning where enharmonics are different notes 40 cents apart. She had to train herself to ignore and shut out her perfect pitch.

[Pre59]

Some people with perfect pitch say they can't seem to hear the "colour" of chords the way they understand others do, so in that sense it might not be just a gift, there might be drawbacks.

But not for this young man..

[paulyg]

There seems to be quite a bit of "gatekeeping" surrounding perfect pitch (elsewhere on the internet, not here!), with the suggestion being that it is an exceptionally rare ability that is "locked in" at birth/a very young age, and that it is not a learnable or teachable skill.

My thinking on the subject is this: while there are geniuses at everything else, there are geniuses at pitch recognition- people who can listen to a cat run across a piano and identify every key that was depressed, and tell you just how the piano is tuned, ect... but to me, this seems like the mark of someone who is exceptionally skilled at the aural skills that characterize all good musicians and singers, rather than a new class of supermusician with frets in their ears. Most of us are able to "shut off" our inner ear when we are playing, a contributing factor for people with increased sensitivity to pitch may be an increased awareness of their aural input... this would explain the reports that many of these perfect pitchers cannot bear performance settings. I do think that the prevailing attitude needs to shift- this is a serious problem for these performers, not for everyone else. Having an ear that is flexible enough to keep up with the changing reference pitch during performance is a prerequisite for playing with others. Indeed, someone with true perfect pitch should be able to match ANY pitch, not just the arbitrary notes in our western tuning system.

Leif, it's likely that your daughter developed this great skill observing and listening to you playing from a very young age.

[BurckhardtS]

I would not call it a curse.
I have had perfect pitch for most of my life. It's now less perfect that it was. Sometimes I hear a half step away from what it really is.

There is a theory that pitch recognition is developed in the very early years, as language is, from being exposed to complex music at an early age. Blind people often have it because they learn early in life to rely more on sounds. Kids can grow up with complex languages, or multilingual households, and are able to easily distinguish between different sounds and different languages - Pitch recognition is really no different.

Trying to "learn" perfect pitch at a later age is not the same as growing up with it.

I've always wondered if anyone can shed light or has any ideas about this:

I have "almost" perfect pitch, where I don't need a reference pitch for anything, I can tell when something is not in the original key if I've heard it before, and if you play a random pitch for me, I will get it right 99% of the time. When I was young (maybe 4-5) I was able to tell if a VHS was playing back at the wrong pitch slightly faster or slower because I could hear that the pitch was different.

The thing is, there are some notes that I immediately recognize, and others where it can take me a couple seconds. The 1% of the time where I'm wrong, I'm usually off by half a step, like you are.

I'm not quite the type where you can play a massively extended chord and pick out every single note in the stack quickly. I can do it, but it takes me a minute. It's because of this I don't really say I have "perfect" pitch, but "almost".

[Doug Elliott]

That's pretty much the way mine has been.
I think if you do a lot of transcribing, and maybe piano playing or other chordal instrument (I don't), and make sure everything you listening to is at the right pitch, you may be able to bump it up closer to 100%.

And stay away from anything electrical that emits 60 cycle hum.

[Pre59]

I find that it's much easier to get the pitch of instruments that I already know the timbre of. Synths are more tricky, as are guitars when they're tuned down to 432hz.

[StefanHaller]

[Savio]

I have a more normal ear skills. Not to bad I hope. I can easily listen when things are out or in tune. And mostly I figure out the Bb. That's actually more easy when I have the horn in hand. My daughter doesn't think, the answer is there immediately. Strange.

I played once with a blind piano player. I remember I played a F and she told; "that F is to high" scary..

Leif

[imsevimse]

Years ago I played in a professional band with a legendary trombone player over here, unfortunately no longer with us, who was known for his frank and honest comments, often very harsh. We arrived at the hotel and went back stage to warm up. I took out my horn and played my first long tone, an 'A', and he immediately bursted "You are TO SHARP YOU DEVIL.You are pushing it. Damn, it is just as bad as NN" and then he had disqualified not only me, but also another tromboneplayer who was not yet in the room I guess he was right and it was probably because he had perfect pitch. I never forget that first comment. It was rude and strange but probably well deserved. He really was angry.

/Tom

[Doug Elliott]

I've had those thoughts myself but I don't say anything....

I remember one performance of an excellent player who had obviously practiced extensively with a drone... "perfect" just intonation, I think. But he was accompanied by a piano. It was horrible, but maybe I was the only one who thought so.

[harrisonreed]

Watching the rehearsal with Christian -- he is someone who really holds in how badly he wants to say "wow, how can you not hear how out of tune you are" ... And he was taking time very patiently to work on intonation here and there with certain chords.

[Pre59]

Years ago I played in a professional band with a legendary trombone player over here, unfortunately no longer with us, who was known for his frank and honest comments, often very harsh. We arrived at the hotel and went back stage to warm up. I took out my horn and played my first long tone, an 'A', and he immediately bursted "You are TO SHARP YOU DEVIL.You are pushing it. Damn, it is just as bad as NN" and then he had disqualified not only me, but also another tromboneplayer who was not yet in the room I guess he was right and it was probably because he had perfect pitch. I never forget that first comment. It was rude and strange but probably well deserved. He really was angry.

/Tom

In 2019 there's a queue of equally good players out there waiting to fill those shoes, grateful for a job. I worked on cruise ships with people like him, suffice to say, now they're not playing with anyone, people have long memories..
A quiet word is usually the best solution in these situations.