new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

Paul H. - here is a good overview of the contemporary
understanding of perfect pitch:
http://www.philomel.com/pdf/Acoustics_Today_2006.pdf

-Carl

Well, I can't get beyond the first column ...

"the fact that most famous musicians, such as Bach,
Beethoven, Handel, Menuhin, Toscanini, Boulez, and so
on, were known to possess this ability."

What, no footnotes or citations to back this up? For Bach and Handel
to have had absolute pitch seems extremely unlikely, given that the
keyboard instruments they encountered would have been tuned to at
least three, and probably many more, pitch standards. (Does Deutsch
know this?) That is: at a minimum Kammerton and Tief Kammerton and
Chorton. Since Handel went to Italy and England he probably met one or
two more pitches there.

http://www.egoldmidincd.com/absolute_pitch.html

And what is the evidence for Beethoven? I can't find any convincing
sources. I know that he claimed to be able to identify any key by ear
- but that probably meant key character, i.e. the conventional
relation between the key and the content of the music. So he claimed
to distinguish between Db major and C# major, even though these would
sound at identical pitches. Even in Beethoven's time the pitch
standard was fairly haphazard.

What I want to know is, how exact can AP be? For example, hearing an
isolated note at 442 Hz (or whatever), how many AP possessors would
call it as sharp?

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Paul H. - here is a good overview of the contemporary
> understanding of perfect pitch:
> http://www.philomel.com/pdf/Acoustics_Today_2006.pdf
>
> -Carl
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
> Well, I can't get beyond the first column ...
>
> "the fact that most famous musicians, such as Bach,
> Beethoven, Handel, Menuhin, Toscanini, Boulez, and so
> on, were known to possess this ability."
>
> What, no footnotes or citations to back this up? For Bach and Handel
> to have had absolute pitch seems extremely unlikely, given that the
> keyboard instruments they encountered would have been tuned to at
> least three, and probably many more, pitch standards. (Does Deutsch
> know this?) That is: at a minimum Kammerton and Tief Kammerton and
> Chorton. Since Handel went to Italy and England he probably met one
> or two more pitches there.

And this would effect their AP... how?

I've read accounts of Bach and AP.

> http://www.egoldmidincd.com/absolute_pitch.html
>
> And what is the evidence for Beethoven? I can't find any convincing
> sources. I know that he claimed to be able to identify any key by
> ear - but that probably meant key character, i.e. the conventional
> relation between the key and the content of the music.

The Baroque/Classical notion of key character is strongly tied
to AP. It is not down to tuning error differences in circulating
temperaments, as is sometimes claimed.

> What I want to know is, how exact can AP be? For example, hearing an
> isolated note at 442 Hz (or whatever), how many AP possessors would
> call it as sharp?

Some can, some can't.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
>
> Well, I can't get beyond the first column ...
>
> "the fact that most famous musicians, such as Bach,
> Beethoven, Handel, Menuhin, Toscanini, Boulez, and so
> on, were known to possess this ability."
>
> What, no footnotes or citations to back this up? For Bach and Handel
> to have had absolute pitch seems extremely unlikely, given that the
> keyboard instruments they encountered would have been tuned to at
> least three, and probably many more, pitch standards. (Does Deutsch
> know this?) That is: at a minimum Kammerton and Tief Kammerton and
> Chorton. Since Handel went to Italy and England he probably met one
or
> two more pitches there.
>
> http://www.egoldmidincd.com/absolute_pitch.html

Given that AP is acquired in early childhood and that it may be
acquired within a very short time (say a matter of a few weeks, as
was my experience at the age of 6-1/2), this observation about
multiple pitch standards is quite irrelevant. A young child taught a
keyboard instrument at home would more likely than not spend the
first couple of months playing only a single instrument -- an amount
of time sufficient to develop AP.

However, I imagine that this child's subsequent discovery of multiple
pitch standards (or lack thereof) in the world outside would be a bit
unnerving.

> What I want to know is, how exact can AP be? For example, hearing an
> isolated note at 442 Hz (or whatever), how many AP possessors would
> call it as sharp?

AP discrimination _can be_ that fine, provided that the subject has
had the opportunity to listen to these differences a sufficient
number of times in order to commit them to memory. I don't know how
many have attempted to do this; I haven't, because I don't think it's
worth the trouble. Instead, I've just generalized the region of
pitches very close to A=440 as being "A".

For a second opinion, see this link:

http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html

To locate the place that most specifically addresses your question,
search for "Pavarotti".

--George

> However, I imagine that this child's subsequent discovery
> of multiple pitch standards (or lack thereof) in the world
> outside would be a bit unnerving.

This oft heard sentiment is really mythical.

Unnerving in the same way that transposing a orchestral
trumpet part for Bb trumpet is unnerving (until it becomes
second-nature). But not unnerving in any supernatural way.

There's a sensitive period for AP, but the skill can be
refined with practice throughout one's life.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
>
> > keyboard instruments they encountered would have been tuned to at
> > least three, and probably many more, pitch standards. (Does Deutsch
> > know this?) That is: at a minimum Kammerton and Tief Kammerton and
> > Chorton. Since Handel went to Italy and England he probably met one
> > or two more pitches there.
>
> And this would effect their AP... how?

You mean their supposed or claimed AP - no circular arguments please.

Unless you have one single privileged pitch standard by which to
identify and name notes, AP in anything like the modern sense is
fairly meaningless. It could mean something if pitch standards
differed by some whole number of semitones (with an inevitable fudge
factor due to the uncertain size of semitone) - but what if there are
also instruments with pitch 'in the cracks'.

George Secor put forward the idea that Bach and Handel, for some
reason, would have been exposed to only one keyboard instrument with a
fixed and stable pitch at the young age when AP may be acquired. That
is highly debatable. The pitch of clavichords and harpsichords is
unstable over periods longer than a few weeks. The standard used to
tune them would have been a pitch-pipe (no tuning forks yet!) which
itself is unstable according to temperature, humidity etc. - as are
organs.

I don't exclude that Bach and many others could have had an ability
*analogous* to people who today recognise pitches in the A=440 (or
438, Luciano!) equal-tempered scale - but it must have manifested
itself in a rather different way, given the absence of stable pitch
standard. Bach couldn't have said 'that's an A'. More like (if he was
really accurate!) 'that's an A in Cammerton a bit flatter than the old
pitch-pipe my uncle used, in a cold winter'.

> I've read accounts of Bach and AP.

Good. Where, and what do they say? A lot of Bach stories are
posthumous mythology.

> > And what is the evidence for Beethoven?

... I'm still asking.

> The Baroque/Classical notion of key character is strongly tied
> to AP.

Another joke... Why would anyone believe that, given the wide and
unpredictable variation in pitch standards between different places
and instruments? It makes no sense. One person's D major would,
counting by absolute pitch alone, be another's C# major.

The historical sources identify named keys (eg D major) as the source
of key character, not pitches. Keys refer to the particular pitch
standard of the instrument they are played on.

> It is not down to tuning error differences in circulating
> temperaments, as is sometimes claimed.

Who says? I can cite you a source from France about 1700 which
discusses this point and states the exact opposite. Namely, if you
tune two harpsichords in the normal way, but one a semitone higher
than the other, you find a very large difference in character when
playing on one of them in C# major and on the other in C major,
although the pitch of the keynotes may be the same.

(And as if there weren't many, many other possible sources of key
character in the peculiar characteristics of instruments and musical
notation...)

More and better history please!

~~~T~~~

> > > keyboard instruments they encountered would have been
> > > tuned to at least three, and probably many more, pitch
> > > standards.
//
> > And this would effect their AP... how?
>
> You mean their supposed or claimed AP - no circular arguments
> please.

What about the people who *did* have AP then, Tom?

> Unless you have one single privileged pitch standard by which to
> identify and name notes, AP in anything like the modern sense is
> fairly meaningless.

Not true at all, fortunately.

> It could mean something if pitch standards
> differed by some whole number of semitones

What do semitones have to do with it?

> but what if there are
> also instruments with pitch 'in the cracks'.

There *are* such instruments!!

> George Secor put forward the idea that Bach and Handel, for some
> reason, would have been exposed to only one keyboard instrument
> with a fixed and stable pitch at the young age when AP may be
> acquired.

That's not necessary but it's probably helpful. Per my response
to his comment, it's more accurate to say 'they got started with
AP at a single pitch standard', rather than "acquired" it in
perfect completeness. Further, it is probably at least as
accurate to talk about 'not extinguishing AP' at an early age
than 'acquiring it'.

> The pitch of clavichords and harpsichords is
> unstable over periods longer than a few weeks.

It sure is. I guess AP wasn't possible until 1900 or so.

> I don't exclude that Bach and many others could have had an
> ability *analogous* to people who today recognise pitches in
> the A=440 (or 438, Luciano!) equal-tempered scale

You're apparently under the misapprehension that this strange
ability is AP. There's no analogy involved. AP is simply
linguistic access to an innate perception of absolute pitches.
If you can transpose from manuscript you can transpose from AP.
I wish you would have made it past the first paragraph of the
paper.

> > I've read accounts of Bach and AP.
>
> Good. Where, and what do they say? A lot of Bach stories are
> posthumous mythology.

True, and this could have been one. I read it in the library
at IU -- no chance I'll recall the cite. But I think it's more
important to stamp out some myths about AP than to argue about
Bach having processed it.

> > The Baroque/Classical notion of key character is strongly tied
> > to AP.
>
> Another joke... Why would anyone believe that, given the wide and
> unpredictable variation in pitch standards between different
> places and instruments? It makes no sense.

It isn't clear from the literature exactly what 'baroque key
characters' are, or that there was any consensus on it. Are
you prepared to demonstrate otherwise?

> The historical sources identify named keys (eg D major) as the
> source of key character, not pitches.

That's true. And circulating temperaments have something to
do with it (I think I've read some sources that specifically
call it out). But my guess is their key differences were more
an effect than a cause, of the frequency of use of different
keys in music -- ditto the wolves of meantone temperament.
Forms based on the human voice and other free-pitch instruments
predate forms that rely on keyboards. So there is clearly
something going on with key preference above and beyond the
error of the consonances in keyboard temperaments.

> (And as if there weren't many, many other possible sources of key
> character in the peculiar characteristics of instruments and musical
> notation...)

Indeed. How would one classify the key character of an orchestra?
I can give you cites of people doing that, right up through
Mozart, when there was no keyboard involved.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > > > keyboard instruments they encountered would have been
> > > > tuned to at least three, and probably many more, pitch
> > > > standards.
> //
> > > And this would effect their AP... how?
> >
> > You mean their supposed or claimed AP - no circular arguments
> > please.
>
> What about the people who *did* have AP then, Tom?
>
> > Unless you have one single privileged pitch standard by which to
> > identify and name notes, AP in anything like the modern sense is
> > fairly meaningless.
>
> Not true at all, fortunately.
>
> > It could mean something if pitch standards
> > differed by some whole number of semitones
>
> What do semitones have to do with it?
>
> > but what if there are
> > also instruments with pitch 'in the cracks'.
>
> There *are* such instruments!!
>
> > George Secor put forward the idea that Bach and Handel, for some
> > reason, would have been exposed to only one keyboard instrument
> > with a fixed and stable pitch at the young age when AP may be
> > acquired.
>
> That's not necessary but it's probably helpful. Per my response
> to his comment, it's more accurate to say 'they got started with
> AP at a single pitch standard', rather than "acquired" it in
> perfect completeness. Further, it is probably at least as
> accurate to talk about 'not extinguishing AP' at an early age
> than 'acquiring it'.
>
> > The pitch of clavichords and harpsichords is
> > unstable over periods longer than a few weeks.
>
> It sure is. I guess AP wasn't possible until 1900 or so.
>
> > I don't exclude that Bach and many others could have had an
> > ability *analogous* to people who today recognise pitches in
> > the A=440 (or 438, Luciano!) equal-tempered scale
>
> You're apparently under the misapprehension that this strange
> ability is AP. There's no analogy involved. AP is simply
> linguistic access to an innate perception of absolute pitches.
> If you can transpose from manuscript you can transpose from AP.
> I wish you would have made it past the first paragraph of the
> paper.
>
> > > I've read accounts of Bach and AP.
> >
> > Good. Where, and what do they say? A lot of Bach stories are
> > posthumous mythology.
>
> True, and this could have been one. I read it in the library
> at IU -- no chance I'll recall the cite. But I think it's more
> important to stamp out some myths about AP than to argue about
> Bach having processed it.
>
> > > The Baroque/Classical notion of key character is strongly tied
> > > to AP.
> >
> > Another joke... Why would anyone believe that, given the wide and
> > unpredictable variation in pitch standards between different
> > places and instruments? It makes no sense.
>
> It isn't clear from the literature exactly what 'baroque key
> characters' are, or that there was any consensus on it. Are
> you prepared to demonstrate otherwise?
>
> > The historical sources identify named keys (eg D major) as the
> > source of key character, not pitches.
>
> That's true. And circulating temperaments have something to
> do with it (I think I've read some sources that specifically
> call it out). But my guess is their key differences were more
> an effect than a cause, of the frequency of use of different
> keys in music -- ditto the wolves of meantone temperament.
> Forms based on the human voice and other free-pitch instruments
> predate forms that rely on keyboards. So there is clearly
> something going on with key preference above and beyond the
> error of the consonances in keyboard temperaments.
>
> > (And as if there weren't many, many other possible sources of key
> > character in the peculiar characteristics of instruments and
musical
> > notation...)
>
> Indeed. How would one classify the key character of an orchestra?
> I can give you cites of people doing that, right up through
> Mozart, when there was no keyboard involved.
>
> -Carl
>
I haven't studied the paper yet, but I would like to make
the analogy to color. You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue
(indigo - that was a mistake) and violet. So identifying pitches
is like identifying color. Now there are different kinds of
red, but some are closer to what we think of as pure red for
example.

Okay, producing a pitch would indeed have to be based on some
system, but I would guess that 10 cent accuracy would be enough,
and under that it is hard to determine if most people (even those
with AP) are that sensitive to pitch. This is 1.005793 to six places.
Even with different systems, and different A's, I can still imagine
AP would be of some value, even then. Okay to infuriate everyone I am
going to put that in binary: 10000000101111011101001... Choose your
octave, it's pretty close to unity!

- Paul Hj

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > However, I imagine that this child's subsequent discovery
> > of multiple pitch standards (or lack thereof) in the world
> > outside would be a bit unnerving.
>
> This oft heard sentiment is really mythical.

It didn't seem mythical to me when I attempted to play an electronic
keyboard a couple of weeks ago and momentarily was shocked to find
that everything was coming out a whole step lower. It's *very
disorienting* -- something like trying to read text in which the
vowels have been switched around. When I read music, I translate the
notes into mental pitches and then use that information to do
whatever physical action it takes to play (or sing) those pitches on
whatever instrument I'm playing (/singing). Changing the overall
pitch of the instrument (as would occur with a drastically different
pitch standard) would wreak havoc with my pitch-action linkage, and
from what I've read, I would conclude that others with AP would have
the same reaction. (More about this below.)

If I'm called upon to transpose a piece into a different key for a
singer, I may first play the piece through in the original key (if
necessary, for familiarization), after which I can transpose it
mentally (although this is more difficult than the clef solution I
give below, which requires thinking in only a single key). My AP
skills are of the sort that, if I'm familiar with a popular tune
through hearing it multiple times, I'll be able to play it in any
key, even if I've never played it before (come to think of it,
shouldn't anyone with good relative pitch be able to do that?).

To avoid making this entirely OT, might I add that a generalized
keyboard would, because of its transpositional invariance, eliminate
many of the difficulties of transposing, improvising, or playing by
ear for both AP and non-AP keyboardists, because one would be able to
think almost entirely in terms of intervals and their associated key-
patterns.

> Unnerving in the same way that transposing a orchestral
> trumpet part for Bb trumpet is unnerving (until it becomes
> second-nature). But not unnerving in any supernatural way.

With AP it's a little different than that. If the instrument isn't
producing the expected pitches, then I would have to translate the
notes directly into physical actions and do my best to ignore the
pitches being produced. This is perhaps feasible for a transposed
keyboard, but if I happen to be playing a transposing wind instrument
(not hypothetical, since I've played clarinet, trumpet, and French
horn, each for a period of at least several years), I'll need to pay
attention to my intonation. I've found that the best solution for a
person with AP is *not* to transpose the pitches, but rather to learn
to read a different *clef* at the same time one learns to play the
instrument. (This is particularly true with the French horn, which
sounds a 5th lower than written.) As a result, I've learned to read
5 different clefs fluently, and using the technique of translating
notes to pitches to physical actions, I can sight-read a reasonably
simple part (i.e., one that's not beyond my technical ability)
written for one instrument on another instrument (or sight-sing it).

For example, on the French horn (in F, which parts I normally read in
mezzo-soprano clef in C) I sight-read viola (alto clef in C) and
trombone (bass clef in C) parts with little difficulty the very
first time I tried, and the first time I encountered a horn part in E-
flat, I immediately sight-read it with no trouble at all as soon as I
had figured out (after only a few seconds) that the pitches could be
read in bass clef an octave higher, remembering to make adjustments
for the key signature (which was quite obvious, since I could *hear*
what key the piece was in; I knew another horn player with AP in Los
Angeles who did it exactly the same way).

As you say, it becomes second-nature. But for a musician with AP the
mental process is a bit different than for one without.

> There's a sensitive period for AP, but the skill can be
> refined with practice throughout one's life.

Very true.

--George

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Dent" <stringph@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@> wrote:
> >
> > > keyboard instruments they encountered would have been tuned to
at
> > > least three, and probably many more, pitch standards. (Does
Deutsch
> > > know this?) That is: at a minimum Kammerton and Tief Kammerton
and
> > > Chorton. Since Handel went to Italy and England he probably met
one
> > > or two more pitches there.
> >
> > And this would effect their AP... how?
>
> You mean their supposed or claimed AP - no circular arguments
please.

Assuming AP, if the pitch difference is a semitone or more from
previous experience, it would be quite disorienting the first time
it's encountered (see my response to Carl). If it's less than a
quartertone, then there's not much problem. It's analogous to seeing
colors shifted (or blurred) along the color wheel. A red that's
somewhat orangy or purplish can still be accepted as "red", but
calling orange or purple "red" is more of a stretch.

> Unless you have one single privileged pitch standard by which to
> identify and name notes, AP in anything like the modern sense is
> fairly meaningless. It could mean something if pitch standards
> differed by some whole number of semitones (with an inevitable fudge
> factor due to the uncertain size of semitone) - but what if there
are
> also instruments with pitch 'in the cracks'.

I would say that the opposite is true. AP is developed from the
ability to remember or "play back" in one's mind specific sounds
(i.e., having specific pitches with specific timbres) heard multiple
times. If the pitches being heard are from more than one source,
involving different timbres and possibly slightly different
frequencies for the same "key" (as will inevitably be the case), then
a given pitch-name may become somewhat generalized such that any
pitch within a certain frequency range or cluster will be interpreted
under that label. This is analogous to the variations in color most
of us accept for the labels "orange", "purple", or "blue". And (to
keep this OT) if you're going microtonal or "microcolor", then you'll
need more pitch or color names.

> George Secor put forward the idea that Bach and Handel, for some
> reason, would have been exposed to only one keyboard instrument
with a
> fixed and stable pitch at the young age when AP may be acquired.
That
> is highly debatable. The pitch of clavichords and harpsichords is
> unstable over periods longer than a few weeks.

That's plenty of time to start developing AP. I specifically
remember that I had already memorized "A" when I returned for my
second music lesson (after only a week of study), and after that
memorization of the rest of the natural notes came rapid-fire, almost
automatically. I didn't memorize the black keys until many months
later, since I didn't have names for them. I had gone for several
months without lessons following 6 weeks of lessons in an
introductory program offered by an accordion studio (yes, I developed
AP with an accordion!).

The point is, once you've started developing AP, the ability stays
with you forever. You can't turn it on and off, but you can sharpen
(refine) it or dull (blur) it, depending on what you're subsequently
exposed to.

> The standard used to
> tune them would have been a pitch-pipe (no tuning forks yet!) which
> itself is unstable according to temperature, humidity etc. - as are
> organs.
>
> I don't exclude that Bach and many others could have had an ability
> *analogous* to people who today recognise pitches in the A=440 (or
> 438, Luciano!) equal-tempered scale - but it must have manifested
> itself in a rather different way, given the absence of stable pitch
> standard. Bach couldn't have said 'that's an A'.

About your "must have" I must disagree. I would think that the
development of extreme AP acuteness would require a very stable pitch
source.

I think it more likely that Bach and others would have categorized
pitch-names cluster-fashion. The piano and accordion in my home were
probably somewhat different in pitch (since the piano was not tuned
for years at a time), which would account for my tendency to identify
pitches in this way. When I was older I tested myself for pitch-
range identification, and I discovered that I tolerated pitches tuned
downward by a much greater amount than upward, probably because my
piano, after years of not being tuned, had dropped somewhat in pitch.

This eventually motivated me to learn to tune a piano, which in turn
led to my study of the reason for temperament, and that led to my
investigation of microtonality.

> More like (if he was
> really accurate!) 'that's an A in Cammerton a bit flatter than the
old
> pitch-pipe my uncle used, in a cold winter'.

That's possible, but I don't think he would have been talking about a
difference of only 2 Hz (~8 cents).

> > I've read accounts of Bach and AP.
>
> Good. Where, and what do they say? A lot of Bach stories are
> posthumous mythology.
>
> > > And what is the evidence for Beethoven?
>
> ... I'm still asking.

Nothing I've said provides any evidence *for* either of these. I'm
only making the point that it's not highly unlikely.

> ...
> > It is not down to tuning error differences in circulating
> > temperaments, as is sometimes claimed.
>
> Who says? I can cite you a source from France about 1700 which
> discusses this point and states the exact opposite. Namely, if you
> tune two harpsichords in the normal way, but one a semitone higher
> than the other, you find a very large difference in character when
> playing on one of them in C# major and on the other in C major,
> although the pitch of the keynotes may be the same.

Good point.

> (And as if there weren't many, many other possible sources of key
> character in the peculiar characteristics of instruments and musical
> notation...)
>
> More and better history please!

That's the bottom line!

--George

Hi Paul,

> I haven't studied the paper yet, but I would like to make
> the analogy to color. You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue
> (indigo - that was a mistake) and violet. So identifying pitches
> is like identifying color. Now there are different kinds of
> red, but some are closer to what we think of as pure red for
> example.

Exactly.

-Carl

Certainly, there are things to agree about with everyone, including Dr.
Deutch. (I was so glad she "admitted" she had AP). I don't. Neither did Bach.
Or Beethoven. Perhaps Dr. Deutch is really suggesting that since she has it
that, she can identify with earlier music personages, the best ones, and give
them an AP knighthood. It would be much more scholarly to out only those
who definitely, as with Boulez.

It was good that she said that AP does not signify a superiority in playing
music. It is often a hindrance, a cause for second guessing in players that
cause momentary pitch fluctuations (like burping on the sound).

When teaching a required ear training class, my first question to the class
if or those with AP to identify themselves (usually one in a class). They
will get totally different treatment (often more emphasis on theory and rhythm).

Carl, you don't understand well temperament in the context of diverse
standards of pitch. That was evident when you asked people to compare a single key
in two different well temperaments. Once again, we must all strive to give
each other a real chance to present a new experience, or simply a new angle.
George is certainly a straight-shooter, with plenty of the necessary
bonafides to describe his experience with AP.

It my studies of history, it was Johann Mattheson who had AP the most
obviously. Ironically, he seems to have felt that he thought everyone heard the
way he did, at least until he saw all the disagreement about the key
sentiments. It is certainly true that different timbres, degrees of out of tuneness,
and different steps of a scale, each affect the sentiments. And people are
actually so very different in how they process sound. Bach then, without
recordings, it unimaginable for many, today, to speak to Bach's practice.

Gee, there probably weren't any bars in Hamburg for those with AP, like
Mattheson, to talk and compare notes and chill. There was no culture in the
Baroque that could validate it, or even recognize it. There simply was no single
standard of pitch. And that is hard for moderns to imagine.

Johnny

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Excuse the misspelling, Dr. Deutsch. I would not want anyone to think it
was intentional. j

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> Afmmjr@... wrote:
>
> Certainly, there are things to agree about with everyone,
> including Dr. Deutch. (I was so glad she "admitted" she
> had AP). I don't. Neither did Bach. Or Beethoven.

Mozart did. The other two are debatable, but it's hard to
see how to prove they lacked the skill. As George says, it
isn't unlikely they did.

> Carl, you don't understand well temperament in the context
> of diverse standards of pitch. That was evident when you
> asked people to compare a single key in two different well
> temperaments.

Oh? How so?

> There was no culture in the Baroque that could validate it,
> or even recognize it. There simply was no single standard
> of pitch. And that is hard for moderns to imagine.

Most people in Java have it, and there's no universal pitch
standard (or even scale standard) there. It's involved in
processing Mandarin, and people don't speak to a pitch
standard. Most people have some degree of AP, as Deutsch
discusses. In 15 minutes most people can hear the difference
between Eb and F# (the two highest-contrast pitches in
12-ET at A=440).

-Carl

> Afmmjr@... wrote:
>
> Neither did Bach. Or Beethoven.

Carl: Mozart did. The other two are debatable, but it's hard to
see how to prove they lacked the skill. As George says, it
isn't unlikely they did.

Johnny: AP isn't a skill. It is described as a gene, something one is born
with.

> There was no culture in the Baroque that could validate it,
> or even recognize it. There simply was no single standard
> of pitch. And that is hard for moderns to imagine.

Carl: [snip] It's involved in processing Mandarin, and people don't speak
to a pitch
standard.

Johnny: This was front page The New York Times when Dr. Deutsch came out
with the Mandarin theory.
It's simply not true, although a cute speculation. A tone deaf person
speaks Mandarin just fine. Incidentally, I speak Mandarin at home with my wife.
My vocabulary may be limited, but I have the music of the language down.
There is no absolute pitch aspect to it.

Carl: Most people have some degree of AP, as Deutsch
discusses. In 15 minutes most people can hear the difference
between Eb and F# (the two highest-contrast pitches in
12-ET at A=440).

Johnny: How does hearing a difference in pitches indicate possession of AP?
That's releative pitch (RP).

-Johnny

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> Johnny: AP isn't a skill. It is described as a gene,
> something one is born with.

Another myth. There's a genetic study underway to test
this once and for all:

http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu

A friend of mine knows the investigators. I understand
that so far they haven't found anything.

There may be genetic factors involved, but it's only a
small part of the story.

Wikipedia confirms that the consensus view is now
critical-period learning.

-Carl

Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> Johnny: AP isn't a skill. It is described as a gene,
> something one is born with.

Another myth. There's a genetic study underway to test
this once and for all:

Hi Carl,

AP is still not a skill, because it is not possible to learn "it" after a
"supposed" early learning stage. It's a scam to "teach" perfect pitch to
people, who are 5 years or older. There is no memorizing. You either have it or
you don't. I would account for particular exceptions, because nature does
provide for rare exceptions.

It is not me promoting a myth by saying AP is "described as a gene," since I
am not a scientist. It is simply a "previous" consensus since Science
magazine (and many others reported it as a gene) a decade ago.

Sounds like the theory for homosexuality being hard-wired, controversial.
Still, the manner of listening, of plugging into the maelstrom of sound, is
different for those musicians with AP and those without.

I bet you don't have it. Yes?

Johnny

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> Hi Carl,
>
> AP is still not a skill, because it is not possible to learn
> "it" after a "supposed" early learning stage.

Actually I'm aware of two university studies that demonstrated
acquisition of AP skills by college-age people in some
of participants.
It's rather like language, really. You can learn a new
language after puberty, but it will never really be quite
the same as if you learned it during the critical period.

> There is no memorizing.

*That* is true. APers often describe it as memorizing, but
it's actually sensitivity to an existing perception, not
wrote memorization. Well, you do have to memorize the names
of the notes and how they match up to the sensation. But
the sensation... it would be like memorizing "blue".

> You either have it or you don't. I would account for
> particular exceptions, because nature does provide for rare
> exceptions.

Almost anyone can gain AP at the appropriate age. Actually,
like I said, there's some reason to believe it's actually
the learning of relative pitch that extinguishes AP at an
early age. So the trick is actually something more like
keeping practicing AP while you're learning RP.

> It is not me promoting a myth by saying AP is "described as a
> gene," since I am not a scientist. It is simply a "previous"
> consensus since Science magazine (and many others reported it
> as a gene) a decade ago.

A lot of people believe it, but that doesn't make it true.
By the way, "myth" doesn't mean "false".

> I bet you don't have it. Yes?

Correct. But once again, it's more meaningful to talk of
particular AP skills. Recognition? Spontaneous
vocalization? If I play all but one pitch in an octave
simultaneously, can you tell me which one I left out instantly?
I know a pianist who can do this, by the way. I also met
a Juilliard student who could identify what key a piece of
music is in, albeit not quite instantly, but could not do
feats like the pianist.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Wikipedia confirms that the consensus view is now
> critical-period learning.
>
> -Carl

I'll pass on the question of whether Wikipedia has any business to
'confirm' anything. More on Deutsch later.

On the question of history, here's, for once, an honest link:

http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/bach.htm

This is a website run by someone who apparently places great emphasis
on AP and repeatedly links to one of the miracle-workers who claims to
be able to teach AP to adults. But they acknowledge the lack of
evidence. (Although that doesn't stop them putting a highly misleading
list on the front page of the site - more accurately described as
People Who Haven't Been Proven Not To Have Perfect Pitch.)

http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/bernstein.htm

Pretty certain, considering cited sources here and elsewhere, that
Lennie didn't ... though some popular 'news' items say otherwise. The
list gives him a weaselly question mark.

For Chopin, we have the following:
'The author (HC Schonberg) asserts that Chopin "was able to
distinguish an A441 from an A440". (A feat which is not excessively
difficult - the difference between the two tones being almost 4 cents)
- Ed.'

- which might just as well refer to absolute pitch. Yet the writer of
Perfect-Pitch-People considers this as positive evidence.

For Handel and Bartok, we have no source. Or rather, the supposed
source is an 'advertisement' (!!!). It seems some people are more
intent on promoting their own money-making schemes than on historical
facts.

Anyway, I have now read the scientific papers Deutsch is trying to
popularize in the Acoustics article.

The tests show first: that speakers of 'tone languages' have very
accurate reproduction of pitch levels *in speech* (at the semitone
level) from one day to the next. Second, that people whose mother
tongue is a tone language and who also take up musical training have
much higher levels (over 50%) of AP, in the usual sense of naming
scale degrees, than those who don't speak a tone language.

Also, among non-tone-language speakers, the incidence of AP is less
than 20% even among those who started musical training at the age of 4
or 5.

Since European languages are non-tone, the a-priori probability of
J.S. Bach (or of any European musician who started at or after the age
of 4-5) acquiring AP was therefore less than 20%.

For non-tone-language musicians who didn't start until the age of 8 or
9, the incidence of AP drops to zero!

The default (most likely) assumption for a musician who has a European
language as mother tongue is that they do *not* have AP. It is only
plausible for a minority of those who started training at an early age.

Statistical arguments can only go so far. With Mozart, the case is
absolutely clear due to eye-witness accounts, and it is equally clear
that he started playing the keyboard at an exceptionally young age - 3
or 4, precisely what you would expect from Deutsch's theory for
someone most likely to develop AP in Western culture. But prior to
1750 the trail seems pretty cold.

Beware of assuming that the Great Man's musical experience must have
been rather like your own...

~~~T~~~

Carl: Actually I'm aware of two university studies that demonstrated
acquisition of AP skills by college-age people in some
of participants.

Johnny: This sounds like people who had the necessary predisposition for AP,
but needed it to be awakened.

How would you explain why George Ives had AP, but Charles Ives did not.
Surely, Charles had all the musical advantages of his father to "learn the
skill."

Carl: It's rather like language, really. You can learn a new
language after puberty, but it will never really be quite
the same as if you learned it during the critical period.

Johnny: Doesn't jive. I'm still learning new languages late in age,
because this is a skill. It's not about lost receptivity in older age. Making
music throughout a lifetime, I am no closer to having perfect pitch. There are
plenty of wonderful skills to master, but AP is not one of them.

Carl: Almost anyone can gain AP at the appropriate age. Actually,
like I said,

J: This is proved? Feh.

C: there's some reason to believe it's actually
the learning of relative pitch that extinguishes AP at an
early age. So the trick is actually something more like
keeping practicing AP while you're learning RP.

J: Cheesy. Interesting idea, though. But it rings hollow.

C: [snip] But once again, it's more meaningful to talk of
particular AP skills. Recognition? Spontaneous
vocalization? If I play all but one pitch in an octave
simultaneously, can you tell me which one I left out instantly?
I know a pianist who can do this, by the way.

J: AP is effortless. You're working too hard rationalizing for its
naturalness in most everybody. I know of a wild cat study from the Pyranees on the
Spanish side which studied kittens regarding seeing in color. The studies
conclusion was that there was a predisposition in the cat's brain to see color,
but that it would switch off permanently if the animal spent its waking life
at night. Do you see some connection with this study?

C: I also met a Juilliard student who could identify what key a piece of
music is in, albeit not quite instantly, but could not do
feats like the pianist.

J: And? I don't see the relation.

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--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@... wrote:
> Carl: Actually I'm aware of two university studies that
> demonstrated acquisition of AP skills by college-age
> people in some of participants.
//
> How would you explain why George Ives had AP, but Charles
> Ives did not.
> Surely, Charles had all the musical advantages of his father
> to "learn the skill."

Surely? I disagree.

> Carl: It's rather like language, really. You can learn a new
> language after puberty, but it will never really be quite
> the same as if you learned it during the critical period.
>
> Johnny: Doesn't jive. I'm still learning new languages
> late in age,

But only children can create a creole. And very few post-
puberty learners can speak their 2nd language without an
accent.

> It's not about lost receptivity in older age.

The evidence for a critical language period is very strong.

> Making
> music throughout a lifetime, I am no closer to having
> perfect pitch.

Probably you are further, because as you point out, music
rewards relative pitch, and there is some reason to believe
relative pitch competes against (in your brain) absolute pitch.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> as you point out, music
> rewards relative pitch, and there is some reason to believe
> relative pitch competes against (in your brain) absolute pitch.
>
> -Carl
>

Cites for this? I don't see an inverse relationship in the Deutsch
papers, but it might be true.

Anecdotally, I think I have very good relative pitch and short-term
pitch memory - I identify (and suffer due to) tuning problems that
evidently pass many choir members and orchestral players by. I can
fairly often take a note from the piano, sing a minute or so of music
unaccompanied and be on the mark at the end of it.

But I can't feel anything that could be an 'existing perception' of
AP. (How can you have a 'perception' that you are quite unaware of?)
You can play the Goldberg Variations to me at 392 or 415 or 440 or
anywhere in between and I don't think I'd care about the difference. I
own lots of 'historically informed performance' CDs at all sorts of
pitches, but none of their pitches sound globally sharp or flat or in
any way remarkable to me. The farthest I can go is singing a note
within my voice, by the 'muscle memory' of creating it, but as often
as not that is a tone or so out, and more if the voice is not its
usual self. I calibrate more precisely from my lowest note, which
almost always turns out to be Eb or E.

When I started with piano lessons (young, but not all that young) my
teacher tried to see if I had AP - no luck at first, but I soon learnt
that she almost always started with middle C. Plus the piano wasn't
quite uniformly voiced (they never are), so middle C had its own timbre...

A few hours ago I tried an experiment: imagine an orchestra tuning and
hum the note. Then I found an online video of Grieg piano concerto
(easy way to get an A) ... result, I had been humming a G#. And just
now I imagined the Grieg itself and hum ... result, somewhere round a
G. So, maybe in producing notes I can get a little (extremely
imprecise) traction. But as for identifying pitch, divorced from
context and timbre, forget it.

Perhaps we should have a poll !?

~~~T~~~

> > as you point out, music
> > rewards relative pitch, and there is some reason to believe
> > relative pitch competes against (in your brain) absolute pitch.
>
> Cites for this?

The literature is ripe with this; famously recently papers
by Miyazaki.

Here's a group gone so far as to suggest temporarily shutting
down RP with TMS to allow people to experience AP.

http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/absolutepitch.pdf

I've had my odor-mediated sniff inhibition reflex suppressed
with TMS, and that was fun.

> But I can't feel anything that could be an 'existing perception'
> of AP. (How can you have a 'perception' that you are quite
> unaware of?)

Try listening to Eb and F# on your trusty instrument.
That's more like E and G at A=415. Do you hear a qualitative
difference in the sounds, almost at the timbre level?
If so, would you care to describe them?

> The farthest I can go is singing a note
> within my voice, by the 'muscle memory' of creating it, but
> as often as not that is a tone or so out, and more if the
> voice is not its usual self. I calibrate more precisely from
> my lowest note, which almost always turns out to be Eb or E.

That's vocal-range AP, which is a different (but real)
phenomenon.

However, if I ask you to sing "Material World" by Madonna,
there's a better than random chance you'll start on the
the pitch it was recorded at. Presuming you, you know, have
heard the song. :)

> When I started with piano lessons (young, but not all that
> young) my teacher tried to see if I had AP - no luck at first,
> but I soon learnt that she almost always started with
> middle C. Plus the piano wasn't quite uniformly voiced (they
> never are), so middle C had its own timbre...

When I first started noticing the beginnings of pitch
sensation (please note, I suck and do not have musically-
useful AP), I thought the differences I was hearing were
due to the regulation of my piano! Shocker there. Try
different pianos. The chances that Eb is always voiced
[omitted] relative to F# are pretty low.

-Carl

<<< I haven't studied the paper yet, but I would like to make the analogy to
color. You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue (indigo - that was a
mistake) and violet. So identifying pitches is like identifying color. Now
there are different kinds of red, but some are closer to what we think of as
pure red for example. >>>

I agree on the indigo thing, and I also give orange the same treatment. Red,
yellow, green, blue and violet are actually the 5 spectral wholetones. If
orange and indigo are in, how about chartreuse and turquoise as well. Colors
are pretty easy to distinguish because there are three color receptors in
the eye that organize the visible spectrum into distinct ranges.

Evidently the ear breaks down sound on the basis of frequency as well, and
much more finely so. The very existance of ear fibers tuned like piano
strings to distinct resonating frequencies implies that the autitory lobe
must be wired to discriminate by absolute pitch. The 440 hz ear fiber must
go to some definate location in the brain. So right there you would have a
physiological basis for AP.

Billy

> Evidently the ear breaks down sound on the basis of frequency
> as well, and much more finely so. The very existance of ear
> fibers tuned like piano strings to distinct resonating
> frequencies implies that the autitory lobe must be wired to
> discriminate by absolute pitch. The 440 hz ear fiber must
> go to some definate location in the brain. So right there you
> would have a physiological basis for AP.

Hi Billy,

The inner ear has a structure called the basilar membrane
that is 'tuned'. The hairs inside the cochlea themselves
do not resonate.

Also, it's a bit more complicated than you suggest. The
key word is "pitch". The cochlea detects frequency-domain
peaks in incoming sound, not pitches. The sensation of
pitch is synthesized higher in the brain from the spectral
information provided by the cochlea. Absolute pitch has
to connect to that somehow.

-Carl

To prove the point, consider this: Absolute Pitch perception
is largely octave-invariant.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
> > Evidently the ear breaks down sound on the basis of frequency
> > as well, and much more finely so. The very existance of ear
> > fibers tuned like piano strings to distinct resonating
> > frequencies implies that the autitory lobe must be wired to
> > discriminate by absolute pitch. The 440 hz ear fiber must
> > go to some definate location in the brain. So right there you
> > would have a physiological basis for AP.
>
> Hi Billy,
>
> The inner ear has a structure called the basilar membrane
> that is 'tuned'. The hairs inside the cochlea themselves
> do not resonate.
>
> Also, it's a bit more complicated than you suggest. The
> key word is "pitch". The cochlea detects frequency-domain
> peaks in incoming sound, not pitches. The sensation of
> pitch is synthesized higher in the brain from the spectral
> information provided by the cochlea. Absolute pitch has
> to connect to that somehow.
>
> -Carl
>

No thoughts on this post, Tom?

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > > as you point out, music
> > > rewards relative pitch, and there is some reason to believe
> > > relative pitch competes against (in your brain) absolute pitch.
> >
> > Cites for this?
>
> The literature is ripe with this; famously recently papers
> by Miyazaki.
>
> Here's a group gone so far as to suggest temporarily shutting
> down RP with TMS to allow people to experience AP.
>
> http://www.centreforthemind.com/publications/absolutepitch.pdf
>
> I've had my odor-mediated sniff inhibition reflex suppressed
> with TMS, and that was fun.
>
> > But I can't feel anything that could be an 'existing perception'
> > of AP. (How can you have a 'perception' that you are quite
> > unaware of?)
>
> Try listening to Eb and F# on your trusty instrument.
> That's more like E and G at A=415. Do you hear a qualitative
> difference in the sounds, almost at the timbre level?
> If so, would you care to describe them?
>
> > The farthest I can go is singing a note
> > within my voice, by the 'muscle memory' of creating it, but
> > as often as not that is a tone or so out, and more if the
> > voice is not its usual self. I calibrate more precisely from
> > my lowest note, which almost always turns out to be Eb or E.
>
> That's vocal-range AP, which is a different (but real)
> phenomenon.
>
> However, if I ask you to sing "Material World" by Madonna,
> there's a better than random chance you'll start on the
> the pitch it was recorded at. Presuming you, you know, have
> heard the song. :)
>
> > When I started with piano lessons (young, but not all that
> > young) my teacher tried to see if I had AP - no luck at first,
> > but I soon learnt that she almost always started with
> > middle C. Plus the piano wasn't quite uniformly voiced (they
> > never are), so middle C had its own timbre...
>
> When I first started noticing the beginnings of pitch
> sensation (please note, I suck and do not have musically-
> useful AP), I thought the differences I was hearing were
> due to the regulation of my piano! Shocker there. Try
> different pianos. The chances that Eb is always voiced
> [omitted] relative to F# are pretty low.
>
> -Carl
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> No thoughts on this post, Tom?
>
> -Carl
>

First, what happened when the 'odor mediated sniff inhibition reflex'
got switched off? I can't quite work out what that should mean.

The paper you linked is speculative but not totally implausible.
However, even if one switched off the mid-level processing that
supposedly wrestles the neural pathways away from absolute pitch
signals, and so allowed absolute pitch signals through to conscious
perception, I doubt that would allow AP immediately. Rather it might
produce a state in which AP could begin to be learnt. If we take the
colour analogy, you could see colours clearly but with no idea yet
what they are called.

I went to the piano (in fact the 9 foot Bechstein donated to Hermann
von Helmholtz here at the Physikalisches Institut - how's that for
absolute pitch credentials) and dutifully plonked down the Eb and F#
below middle C. Indeed, they sound different, but not in a way that
recalls the difference between these two notes on any other piano.
(And I do remember clearly the timbres of certain notes on certain
pianos...) The Eb and F# in the octave above sound different too, in
their own idiosyncratic way. So little hope yet with pitch per se, as
opposed to hearing an instrument's own quirks.

Actually, quite a lot of uprights have a break between these two notes
in the tenor, don't they? Coincidence?
~~~T~~~

> > No thoughts on this post, Tom?
>
> First, what happened when the 'odor mediated sniff inhibition
> reflex' got switched off? I can't quite work out what that
> should mean.

I don't know, because the investigators weren't going to
crunch the 300 trials they did with me until after they
were done gathering data, and if they've finished by now
they didn't remember to get back to me.
I searched for the real name for this reflex, but it wasn't
forthcoming with web searches. There may not be a concise
name yet. There are supposed to be cells in your cerebellum
that regulate how deeply you inhale when smelling
something -- they titrate your sniffing according to how
strong the smell is, to get the right dynamic range for
your smeller. They were testing this by turning off that
area with TMS while making me smell known concentrations
of vinegar with a smell-making machine. The whole thing is
subconcious so I couldn't tell you what it was like. But
they calibrated the TMS thing in the beginning by making my
individual fingers twitch in various ways, and that was
pretty wild.

> The paper you linked is speculative but not totally implausible.
> However, even if one switched off the mid-level processing that
> supposedly wrestles the neural pathways away from absolute pitch
> signals, and so allowed absolute pitch signals through to conscious
> perception, I doubt that would allow AP immediately.

I agree.

I also didn't read the paper, but the big drawback of TMS
is that it can't penetrate very deeply. Fortunately, the
cortex is on the outside of the brain, so you can hit lots
of interesting stuff with it. But I don't know if the RP
area is cortical. Anything in the thalamus, hippocampus,
etc., is I think off-limits, which rules out a lot of
interesting memory experiments.

> Rather it might produce a state in which AP could begin to
> be learnt. If we take the colour analogy, you could see
> colours clearly but with no idea yet what they are called.

Yes, I should think that's right.

> I went to the piano (in fact the 9 foot Bechstein donated to
> Hermann von Helmholtz here at the Physikalisches Institut - how's
> that for absolute pitch credentials)

Wow!! How did you come by it?

> and dutifully plonked down the Eb and F#
> below middle C. Indeed, they sound different, but not in a way
> that recalls the difference between these two notes on any other
> piano. (And I do remember clearly the timbres of certain notes
> on certain pianos...) The Eb and F# in the octave above sound
> different too, in their own idiosyncratic way. So little hope
> yet with pitch per se, as opposed to hearing an instrument's
> own quirks.

To me, Eb sounds 'hollow' or 'nasal' and F# sounds shrill
or bright. Works on every piano in the middle three octaves,
and I can identify them cold based on this. I had C and A
at some point too, but I lost them some years back I think.
I should try it again.

> Actually, quite a lot of uprights have a break between these two
> notes in the tenor, don't they? Coincidence?

I just checked my (rented) Yamaha U5. The break is between
Bb and B.

-Carl

SNIP

> > and dutifully plonked down the Eb and F#
> > below middle C. Indeed, they sound different, but not in a way
> > that recalls the difference between these two notes on any other
> > piano. (And I do remember clearly the timbres of certain notes
> > on certain pianos...) The Eb and F# in the octave above sound
> > different too, in their own idiosyncratic way. So little hope
> > yet with pitch per se, as opposed to hearing an instrument's
> > own quirks.
>
> To me, Eb sounds 'hollow' or 'nasal' and F# sounds shrill
> or bright. Works on every piano in the middle three octaves,
> and I can identify them cold based on this. I had C and A
> at some point too, but I lost them some years back I think.
> I should try it again.
>

No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.

Oz.

> No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
>
> Oz.

Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
I can think of who've made an AP claim:

* Jay Williams
* George Secor
* Paul Hjelmstad
* Ozan Yarman

Anyone else?

Show up at the rec. center at 7pm to get your
scarlet "A".

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
> >
> > Oz.
>
> Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
> I can think of who've made an AP claim:
>
> * Jay Williams
> * George Secor
> * Paul Hjelmstad
> * Ozan Yarman
>
> Anyone else?

Herman Miller, I believe.

Also, these two microtonalists possess(ed) AP:

Harry Partch
Easley Blackwood

--George

----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Lumma" <clumma@yahoo.com>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 1:38 PM
Subject: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

>> No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
>>
>> Oz.
>
> Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
> I can think of who've made an AP claim:
>
> * Jay Williams
> * George Secor
> * Paul Hjelmstad
> * Ozan Yarman
>
> Anyone else?

I don't like to talk about it much, but I have active AP to the precision of a quarter tone or better. I spent much of my childhood being asked by musicians (including two older brothers) what such-and-such note or chord was. I was kind of a freak show in high school.

Doesn't mean much since I'm not very active as a musician right now...

~D.

Carl Lumma wrote:
>> No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
>>
>> Oz.
> > Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
> I can think of who've made an AP claim:
> > * Jay Williams
> * George Secor
> * Paul Hjelmstad
> * Ozan Yarman
> > Anyone else?

I do, and this is somewhat of an interesting case since my internal model of the note names is consistently flatter than standard pitch (and has been so for as long as I can remember). That's one reason I was attracted to the Middle C = 256 Hz standard for a while (until I switched to D = 290 Hz).

It turns out the old piano I used to play on when I was learning couldn't handle being tuned up to standard pitch. It was somewhere around a quarter tone flat.

> > Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
> > I can think of who've made an AP claim:
> >
> > * Jay Williams
> > * George Secor
> > * Paul Hjelmstad
> > * Ozan Yarman
> >
> > Anyone else?
>
> I do,

Hi Herman,

Thanks for sharing your story. Even if we take the
grossly inflated 1223-member number from Yahoo (mostly
outdated e-mail address, probably), 5/1223 is a heck
of a lot higher than 1/10,000 or whatever I keep
remembering.

-Carl

Here are my scores:

First name: Ozan

Last name: Yarman

Age: 29

AP rank: 1.00

Pure tone score: 31.25

Piano tone score: 32.25

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Lumma" <clumma@yahoo.com>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 13 Temmuz 2007 Cuma 18:33
Subject: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> > Johnny: AP isn't a skill. It is described as a gene,
> > something one is born with.
>
> Another myth. There's a genetic study underway to test
> this once and for all:
>
> http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu
>
> A friend of mine knows the investigators. I understand
> that so far they haven't found anything.
>
> There may be genetic factors involved, but it's only a
> small part of the story.
>
> Wikipedia confirms that the consensus view is now
> critical-period learning.
>
> -Carl
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ozan Yarman" <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
>
> Oz.

Obviously, in my opinion, obvious also in the case of Hermann
Miller. Also obvious in the case of Johnny Rheinhard and Carl
Lumma- the problem is, there are so many social and historical
factors, and straight up bullshit, surrounding "perfect pitch"
that it's best, in my opinion, to leave the whole thing alone,
which is why I've stayed out this discussion so far.

Look- claiming that a specific frequency IS "A" or whatever is
provinicial, and servile. That's not what it IS, that's what someone
calls it. AWARENESS of what a frequency "is", in the great spectrum
of things, without putting into a drawer, is musical. This is the...
hmmm... spanner in the works.

Now Johnnny may insist that his solo bassoon work is performend
without AP, but noone and no thing can sail by dead-reckoning like
that. It's obvious that there's a "global" picture involved, and that
is true AP without the social elements. And Carl, don't try to sell
me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
beats and shit like that? Give me a break, your heard those tiny
differences in the
context of an overarching "absolute", the same as I did.

As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
rid of it, at least on a conscious level, this whole discussion is
pretty amusing. And the whole topic is even funnier when I consider
one of my brothers, who is a kind of "savant", busting out with some
downright creepy demonstrations of musical prowess (entire operatic
scenes heard one time in perfect pitch and time and so on) when he's
not busy working on his "good relationships with insects" and so on.

Pfffft, forget it and go make music.

-Cameron Bobro

I agree that AP is a hindrance. Hereabouts, people chant solfege a fifth
lower, saying "re" at 440 hz! At a conscious level, many Turkish musicians
can do this, and also transpose "re" to other frequencies as well. My actual
grievance is with people possessing AP and not chanting 440 hz or
thereabouts as "la" in accordance with the international diapason. The
founders of the current tuning and notation in Turkish Music, or at least
Rauf Yekta anyway, did intend conformity with the West.

Oz.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Bobro" <misterbobro@yahoo.com>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 17 Temmuz 2007 Sal� 13:16
Subject: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ozan Yarman" <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
> >
> > No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
> >
> > Oz.
>
> Obviously, in my opinion, obvious also in the case of Hermann
> Miller. Also obvious in the case of Johnny Rheinhard and Carl
> Lumma- the problem is, there are so many social and historical
> factors, and straight up bullshit, surrounding "perfect pitch"
> that it's best, in my opinion, to leave the whole thing alone,
> which is why I've stayed out this discussion so far.
>
> Look- claiming that a specific frequency IS "A" or whatever is
> provinicial, and servile. That's not what it IS, that's what someone
> calls it. AWARENESS of what a frequency "is", in the great spectrum
> of things, without putting into a drawer, is musical. This is the...
> hmmm... spanner in the works.
>
> Now Johnnny may insist that his solo bassoon work is performend
> without AP, but noone and no thing can sail by dead-reckoning like
> that. It's obvious that there's a "global" picture involved, and that
> is true AP without the social elements. And Carl, don't try to sell
> me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
> ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
> beats and shit like that? Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> differences in the
> context of an overarching "absolute", the same as I did.
>
> As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
> rid of it, at least on a conscious level, this whole discussion is
> pretty amusing. And the whole topic is even funnier when I consider
> one of my brothers, who is a kind of "savant", busting out with some
> downright creepy demonstrations of musical prowess (entire operatic
> scenes heard one time in perfect pitch and time and so on) when he's
> not busy working on his "good relationships with insects" and so on.
>
> Pfffft, forget it and go make music.
>
> -Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ozan Yarman" <ozanyarman@...> wrote:
>
> I agree that AP is a hindrance. Hereabouts, people chant solfege a
>fifth
> lower, saying "re" at 440 hz! At a conscious level, many Turkish
>musicians
> can do this, and also transpose "re" to other frequencies as well.
>My actual
> grievance is with people possessing AP and not chanting 440 hz or
> thereabouts as "la" in accordance with the international diapason.
>The
> founders of the current tuning and notation in Turkish Music, or
>at least
> Rauf Yekta anyway, did intend conformity with the West.
>
> Oz.

As far as I can tell there are so many cultural, national, racial,
religious, etc. factors involved in "AP", and everything else
musical, that positivistic discussions are futile. It's possible that
where I live and work makes me too sensitive to this (just did a
concert in Belgrade) but I really feel it's true for all humans:
one man's "blue" might be another man's "green" so it's best just
to hear and create as "true" as you can and let a Higher authority
judge what's really "absolute", trusting that we're all tied in an
absolute whether we know it or not.

-Cameron Bobro

> And Carl, don't try to sell
> me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
> ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
> beats and shit like that? Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> differences in the context of an overarching "absolute", the same
> as I did.

I don't think I agree.

> As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
> rid of it, at least on a conscious level, this whole discussion is
> pretty amusing.

As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
that someone is born with AP. But why did you get rid of it?

-Carl

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Lumma" <clumma@yahoo.com>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 17 Temmuz 2007 Sal� 19:31
Subject: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> > And Carl, don't try to sell
> > me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
> > ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
> > beats and shit like that? Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> > differences in the context of an overarching "absolute", the same
> > as I did.
>
> I don't think I agree.
>
> > As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
> > rid of it, at least on a conscious level, this whole discussion is
> > pretty amusing.
>
> As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
> that someone is born with AP. But why did you get rid of it?
>
> -Carl
>
>

I occasionally lose it myself.

Oz.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Cameron Bobro" <misterbobro@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Ozan Yarman" <ozanyarman@> wrote:
> >
> > No need for me to go all that way, Carl. I have AP.
> >
> > Oz.
>
> Obviously, in my opinion, obvious also in the case of Hermann
> Miller. Also obvious in the case of Johnny Rheinhard and Carl
> Lumma-

I don't understand that last statement. It's obvious to you that
Johnny and Carl have AP even though they say they don't?

> the problem is, there are so many social and historical
> factors, and straight up bullshit, surrounding "perfect pitch"
> that it's best, in my opinion, to leave the whole thing alone,
> which is why I've stayed out this discussion so far.

I'm saddened to hear that your experience with AP has been so
negative. Your advice to "leave the whole thing alone" (taken
together with other things you said below) makes it sound like a
curse.

> Look- claiming that a specific frequency IS "A" or whatever is
> provinicial, and servile.

But once we've agreed on a standard, it's tantamount to universal.

> That's not what it IS, that's what someone
> calls it. AWARENESS of what a frequency "is", in the great spectrum
> of things, without putting into a drawer, is musical. This is
the...
> hmmm... spanner in the works.

So you would prefer to be aware of pitch without having to identify
it, or ignorance is bliss. ;-)

Seriously, I'm beginning to understand your viewpoint a little better
after thinking about it and reading what you said in a subsequent
message (#72382, which I've pasted here):

> As far as I can tell there are so many cultural, national, racial,
> religious, etc. factors involved in "AP", and everything else
> musical, that positivistic discussions are futile. It's possible
that
> where I live and work makes me too sensitive to this (just did a
> concert in Belgrade) but I really feel it's true for all humans:
> one man's "blue" might be another man's "green" so it's best just
> to hear and create as "true" as you can and let a Higher authority
> judge what's really "absolute", trusting that we're all tied in an
> absolute whether we know it or not.

It sounds as if you've had to contend with varying pitch standards.

I'm wondering whether Bach or Handel might have felt this way if they
had developed AP at an early age and subsequently discovered that
there were multiple (contradictory) pitch standards. They would
probably have been loath to discuss it (in which case, we'll never
know).

> Now Johnnny may insist that his solo bassoon work is performend
> without AP, but noone and no thing can sail by dead-reckoning like
> that.

Does a very highly developed sense of relative pitch count for
nothing?

> It's obvious that there's a "global" picture involved, and that
> is true AP without the social elements. And Carl, don't try to sell
> me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
> ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
> beats and shit like that?

You don't have to count beats to hear qualitative differences (faster
or slower) in beat rates, just as you don't need AP to tell whether
one pitch is higher or lower than another.

> Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> differences in the
> context of an overarching "absolute", the same as I did.

It depends on what you mean by this. If you mean that many of us on
this list are sufficiently familiar with the characteristic sound of
triads in 12-ET that we can use that as an internalized "absolute"
reference against which we can make qualitative comparisons of other
triads tempered by different amounts (e.g., slightly better than 12-
ET or somewhat worse than 12-ET), then that's a kind of "tonal
memory" (similar to being able to distinguish one timbre from
another), but it's not the same thing as AP.

Likewise, the ability to distinguish between a just, 12-ET, and
pythagorean major 3rd with the tones played *consecutively* is not
AP, but a refined sense of relative pitch (which I'm sure many on
this list have developed).

> As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
> rid of it, at least on a conscious level,

How tragic! I've found AP to be one of the best things that ever
happened to me. My father occasionally made me the object of a
sideshow when guests visited our home, but I didn't object, because
it was fun, and it helped me to be less introverted.

There are a few disadvantages to having AP (such as when it comes to
playing transposing instruments), but I've always found ways to deal
with them and have been better of for it in the end. The necessity
of occasionally having to think in two different keys at once (e.g.,
when the choir I was singing in suddenly, for no apparent reason,
dropped the pitch a half-step) motivated me to improve my relative
pitch skills.

These problems are far outweighed by the advantages, e.g., the
ability to jump in with an accompaniment for a song leader who
(taking full advantage of my AP) started singing something in a key
literally "pulled out of the air" (which, BTW, was *hardly ever* the
original key). Sometimes I play the trumpet (a B-flat instrument, by
ear) with a group that likes to play in keys best suited to the
guitar, and the experience has caused me to become comfortable
playing in keys with a lot of sharps.

AP can present challenges, but it also presents opportunities to grow.

> this whole discussion is
> pretty amusing. And the whole topic is even funnier when I consider
> one of my brothers, who is a kind of "savant", busting out with some
> downright creepy demonstrations of musical prowess (entire operatic
> scenes heard one time in perfect pitch and time and so on) when
he's
> not busy working on his "good relationships with insects" and so on.
>
> Pfffft, forget it and go make music.

Yes, I agree that's good advice if you don't already have it. But if
you do, then treat it as a precious gift and make the most of it.

--George

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > And Carl, don't try to sell
> > me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of months
> > ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by counting
> > beats and shit like that? Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> > differences in the context of an overarching "absolute", the same
> > as I did.
>
> I don't think I agree.

By that I mean, absolute pitch cues didn't help me in the
task of identifying the well temperaments (not that I recall
doing that well at it).

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
>
> > I went to the piano (in fact the 9 foot Bechstein donated to
> > Hermann von Helmholtz here at the Physikalisches Institut - how's
> > that for absolute pitch credentials)
>
> Wow!! How did you come by it?

I don't own it... I just work in the institute. The piano stays in the
mail lecture hall gathering chalk dust. It must be the most
scientifically well-educated piano in the world. (Though I have no
idea if Helmholtz actually used it for research.)

> I just checked my (rented) Yamaha U5. The break is between
> Bb and B.
>
> -Carl
>

That's a pretty large model I think ... anyway, point taken that there
is no fixed location for the break.

What was that idea of going into the piano tuning business? Not that I
have any direct interest, but so far as I know it has rather little to
do with knowledge of temperaments, and rather a lot to do with
learning how physically to twiddle the pins and accommodating yourself
aurally to the peculiarities of each instrument. A fairly thankless
task for the great majority of pianos.

There are lots of YouTube videos about piano tuning - not sure if any
of them are really interesting.

~~~T~~~

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
> [Cameron wrote:]
> > As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least getting
> > rid of it, at least on a conscious level, this whole discussion
is
> > pretty amusing.
>
> As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
> that someone is born with AP. But why did you get rid of it?

Yes, especially since there seems to be a market out there for people
desiring to acquire it, even though the research says something to
the effect of, "If you're old enough to read this, then forget it."

Which prompted me to ask: Is there any advice (or resource) out there
for parents desiring to produce offspring with AP? I looked and
found this:

http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part14.htm

I thought that Monz, Aaron Johnson, or you (Carl) might be interested
in trying this sometime within the next few years. I haven't read
the whole thing through yet, but it appears that they think there are
also other (intellectual) benefits.

I have a couple of observations from my own very early experience
(prior to the age of 5) that suggest to me that it might be helpful
to employ another (simpler, more passive, and less structured) method
that could be used to facilitate AP development or to supplement the
Wenger technique -- if anyone is interested.

--George

> Yes, especially since there seems to be a market out there for
> people desiring to acquire it, even though the research says
> something to the effect of, "If you're old enough to read this,
> then forget it."

Which research is that? I'm aware of two studies that showed
moderate success with university students (which Deutsch seems
to be aware of).

> Which prompted me to ask: Is there any advice (or resource) out there
> for parents desiring to produce offspring with AP? I looked and
> found this:
>
> http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part14.htm
>
> I thought that Monz, Aaron Johnson, or you (Carl) might be
> interested in trying this sometime within the next few years.

Thanks. I think a note-naming game will be sufficient, but
I'll check this out.

> if anyone is interested.

Sure!

-Carl

> What was that idea of going into the piano tuning business? Not that I
> have any direct interest, but so far as I know it has rather little to
> do with knowledge of temperaments, and rather a lot to do with
> learning how physically to twiddle the pins and accommodating yourself
> aurally to the peculiarities of each instrument. A fairly thankless
> task for the great majority of pianos.
>
> There are lots of YouTube videos about piano tuning - not sure if any
> of them are really interesting.
>
> ~~~T~~~

I already know how to tune pianos and have most of the equipment.
I studied with a tuner in the '90s, and I've tuned a couple dozen
instruments over the years. I actually have some novel techniques
I'm thinking about applying, not the least of which is getting
piano tuning out of the stone age with web-based appointment
scheduling, etc.

-Carl

Ozan Yarman wrote:
> Here are my scores:
> > First name: Ozan
> > Last name: Yarman
> > Age: 29
> > AP rank: 1.00
> > Pure tone score: 31.25
> > Piano tone score: 32.25 > That was harder than I expected!

First name: Herman

Last name: Miller

Age: 42

AP rank: 1.00

Pure tone score: 30.00

Piano tone score: 32.25

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:

> As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
> that someone is born with AP.

I suspect that everyone's born with AP actually, or goes through it
at a certain stage as an infant (the direct mimicing stage, it's
very cute as you know). Then it's just a matter of it sticking with
you, or redeveloping.

>But why did you get rid of it?

It's simply bogus to be trained to the point where you hear anything
that's not 12-tET A-440 as "out of tune", especially in my case
where I didn't grow up strictly 12-tET and found myself in a
continual state of enjoying almost only, as music, "out of tune"
music while at the same time becoming an insufferable prick about
12-tET music being in tune. For example when I tuned up Wrk III for
the first time it seemed wildly lumpy and irregular, a ridiculous
state of affairs in light of having always heard and sung all kinds
of very non 12-tET intervals.

The whole thing was screwing up my
singing intonation for years of course, for I couldn't, musically,
bring myself to sing "in tune" 12-tET other than to occaisionly slap
down someone questioning my intonation ability.

An intolerable situation- "microtonality" was inevitable.

By the way I make no "golden ears" claims. There was a test posted
here recently, I got "you can consistently hear .75 cents
differences at 500 Hz" or however they put it. Good enough.
Lessee, can I still sing an A-440 12-tET note out of the blue... eh,
7 cents flat, yet my singing intonation is far and away better than
when I could pull 12-tET notes out of the air, for the conflict of
simultaneously trying to be musical, which entails being way off of
12-tET to my ears, while knowing what it's "supposed to be"
according to drill and some fraudulent theory, is gone.

Hope that makes sense.

-Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:

> By that I mean, absolute pitch cues didn't help me in the
> task of identifying the well temperaments (not that I recall
> doing that well at it).

Hmmm... I think you're probably right there, because weren't we
all concentrating mostly on "key character"? I simply don't have
the experience with the temperaments to identify them other than
to contrast them. Contrasting most of them seemed pretty easy
but there were some which I know I could not differentiate in
any "real life" situation".

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@...> wrote:
> >
> > Obviously, in my opinion, obvious also in the case of Hermann
> > Miller. Also obvious in the case of Johnny Rheinhard and Carl
> > Lumma-
>
> I don't understand that last statement. It's obvious to you that
> Johnny and Carl have AP even though they say they don't?

What I mean is, the "overaching perception" is there. What's not
there is something Carl mentioned, the link to verbalizing AP.
Which is a good thing in my opinion.
>
> > the problem is, there are so many social and historical
> > factors, and straight up bullshit, surrounding "perfect pitch"
> > that it's best, in my opinion, to leave the whole thing alone,
> > which is why I've stayed out this discussion so far.
>
> I'm saddened to hear that your experience with AP has been so
> negative. Your advice to "leave the whole thing alone" (taken
> together with other things you said below) makes it sound like a
> curse.

I mean, musicians should leave discussing it in a "scientific" and
catagorizing way alone and just let it be.

> > Look- claiming that a specific frequency IS "A" or whatever is
> > provinicial, and servile.
>
> But once we've agreed on a standard, it's tantamount to universal.

That's where I strongly disagree, and relates to something that
makes my life in our "Post-Modern" world very difficult. But I
also listen to gibbons and frogs for musical ideas, so, hahaha!
>
> > That's not what it IS, that's what someone
> > calls it. AWARENESS of what a frequency "is", in the great
spectrum
> > of things, without putting into a drawer, is musical. This is
> the...
> > hmmm... spanner in the works.
>
> So you would prefer to be aware of pitch without having to
identify
> it, or ignorance is bliss. ;-)

Not ignorance, but true knowledge- identify things without words.
Obviously the whole business of creating tunings means there
are many contradictions in what I say, so what? Numbers can be
used then discarded, forgotten, while a true identity like
raising your arms with palms upwards is a far better "name" for
11/9 than "11/9".

>
> Seriously, I'm beginning to understand your viewpoint a little
better
> after thinking about it and reading what you said in a subsequent
> message (#72382, which I've pasted here):
>
> > As far as I can tell there are so many cultural, national,
racial,
> > religious, etc. factors involved in "AP", and everything else
> > musical, that positivistic discussions are futile. It's possible
> that
> > where I live and work makes me too sensitive to this (just did a
> > concert in Belgrade) but I really feel it's true for all humans:
> > one man's "blue" might be another man's "green" so it's best just
> > to hear and create as "true" as you can and let a Higher
>authority
> > judge what's really "absolute", trusting that we're all tied in
>an
> > absolute whether we know it or not.
>
> It sounds as if you've had to contend with varying pitch standards.

Thankfully, yes- it seems a shame to establish any kind
of fixed hierarchy in the sound continuum. Probably a major step
toward liberation came from first day singing Baroque at A-415
without having been told anything about the tuning (wait a sec...
am I crazy, aren't we singing everything a semitone down? and so
much more natural sounding!)

> I'm wondering whether Bach or Handel might have felt this way if
>they
> had developed AP at an early age and subsequently discovered that
> there were multiple (contradictory) pitch standards. They would
> probably have been loath to discuss it (in which case, we'll never
> know).

I'm afraid that the typical human reaction is to consider the
familiar the "real". Not that Bach would necessarily have typical
reactions of course.

>
> > Now Johnnny may insist that his solo bassoon work is performend
> > without AP, but noone and no thing can sail by dead-reckoning
>>like
> > that.
>
> Does a very highly developed sense of relative pitch count for
> nothing?

Counts immensely, I wish mine were much better than it is, but I
can hear that "thing" of the... embracing support? structural field?
I don't know what to call it. If the intonational cohesiveness of
the solo piece of Johnny Rheinhard's I listened to recently was
achieved without a subconcious absolute reference, I would
consider Rheinhard's relative pitch more than "highly developed",
rather "phenomenal".

>
> > It's obvious that there's a "global" picture involved, and that
> > is true AP without the social elements. And Carl, don't try to
sell
> > me bananas. When Aaron posted his listening test a couple of
months
> > ago, do you really tink that you heard those difference by
counting
> > beats and shit like that?
>
> You don't have to count beats to hear qualitative differences
(faster
> or slower) in beat rates, just as you don't need AP to tell
whether
> one pitch is higher or lower than another.

Yes but how fine can the differences be?

>
> > Give me a break, your heard those tiny
> > differences in the
> > context of an overarching "absolute", the same as I did.
>
> It depends on what you mean by this. If you mean that many of us
on
> this list are sufficiently familiar with the characteristic sound
of
> triads in 12-ET that we can use that as an internalized "absolute"
> reference against which we can make qualitative comparisons of
>other
> triads tempered by different amounts (e.g., slightly better than
>12-
> ET or somewhat worse than 12-ET), then that's a kind of "tonal
> memory" (similar to being able to distinguish one timbre from
> another), but it's not the same thing as AP.

Don't mean that- in the test I was referring to, it was two
non-12-tET higher-ratio thirds less than two cents apart. I
seriously doubt that referencing them against 12-tET alone could
suffice. It seems to me that people naturally reference against
much finer "absolutes".
>
> Likewise, the ability to distinguish between a just, 12-ET, and
> pythagorean major 3rd with the tones played *consecutively* is not
> AP, but a refined sense of relative pitch (which I'm sure many on
> this list have developed).
>
> > As someone with born "AP" who has spent a decade at least
getting
> > rid of it, at least on a conscious level,
>
> How tragic! I've found AP to be one of the best things that ever
> happened to me. My father occasionally made me the object of a
> sideshow when guests visited our home, but I didn't object,
because
> it was fun, and it helped me to be less introverted.

I mean getting rid of AP as it's usually concieved, especially in
terms of 12-tET. The "natural state", being tied deeply into and
referencing from ineffable "absolutes" is something I hope to
strengthen, and I believe I have, greatly, by avoiding AP-in-terms
-of-12-tET.

> > Pfffft, forget it and go make music.
>
> Yes, I agree that's good advice if you don't already have it. But
>if
> you do, then treat it as a precious gift and make the most of it.

From my point of view, what is truly tragic is shackling the gift to
standards created by Man. "A-440" is a golden calf. But of course
everyone must find their own way.

-Cameron Bobro

(Note: extra line breaks removed.)

----- Original Message ----- From: "Herman Miller" <hmiller@IO.COM>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 8:52 PM
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> Ozan Yarman wrote:
>> Here are my scores:
>> First name: Ozan
>> Last name: Yarman
>> Age: 29
>> AP rank: 1.00
>> Pure tone score: 31.25
>> Piano tone score: 32.25
>
> That was harder than I expected!
>
> First name: Herman
> Last name: Miller
> Age: 42
> AP rank: 1.00
> Pure tone score: 30.00
> Piano tone score: 32.25

First name: Danny
Last name: Wier
Age: 36
AP rank: 1.00
Pure tone score: 35.75
Piano tone score: 36

I had a little trouble with the higher pitches, especially the 7th octave, and the piano tones were easier for me. And I just bought a keyboard, and I haven't owned one in many years, so I have to retune my mind again.

I would like to see a 31-tone test if anyone dares to make one...

~D>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > > Ok, so let's take a tally. Here are the listers
> > > I can think of who've made an AP claim:
> > >
> > > * Jay Williams
> > > * George Secor
> > > * Paul Hjelmstad
> > > * Ozan Yarman
> > >
> > > Anyone else?
> >
> > I do,
>
> Hi Herman,
>
> Thanks for sharing your story. Even if we take the
> grossly inflated 1223-member number from Yahoo (mostly
> outdated e-mail address, probably), 5/1223 is a heck
> of a lot higher than 1/10,000 or whatever I keep
> remembering.

Carl, that one-in-10,000 (or similar) figure for AP applies to the
general population. Among musicians AP is much more common, more
like 5% to 15%, and I imagine that the rather large variation in that
figure could reflect a difference in opinion over how much musicial
training qualifies one to be called a "musician" for the purposes of
a particular study.

Search for the first two occurrences of "percent" in the following
link:
http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu/pppress.html

--George

I'm wondering if we might get back on topic, you know---talk about tuning, and music involving various tunings.

Is it only me, or is anyone else tired of getting the heading "perfect pitch paper by Deutsch" in their inbox?

Perhaps those interested might for a new perfect pitch group or something.

Best,
Aaron.

> > As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
> > that someone is born with AP.
>
> I suspect that everyone's born with AP actually, or goes through it
> at a certain stage as an infant (the direct mimicing stage, it's
> very cute as you know). Then it's just a matter of it sticking with
> you, or redeveloping.

Isn't that what I've been saying?

> >But why did you get rid of it?
>
> It's simply bogus to be trained to the point where you hear
> anything that's not 12-tET A-440 as "out of tune",

Was that your experience, and are you sure it was AP?

> The whole thing was screwing up my
> singing intonation for years of course,

There's no reason that should be the case.

> for I couldn't, musically,
> bring myself to sing "in tune" 12-tET other than to occaisionly
> slap down someone questioning my intonation ability.

First you say you couldn't tolerate anything but 12, and
now you seem to be saying you couldn't bare to do 12. Which
was it?

> By the way I make no "golden ears" claims.

You certainly have in the past, but those were RP claims.

-Carl

> Carl, that one-in-10,000 (or similar) figure for AP applies to the
> general population. Among musicians AP is much more common,

Yes, I was aware of that.

> more
> like 5% to 15%, and I imagine that the rather large variation in
> that figure could reflect a difference in opinion over how much
> musicial training qualifies one to be called a "musician" for the
> purposes of a particular study.

Makes sense.

So 6/1223 = 0.5%. We're way low.

-Carl

I think the AP discussion is pertinent to the subject of
microtonaly.

What I would like to see posted is an updated list of
MidWest Microfest contributors, given the recent replies
on MMM.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson" <aaron@...> wrote:
> I'm wondering if we might get back on topic, you know---talk about
> tuning, and music involving various tunings.
>
> Is it only me, or is anyone else tired of getting the
> heading "perfect pitch paper by Deutsch" in their inbox?
>
> Perhaps those interested might for a new perfect pitch group
> or something.
>
> Best,
> Aaron.
>

Danny Wier wrote...
> I would like to see a 31-tone test if anyone dares to make one...
>
> ~D>

Now you're talkin' !

-Carl

George S. wrote...
> Which prompted me to ask: Is there any advice (or resource) out
> there for parents desiring to produce offspring with AP? I
> looked and found this:
>
> http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part14.htm

I found the part where he gives the cliche' complaint about
his AP...

""
We had not sought to create perfect pitch - until Schlaug's study
I had considered perfect pitch a mixed blessing at best. I am
cursed with it, in that ensemble groups and choral groups I've
been part of, seem to love to transpose for the convenience of
one member or another the music into different keys. Hence, I had
to transpose back in my mind as we went - no problem for those
without such pitch; probably no problem for the many whose
musical skills vastly exceed mine - but a major bother for me.
However, I've also felt that somehow my musical perfect pitch
was a key part of my quick ability to understand what other people
are saying or leading up to.""

Whine whine whine. Learn to transpose then!

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > Yes, especially since there seems to be a market out there for
> > people desiring to acquire it, even though the research says
> > something to the effect of, "If you're old enough to read this,
> > then forget it."
>
> Which research is that? I'm aware of two studies that showed
> moderate success with university students (which Deutsch seems
> to be aware of).

I'm giving you my "take" on what the research indicates. I don't
consider "moderate success", such as the ability to distinguish Eb
from F# after many months of training, to be successful, and here's
why.

In order to distinguish middle C from the C an octave lower or
higher, it's necessary to use information other than an impression of
the "pitch-color" perceived by persons with AP. Fortunately, an
octave separation between tones is sufficient to distinguish one from
the other using the rough sense of pitch-height that all musicians
possess: I'm sure you could easily pick out middle C from among
several different C's in consecutive octaves. Now let's try that in
a subsequent session with the tones a major 7th apart, then a minor
7th, then a major 6th, etc., making the distance progressively
smaller. You'll soon reach a point where your rough sense of pitch-
height is not up to the task, and I suspect that may occur somewhere
in the vicinity of the "moderate successs" to which you refer.

If you're thinking of AP as analogous to color recognition (or
chroma), you could then think of a rough sense of pitch-height as
being analogous to distinguishing dark from light (or luma). While
the non-AP listener would hear pitches as shades of grey in a
continuum of black to white, a listener with AP might hear various
octaves of C as analogous to seeing various shades (darker=lower
octaves) and tints (lighter=higher octaves) of green. Being able to
remember subtle differences in shades of grey is *not* the same as
being able to remember how green differs from chartreuse or aqua.

I may be wrong about this, but that's what I suspect at this point.

For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
of "waste" in the following:
http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html

> > Which prompted me to ask: Is there any advice (or resource) out
there
> > for parents desiring to produce offspring with AP? I looked and
> > found this:
> >
> > http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part14.htm
> >
> > I thought that Monz, Aaron Johnson, or you (Carl) might be
> > interested in trying this sometime within the next few years.
>
> Thanks. I think a note-naming game will be sufficient,

Contrary to what you might think, I have good reason to believe that
it might *not* be the best way, considering that it's been reported
that no more than about 40% of musicians who received instruction
before the age of 5 are reported to possess AP. I figure that the
odds were stacked heavily against me (at the ripe old age of 6 years
and 5 months), but I must have done something right to have come by
it almost effortlessly -- and I believe I've figured it out!

> but
> I'll check this out.
>
> > if anyone is interested.
>
> Sure!

Carl, you edited out the most important thing I said, just before
that:

<< it might be helpful to employ another (simpler, more passive, and
less structured) method that could be used to facilitate AP
development ... if anyone is interested >>

Since yesterday I've had a chance to reflect a little further on
the "(simpler, more passive, and less structured) method" that seems
to have been one of the two decisive factors in my own experience.
As a result, I'm now entertaining the possibility that attempting to
develop AP past the age of 8 or 9 may not be a waste of time after
all -- if you go about it in a certain way. (Is anyone interested in
trying this out? I would expect to see results, or lack thereof, in
less than a month, so this wouldn't be a long-term experiment.)

Whatever the case, I figure that it would result in a much better
than 40% success rate prior to the age of 5.

--George

I had the exact same experience Carl.

Oz.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Lumma" <clumma@yahoo.com>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: 18 Temmuz 2007 �ar�amba 19:43
Subject: [tuning] Re: new perfect pitch paper from Deutsch

> George S. wrote...
> > Which prompted me to ask: Is there any advice (or resource) out
> > there for parents desiring to produce offspring with AP? I
> > looked and found this:
> >
> > http://www.winwenger.com/archives/part14.htm
>
> I found the part where he gives the cliche' complaint about
> his AP...
>
> ""
> We had not sought to create perfect pitch - until Schlaug's study
> I had considered perfect pitch a mixed blessing at best. I am
> cursed with it, in that ensemble groups and choral groups I've
> been part of, seem to love to transpose for the convenience of
> one member or another the music into different keys. Hence, I had
> to transpose back in my mind as we went - no problem for those
> without such pitch; probably no problem for the many whose
> musical skills vastly exceed mine - but a major bother for me.
> However, I've also felt that somehow my musical perfect pitch
> was a key part of my quick ability to understand what other people
> are saying or leading up to.""
>
> Whine whine whine. Learn to transpose then!
>
> -Carl
>
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Danny Wier" <dawiertx@...> wrote:
>...
> I would like to see a 31-tone test if anyone dares to make one...

This raises a few issues:

1) You'd need to specify a pitch standard. The Dutch 31-tone
movement used A=440, and 31-ET was also set at A=440 in the 3
Scalatrons made with generalized keyboards in the 1970's, so there's
ample precedent to stick with that.

2) I figure that the person being tested would first need to take the
time to memorize the pitches of 31-ET. (Otherwise you would have to
make relative-pitch comparisons with the nearest 12-ET pitches in
your head, which isn't AP in the strictest sense.) In my most recent
answer to Carl (msg. #72411) I make mention of a "simpler, more
passive, and less structured" (and relatively painless) method of
developing AP that's readily adaptable to microtonality; if you
already have AP with reference to 12-ET, then it's a sure thing.

3) There would be a very limited market for a 31-tone test, so we're
not likely to see one any time soon.

However, you did manage to get this thread back on topic. :-)

--George

> > > Yes, especially since there seems to be a market out there for
> > > people desiring to acquire it, even though the research says
> > > something to the effect of, "If you're old enough to read this,
> > > then forget it."
> >
> > Which research is that? I'm aware of two studies that showed
> > moderate success with university students (which Deutsch seems
> > to be aware of).
>
> I'm giving you my "take" on what the research indicates. I don't
> consider "moderate success", such as the ability to distinguish Eb
> from F# after many months of training, to be successful, and here's
> why.

I learned to distinguish them in about 3 hours of training.

> In order to distinguish middle C from the C an octave lower or
> higher, it's necessary to use information other than an impression
> of the "pitch-color" perceived by persons with AP.

Right.

> Fortunately, an octave separation between tones is sufficient
> to distinguish one from the other using the rough sense of
> pitch-height that all musicians possess:

Right.

> let's try that in
> a subsequent session with the tones a major 7th apart, then a
> minor 7th, then a major 6th, etc., making the distance
> progressively smaller. You'll soon reach a point where your
> rough sense of pitch-height is not up to the task, and I
> suspect that may occur somewhere in the vicinity of the
> "moderate successs" to which you refer.

No, I was using pitch color, not pitch height. And the
studies had people getting all 12 pitches.

> For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
> of "waste" in the following:
> http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html

The first occurrence implies you can't study both RP and AP.

The second discusses 350 hours of learning to distinguish
two notes. I don't believe *anyone* would have the patience
to work on two notes for that long to achieve success. He
also mentions some guy wandering around with a tuning fork
for a year. I did that for a month in 1994, and I discovered
that this can never work to train AP. You don't know what
to listen for without comparing tones. And trying to
"memorize" isn't going to get you anywhere. Since only 12
things are involved, if it were a question of memory and
exposure, lots more people would have AP.

> > Thanks. I think a note-naming game will be sufficient,
>
> Contrary to what you might think, I have good reason to believe
> that it might *not* be the best way,

First off, wouldn't you say that Weiger's method is a "simple
note-naming game"?

> but I must have done something right to have come by
> it almost effortlessly -- and I believe I've figured it out!

Well, spill the beans then. That's the 2nd time I've asked,
despite my editing-out.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Aaron K. Johnson" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> I'm wondering if we might get back on topic, you know---talk about
> tuning, and music involving various tunings.

Hi Aaron,

I figured this was bound to come up sooner or later. I hadn't posted
anything lately before this thread. I was busily finishing up some
work on Sagittal and therefore needed to resist the temptation to
post. This wasn't very difficult, inasmuch as I was getting tired of
seeing messages about Newton and 53-EDO.

From the volume of messages, it appears that enough microtonalists
*are* either interested in or have AP. Inasmuch as both alternative
tunings and AP involve both *pitch* and *perception*, they may be
considered somewhat relevant to one another. Whenever possible, I've
tried to make mention of AP issues as they relate to microtonality so
as not to be completely OT.

I'm sorry that you're not interested in this, but you can always use
the <PgDn> key to execute a fast-forward.

> Is it only me, or is anyone else tired of getting the
heading "perfect
> pitch paper by Deutsch" in their inbox?

I mentioned your name in one of my messages:
/tuning/topicId_72276.html#72388
Did you see it?

> Perhaps those interested might for a new perfect pitch group or
something.

I'd take that advice if one already existed, but I wouldn't expect to
be spending any time there once the current interest blows over, so I
don't see any point in starting one. We don't need any more inactive
groups.

--George

Carl Lumma wrote:

> Danny Wier wrote...
>> I would like to see a 31-tone test if anyone dares to make one...
>>
>> ~D>
>
> Now you're talkin' !

I'd make one myself if I knew any language actually used today; all I can do is 1980s BASIC. (I was going to learn Java but I never got around to it.)

And of course we need other tuning systems, not just ETs. Definitely JI.

~D.

George D. Secor wrote:

> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Danny Wier" <dawiertx@...> wrote:
>>...
>> I would like to see a 31-tone test if anyone dares to make one...
>
> This raises a few issues:
>
> 1) You'd need to specify a pitch standard. The Dutch 31-tone
> movement used A=440, and 31-ET was also set at A=440 in the 3
> Scalatrons made with generalized keyboards in the 1970's, so there's
> ample precedent to stick with that.

I agree; that's the tuning I use already. Same goes for any meantone and meantone-type ET, and also ETs of all multiples of 12 (well, 612 might be a different case).

In JI, and also 41, 53 and 72 as JI approximants, I'm leaning towards tuning A-27/16 as 440 Hz, but I know others have recommended tuning A-5/3 at the same frequency.

> 2) I figure that the person being tested would first need to take the
> time to memorize the pitches of 31-ET. (Otherwise you would have to
> make relative-pitch comparisons with the nearest 12-ET pitches in
> your head, which isn't AP in the strictest sense.) In my most recent
> answer to Carl (msg. #72411) I make mention of a "simpler, more
> passive, and less structured" (and relatively painless) method of
> developing AP that's readily adaptable to microtonality; if you
> already have AP with reference to 12-ET, then it's a sure thing.

I still have think of everything in terms of 12 or 24. I'd probably be better at 72-ET than 31-ET.

> 3) There would be a very limited market for a 31-tone test, so we're
> not likely to see one any time soon.

That sort of program would have to test and train for a variety of tunings, and of course be able to load .scl and .tun files. It would be a pretty simple program, as long as you have a MIDI synth that can execute pitch bends.

Come to think of it, I'd like to see an ear-training function in Scala. (You reading, Manuel?)

> However, you did manage to get this thread back on topic. :-)

There was a discussion of absolute/perfect pitch; I just had to jump in. It might be that people with AP are more likely to have an interest in tuning issues. We surely have a few more list members yet to come out of the woodwork.

~D.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> > > As discussed, I don't think there's any meaning in stating
> > > that someone is born with AP.
> >
> > I suspect that everyone's born with AP actually, or goes through
it
> > at a certain stage as an infant (the direct mimicing stage, it's
> > very cute as you know). Then it's just a matter of it sticking
with
> > you, or redeveloping.
>
> Isn't that what I've been saying?

Yes- is it written somewhere that I must always disagree with you?
>
> > >But why did you get rid of it?
> >
> > It's simply bogus to be trained to the point where you hear
> > anything that's not 12-tET A-440 as "out of tune",
>
> Was that your experience, and are you sure it was AP?

No that was not my experience, it was where I didn't want to go.

Am I sure it was AP? Beats me, I guess there must be other
explanations for I somehow just "knew" that my son always starts
his favorite song on a perfect G (there's kind of a...beige? color
to it but I don't have the words) and this was correct when I
checked against the keyboard ("was" isn't really the right word, but
as I said before I consider my current "non-AP" a higher evolution,
or better a return to deeper roots).

>
> > The whole thing was screwing up my
> > singing intonation for years of course,
>
> There's no reason that should be the case.

Quite wrong. I explained reasons already, and it's a very common
thing: the clash of different worlds. Expectations and desires.

>
> > for I couldn't, musically,
> > bring myself to sing "in tune" 12-tET other than to occaisionly
> > slap down someone questioning my intonation ability.
>
> First you say you couldn't tolerate anything but 12, and
> now you seem to be saying you couldn't bare to do 12. Which
> was it?

Both, obviously; a crossroads I'm sure countless others have had
to face.

>
> > By the way I make no "golden ears" claims.
>
> You certainly have in the past, but those were RP claims.

I certainly have not, quite the contrary: I bet my RP skills are
below average here on the tuning list. I hear everything in a kind
of "field" of color and shape, which should be glaringly obvious in
light of my continual reference to things like "character families".
I consider both "AP" and "RP" just cartoons of the true state, where
the musician doesn't even "hear" or "make", but just "is", music.

-Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@...> wrote:
> In my most recent
> answer to Carl (msg. #72411) I make mention of a "simpler, more
> passive, and less structured" (and relatively painless) method of
> developing AP that's readily adaptable to microtonality; if you
> already have AP with reference to 12-ET, then it's a sure thing.

Well, let's hear it! Some time ago I specifically mentioned your 17-WT
as audibly having what I call a cohesive character (it's of "one
pallette" so to speak) and I now wonder if your "kinder gentler micro-
friendly AP" is actually the same thing I was talking about when
disparaging "A-440 12-tET AP" and saying that a deep and all-embracing
version is the true ideal.

By the way, where's your 34-tone paper?

-Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Cameron Bobro" <misterbobro@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@> wrote:
> > In my most recent
> > answer to Carl (msg. #72411) I make mention of a "simpler, more
> > passive, and less structured" (and relatively painless) method of
> > developing AP that's readily adaptable to microtonality; if you
> > already have AP with reference to 12-ET, then it's a sure thing.
>
> Well, let's hear it!

My apologies to you and Carl for seemingly putting you off, but
things are not as simple as I first thought. As I was working on my
reply and revisiting my own early childhood experiences, I not only
remembered seemingly insignificant details, but also came to the
realization that a couple of those details seem to have been
extremely important to my success in developing AP as easily as I
did. The more I write, the more thoughts I have left to write. It's
very similar to what happened with the "avalanche of ideas" that went
through my mind when Margo Schulter wrote me about my 17-tone well-
temperament in September 2001. It's curious that you mentioned the
paper that came out of that; perhaps I'll end up writing one about
absolute pitch and microtonality.

Anyway, I'm not quite done writing my reply to Carl (hang in there!),
and I hope you'll think it was worth waiting for.

> Some time ago I specifically mentioned your 17-WT
> as audibly having what I call a cohesive character (it's of "one
> pallette" so to speak) and I now wonder if your "kinder gentler
micro-
> friendly AP" is actually the same thing I was talking about when
> disparaging "A-440 12-tET AP" and saying that a deep and all-
embracing
> version is the true ideal.

If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, then the "simpler,
more passive, and less structured" method I refer to above doesn't
directly address what you're looking. What I have at the moment is a
specific approach or tactic (based on past experience) for the person
with 12-ET-based AP to make new pitch-associations outside of the 12-
ET set, without specifying what those pitches might be. (I won't
elaborate on that here, because I expect to include something about
that in my reply to Carl.)

Something that approach or tactic doesn't address, however, is how to
cope with some of the seemingly contradictory things that you come
across when you're into multiple tunings, e.g., sharps and flats
equivalent in 12-ET may be higher or lower than one another in other
tunings, and pitch standards are yet another issue. The essence of
the problem is that you run into trouble if you want to tie a pitch
name down to one particular pitch, or put another way, confusion
results when you attempt to use the same name for two significantly
different pitches.

If I had to give you a quick and easy solution off the top of my
head, then here it is. (Danny Wier, take note!) You could simply
settle on tackling the pitches of 72-ET, but you'll need reasonably
short names for them. For names, I'd suggest the modifiers 5-up, 5-
down, 7-up, 7-down, 11-up, and 11-down (for +1, -1, +2, -2, +3, and -
3 degrees of 72, respectively) to correspond to the prime-number
(harmonic) modifications indicated by the accidentals required for 72-
ET. One nice thing about this is that it would enable you to
integrate 6 separate pitch-standards for 12-ET into a single grand
scheme, since 72-ET consists of 6 chains (or circles) of 12 fifths.

However, settling on a 72-ET framework, good as it is, has the
disadvantage of making it difficult to integrate other excellent
tunings into your frame of reference -- but it's not impossible. For
example, I thought of a way to integrate 31-ET into 72. Start with
A=440 and construct a chain of 15 additional pitches in each
direction from A using a Miracle generator (or "secor" :-), for a
total of 31 pitches (i.e., Canasta). In 72-ET a secor is ~116.67c,
while in 31-ET it's ~116.13c, a difference of ~0.54c. Over the
extent of 15 secors in either direction this accumulates to slightly
over +/-8 cents maximum difference at the very worst. Since 1deg72
is ~16.67c, that's still less than half of that, so you have all of
the pitches of 31-ET (organized in a single chain) to within the
nearest degree of 72-ET. If you can tolerate a difference of up to 8
cents for a given pitch-name, you're in business!

If you wish, you could then convert the 72-ET names into 31-ET names
(using the prefixes semi- and sesqui- with the sharp and flat word
roots to translate them into 31 notation), but it wouldn't be
necessary to think of them that way.

Does this help at all?

> By the way, where's your 34-tone paper?

Not yet a reality, but some day soon, I hope. I started writing a
book on microtonality around seven or eight years ago. I completed
an introduction and about 10 chapters, but much of it would have to
be rewritten, since so much has taken place since then. Dave Keenan
and I are on the brink of finishing up the essential part of our work
on the Sagittal notation, but this latest thread on AP (and my
ensuing brainstorm) has delayed me from getting off my next reply to
him. (Sorry, Dave. The attachments are all done; I only need to
write you a letter explaining how/why I did what I did.) If I only
had time for everything I would like to do!

--George

George D. Secor wrote:

> If I had to give you a quick and easy solution off the top of my
> head, then here it is. (Danny Wier, take note!) You could simply
> settle on tackling the pitches of 72-ET, but you'll need reasonably
> short names for them. For names, I'd suggest the modifiers 5-up, 5-
> down, 7-up, 7-down, 11-up, and 11-down (for +1, -1, +2, -2, +3, and -
> 3 degrees of 72, respectively) to correspond to the prime-number
> (harmonic) modifications indicated by the accidentals required for 72-
> ET. One nice thing about this is that it would enable you to
> integrate 6 separate pitch-standards for 12-ET into a single grand
> scheme, since 72-ET consists of 6 chains (or circles) of 12 fifths.

I do something close to that already, though I really think in terms of 24-et, then describe some notes as being "a little sharp" or "a little flat". The 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord on C, for example, I could spell out as C E- G Bdb+ D F‡ (‡ = half-sharp, d = half-flat, + = one 72-edo comma up, - = one comma down). Reading that out, I could say "C, E down, G, B flat-and-a-half up, D, F half-sharp".

But I'm not all *that* precise in determining pitches at that level of precision. Does anybody have AP with comma-level accuracy?

(Note: the ‡ symbol, which might not come through in your e-mail, is the double dagger; I use it for half-sharp. In Windows is typed Alt+0135; its Unicode location is U+2021.)

> However, settling on a 72-ET framework, good as it is, has the
> disadvantage of making it difficult to integrate other excellent
> tunings into your frame of reference -- but it's not impossible. For
> example, I thought of a way to integrate 31-ET into 72. Start with
> A=440 and construct a chain of 15 additional pitches in each
> direction from A using a Miracle generator (or "secor" :-), for a
> total of 31 pitches (i.e., Canasta). In 72-ET a secor is ~116.67c,
> while in 31-ET it's ~116.13c, a difference of ~0.54c. Over the
> extent of 15 secors in either direction this accumulates to slightly
> over +/-8 cents maximum difference at the very worst. Since 1deg72
> is ~16.67c, that's still less than half of that, so you have all of
> the pitches of 31-ET (organized in a single chain) to within the
> nearest degree of 72-ET. If you can tolerate a difference of up to 8
> cents for a given pitch-name, you're in business!

I've been working on incorporating 31-et into 72-et, and I do use MIRACLE. What I do is start with the 41-tone "studloco" subset. I then put 31-et names on top of those, with two 41-tone pitches one 72-edo degree apart getting the same name.

0: C
1:
2: Dbb (C‡)
3:
4: C# (Ddb)
5: C# (Ddb)
6:
7: Db (C‡#)
8:
9: Cx (Dd)
10:
11: D
12: D
13
14: Edd (D‡)
15
16: D# (Edb)
17
18: Eb (D‡#)
19: Eb (D‡#)
(no need to do the whole octave)

Since sizes of sharps and flats and their doubles, halves and and-a-halves would vary in size, there might be problems with this method, this would at least reflect actual musical practice, sparing us the use of "comma up" and "comma down" for that 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord, which then would simply be called C-E-G-Bdb-D-F‡.

I've started practicing 72-edo on my Oriental keyboard, which has twelve scale tuning buttons - when turned off, they leave the keyboard in 12-et, but when one is turned on, it raises or lowers one note in the octave up to 64 cents (by default, it lowers it by 50, since the instrument is designed for modern Arabic music, but that can be changed for each of the pitches). There are three memory buttons as well.

~D.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@...> wrote:
> It's curious that you mentioned the
> paper that came out of that; perhaps I'll end up writing one about
> absolute pitch and microtonality.

Do! I think that "AP" is innate, usually subconcious I guess, in all
people. I remember years ago in a recording class the teacher asking
if anyone knew the "test tone" (TV, telephone, something like that,
don't remember) and when I sang it the whole class laughed and
agreed that that was it, though noone in the class including myself
at that time claimed to have AP.

>
> If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, then
the "simpler,
> more passive, and less structured" method I refer to above doesn't
> directly address what you're looking. What I have at the moment
>is a
> specific approach or tactic (based on past experience) for the
person
> with 12-ET-based AP to make new pitch-associations outside of the
>12-
> ET set, without specifying what those pitches might be.

That might be helpful for me guiding my son, who gets mostly 12-tET
in nursery school and already "knows" specific pitches.

> Something that approach or tactic doesn't address, however, is how
>to
> cope with some of the seemingly contradictory things that you come
> across when you're into multiple tunings, e.g., sharps and flats
> equivalent in 12-ET may be higher or lower than one another in
other
> tunings, and pitch standards are yet another issue. The essence
of
> the problem is that you run into trouble if you want to tie a
>pitch
> name down to one particular pitch, or put another way, confusion
> results when you attempt to use the same name for two
significantly
> different pitches.

That's the rub- I get tangled up in solfeggio (ma, me, mo, mi mu,
LOL )already in 34, which is the realistic and practical point of
reference for me.

> > By the way, where's your 34-tone paper?
>
> Not yet a reality, but some day soon, I hope. I started writing a
> book on microtonality around seven or eight years ago.

A good book on the subject would be wonderful.

Can we use this thread when it comes up? I can't keep
following the Deutsch thread.

Thanks,

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Can we use this thread when it comes up? I can't keep
> following the Deutsch thread.

Hi, Carl. Sorry to keep you in further suspense. My reply's not yet
finished, because I'm still learning some very valuable things from my
past experience.

I've changed the thread name to encourage myself to keep this more on-
topic (and, hoping that others may also contribute their own
observations, less George-centered).

Best regards,

--A. P. Microtone ;-)

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Danny Wier" <dawiertx@...> wrote:
>
> George D. Secor wrote:
>
> > If I had to give you a quick and easy solution off the top of my
> > head, then here it is. (Danny Wier, take note!) You could simply
> > settle on tackling the pitches of 72-ET, but you'll need
reasonably
> > short names for them. For names, I'd suggest the modifiers 5-up,
5-
> > down, 7-up, 7-down, 11-up, and 11-down (for +1, -1, +2, -2, +3,
and -
> > 3 degrees of 72, respectively) to correspond to the prime-number
> > (harmonic) modifications indicated by the accidentals required
for 72-
> > ET. One nice thing about this is that it would enable you to
> > integrate 6 separate pitch-standards for 12-ET into a single grand
> > scheme, since 72-ET consists of 6 chains (or circles) of 12
fifths.
>
> I do something close to that already, though I really think in
terms of
> 24-et, then describe some notes as being "a little sharp" or "a
little
> flat". The 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord on C, for example, I could spell out
as C E- G
> Bdb+ D F‡ (‡ = half-sharp, d = half-flat, + = one 72-edo comma
up, - = one
> comma down). Reading that out, I could say "C, E down, G, B flat-
and-a-half
> up, D, F half-sharp".

Not bad. You could simplify "flat-and-a-half" by using "sesquiflat",
and "half-sharp" would then become "semisharp". I'm thinking that
there could be even simpler (much shorter) names and already have an
idea of how to go about it, but I'll have to give it a lot more
thought before I say anything more.

> But I'm not all *that* precise in determining pitches at that level
of
> precision. Does anybody have AP with comma-level accuracy?

If so, it would most likely be someone associated with the Boston
Microtonal Society. Personally, I can't see investing the time &
effort to develop AP that fine, especially since I've never used 72-
ET (and don't expect to) for anything more than an brief example.

Now 31-ET is a different story. I've used that a lot on my Scalatron
over the years, so I've already internalized its pitches to some
extent. Shortly after getting the instrument, I quickly noticed
differences in pitch-color between pairs of sharps and flats that are
equivalent in 12-ET. (Curiously, the flats, though higher in pitch
than the adjacent sharps, seem to have what I would call a "mellower"
quality.)

I may try listening experiments with the 31 pitches out of 72 that
are closest to 31-ET.

> (Note: the ‡ symbol, which might not come through in your e-mail,
is the
> double dagger; I use it for half-sharp. In Windows is typed
Alt+0135; its
> Unicode location is U+2021.)

It didn't come out right, but I know what you mean.

> > However, settling on a 72-ET framework, good as it is, has the
> > disadvantage of making it difficult to integrate other excellent
> > tunings into your frame of reference -- but it's not impossible.
For
> > example, I thought of a way to integrate 31-ET into 72. Start
with
> > A=440 and construct a chain of 15 additional pitches in each
> > direction from A using a Miracle generator (or "secor" :-), for a
> > total of 31 pitches (i.e., Canasta). In 72-ET a secor is
~116.67c,
> > while in 31-ET it's ~116.13c, a difference of ~0.54c. Over the
> > extent of 15 secors in either direction this accumulates to
slightly
> > over +/-8 cents maximum difference at the very worst. Since
1deg72
> > is ~16.67c, that's still less than half of that, so you have all
of
> > the pitches of 31-ET (organized in a single chain) to within the
> > nearest degree of 72-ET. If you can tolerate a difference of up
to 8
> > cents for a given pitch-name, you're in business!
>
> I've been working on incorporating 31-et into 72-et, and I do use
MIRACLE.
> What I do is start with the 41-tone "studloco" subset. I then put
31-et
> names on top of those, with two 41-tone pitches one 72-edo degree
apart
> getting the same name.
>
> 0: C
> 1:
> 2: Dbb (C‡)
> 3:
> 4: C# (Ddb)
> 5: C# (Ddb)
> 6:
> 7: Db (C‡#)
> 8:
> 9: Cx (Dd)
> 10:
> 11: D
> 12: D
> 13
> 14: Edd (D‡)
> 15
> 16: D# (Edb)
> 17
> 18: Eb (D‡#)
> 19: Eb (D‡#)
> (no need to do the whole octave)
>
> Since sizes of sharps and flats and their doubles, halves and and-a-
halves
> would vary in size, there might be problems with this method, this
would at
> least reflect actual musical practice, sparing us the use of "comma
up" and
> "comma down" for that 4:5:6:7:9:11 chord, which then would simply
be called
> C-E-G-Bdb-D-F‡.

That's liable to lead you down the pitfalls of a Ben Johnston-type of
nomenclature that is best avoided. Let me show you how I'd do it.

For now, I'm ignoring the problem of finding simple spoken names for
the pitches and instead am focusing on a simple way to write them
down. Using Sagittal shorthand, the characters representing Sagittal
symbols for alterations to the natural notes of 72-ET are shown in
the first 3 rows of the following table:

deg72: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
up: / f ^ #t #\ # #/ #f #^ xt x\ x
down: \ t v bf b/ b b\ bt bv bbf bb/ bb
deg31: 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4
1 2 3 4

(To view this properly, click on "Show Message Option" at the top of
the gray area to the right of this message, and then click on "Use
Fixed Width Font".)

The characters (and Sagittal symbols they represent) are symbolizing
prime-number alterations (specifically the commas 80:81, 63:64, and
32:33) valid for 1, 2, and 3deg72, but since they're defined as
rational comma-alterations rather than specific degrees of 72, they
also have validity and meaning in other octave divisions (as do the
sharp and flat symbols, which are defined as alterations of an
apotome, 2048:2187). For 31-ET, these characters represent the
number of degrees of 31 indicated in row 4 of the table, and row 5
shows you which characters are used to notate 31-ET.

Since 80:81 (the 5-comma) vanishes in 31-ET, the \ / symbol pair
equates to 0deg31, i.e., it has no effect on the pitch; so if you're
in 31-ET and read E\ of C/, you'll ignore the 5-comma alterations and
think of them as E and C, respectively.

Likewise, since the 63:64 (7-comma) and 32:33 (11-diesis) both
correspond to 1deg31, if you have a 7-comma alteration in the 72-ET
name, in 31-ET you can think of it as equivalent to an 11-diesis
alteration and can mentally convert the t f character pair to v ^.

Here's how the tones of Canasta, centered on A=440, are notated in
both 72 and 31-ET:

72: Df Ev Ft F#\ G Ab/ Af Bv Ct C#\ D Eb/ Ef F^ Gt G#\
31: D^ Ev Fv F# G Ab A^ Bv Cv C# D Eb E^ F^ Gv G#

72: A Bb/ Bf C^ Dt D#\ E F/ Gbf G^ At A#\ B C/ Dbf D^
31: A Bb B^ C^ Dv D# E F Gb G^ Av A# B C Db D^

Notice that the 72-to-31 character conversions work perfectly!

There are also other spellings in both 72 and 31, for example, the
harmonic 7th of C/ in 72 (alias C in 31) is Bb\ in 72, which should
be Bbv in 31. Simply dropping the \ when translating from 72 to 31
isn't guaranteed to work with alternate spellings (due to the fact
that A# and Bb are equivalent in 72, but not in 31), so you'll have
stick with to translating the written names given in the above
listing, so that A#\ in 72 becomes A# in 31, which you then convert
to Bbv (or Bdb).

> I've started practicing 72-edo on my Oriental keyboard, which has
twelve
> scale tuning buttons - when turned off, they leave the keyboard in
12-et,
> but when one is turned on, it raises or lowers one note in the
octave up to
> 64 cents (by default, it lowers it by 50, since the instrument is
designed
> for modern Arabic music, but that can be changed for each of the
pitches).
> There are three memory buttons as well.

Sounds good to me! In my experience all you need to do is play
around with the pitches, and you'll automatically remember some of
the things you're hearing, particularly if you play them over again
at least several times (but don't try to cover too much at one time).

--George

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Cameron Bobro" <misterbobro@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@> wrote:
> > It's curious that you mentioned the
> > paper that came out of that; perhaps I'll end up writing one
about
> > absolute pitch and microtonality.
>
> Do! I think that "AP" is innate, usually subconcious I guess, in
all
> people.

I wouldn't want to take mired in a nature vs. nuture debate, except
to say that I think you have to take both into account.

> I remember years ago in a recording class the teacher asking
> if anyone knew the "test tone" (TV, telephone, something like that,
> don't remember) and when I sang it the whole class laughed and
> agreed that that was it, though noone in the class including myself
> at that time claimed to have AP.

:-)

> > If I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly, then
the "simpler,
> > more passive, and less structured" method I refer to above
doesn't
> > directly address what you're looking. What I have at the moment
is a
> > specific approach or tactic (based on past experience) for the
person
> > with 12-ET-based AP to make new pitch-associations outside of the
12-
> > ET set, without specifying what those pitches might be.
>
> That might be helpful for me guiding my son, who gets mostly 12-tET
> in nursery school and already "knows" specific pitches.

My reply to Carl Lumma is still in the works. I didn't do anything
more over the weekend than think about what I had already written (I
spend weekends away from the internet), but it has turned out to be
very productive in that I realized that one seemingly insignificant
detail in my own experience, by virtue of its recurrence, may turn
out to be extremely helpful in maximizing one's perception of pitch-
color (as distinct from pitch-height). Stay tuned!

> > Something that approach or tactic doesn't address, however, is
how to
> > cope with some of the seemingly contradictory things that you
come
> > across when you're into multiple tunings, e.g., sharps and flats
> > equivalent in 12-ET may be higher or lower than one another in
other
> > tunings, and pitch standards are yet another issue. The essence
of
> > the problem is that you run into trouble if you want to tie a
>pitch
> > name down to one particular pitch, or put another way, confusion
> > results when you attempt to use the same name for two
significantly
> > different pitches.
>
> That's the rub- I get tangled up in solfeggio (ma, me, mo, mi mu,
> LOL )already in 34, which is the realistic and practical point of
> reference for me.

Ha ha! Solfeggio in *12* did nothing for me other than get in the
way.

See if my reply to Danny Wier makes any sense to you. I've
investigated linking 72-ET notation to 17 and 34-ET, but I haven't
yet gotten it to work as smoothly as with 31.

> > > By the way, where's your 34-tone paper?
> >
> > Not yet a reality, but some day soon, I hope. I started writing
a
> > book on microtonality around seven or eight years ago.
>
> A good book on the subject would be wonderful.

Yes, particularly if it's written by someone who's not overly biased
toward (or against) either JI or temperament.

--George

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
> > [gs:]
> > I'm giving you my "take" on what the research indicates. I don't
> > consider "moderate success", such as the ability to distinguish
Eb
> > from F# after many months of training, to be successful, and
here's
> > why.
>
> I learned to distinguish them in about 3 hours of training.

I'm curious about how well this worked and was wondering if you could
be more specific. Were the 3 hours of training all in one day in a
special facility, or did you do it by yourself at home? Did you
actually learn to identify each of these two pitches cold, i.e.,
hearing only one of them without hearing the other one first in a
session? Are you still able to do now what you did at the end of the
3 hours? Why didn't you go any farther?

> > In order to distinguish middle C from the C an octave lower or
> > higher, it's necessary to use information other than an impression
> > of the "pitch-color" perceived by persons with AP.
>
> Right.
>
> > Fortunately, an octave separation between tones is sufficient
> > to distinguish one from the other using the rough sense of
> > pitch-height that all musicians possess:
>
> Right.
>
> > let's try that in
> > a subsequent session with the tones a major 7th apart, then a
> > minor 7th, then a major 6th, etc., making the distance
> > progressively smaller.

Now that I think about it, this method may actually be useful for
developing AP, because it keeps one (and only one) pitch constant
within a varying context, so you may actually learn to recognize its
pitch-color through many repetitions. (But that's just an "aside".)

> > You'll soon reach a point where your
> > rough sense of pitch-height is not up to the task, and I
> > suspect that may occur somewhere in the vicinity of the
> > "moderate successs" to which you refer.
>
> No, I was using pitch color, not pitch height. And the
> studies had people getting all 12 pitches.

So there was some success, then. I'm wondering why there's so much
bad press to the contrary. Perhaps some of these courses are not as
good as the one you took.

> > For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
> > of "waste" in the following:
> > http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html
>
> The first occurrence implies you can't study both RP and AP.

I don't think it was meant to, or if it was, that you can't study
both at the same time. The point was that improving one's relative
pitch is not only possible (regardless of one's age), but it's also
well worth the time and effort, with none of the drawbacks of AP.
Not only do I agree wholehearted with this, but I also believe that
AP is not a substitute for RP and that any musician with AP should
also work on RP.

> The second discusses 350 hours of learning to distinguish
> two notes. I don't believe *anyone* would have the patience
> to work on two notes for that long to achieve success.

It doesn't say exactly what they worked on or how they worked on it,
only that the results weren't any better than that. I would have to
agree that if this was the case, it was a colossal waste of time.

> He
> also mentions some guy wandering around with a tuning fork
> for a year. I did that for a month in 1994, and I discovered
> that this can never work to train AP.

I agree.

> You don't know what
> to listen for without comparing tones.

Yes. It's like observing the differences in timbre between a
clarinet, oboe, trumpet, and violin. You more easily perceive the
characteristic sound of each one of these by comparing it with the
others.

> And trying to
> "memorize" isn't going to get you anywhere.

That's rather mystical, but yes, I agree! Following my analogy
above, the first time you hear the timbre of a clarinet or oboe in a
music appreciation course, you don't have to try to memorize it,
because that comes automatically after listening to it once or
twice. Of course, you'll need to remember the name of the instrument
producing the sound, but what you're memorizing is really the *name*
of the sound rather than sound itself.

One problem that must be dealt with in AP training, however, is that
the tones being compared differ not only in pitch-color but also in
pitch-height, so it would be helpful to present sounds in a way that
would enhance one's perception of the former while inhibiting that of
the latter. As you'll see below, this was in fact accomplished very
elegantly, and completely by chance, in my own experience of
acquiring AP.

> Since only 12
> things are involved, if it were a question of memory and
> exposure, lots more people would have AP.

I found that I didn't have to *try* to memorize pitch-colors, because
the differences were fairly obvious (is it that young children
naturally hear things differently?). The only memorization I had to
do was to associate the pitch-colors with their names, so it was
indeed the *names* I was memorizing.

> > > Thanks. I think a note-naming game will be sufficient,
> >
> > Contrary to what you might think, I have good reason to believe
> > that it might *not* be the best way,
>
> First off, wouldn't you say that Weiger's method is a "simple
> note-naming game"?

Yes, it's necessarily simple. I didn't say it wouldn't work, only
that I didn't think it was necessarily the best way -- at least by
itself. As you'll see below, I think that it helps if this sort of
activity is preceded by other, less structured, experiences in which
music and/or musical pitches are absorbed and internalized in a way
that literally sets the child up for success in the game. These
kinds of activities can be provided at an earlier age than might be
appropriate for a note-naming game, because they allow the child to
have fun on his/her own terms and also avoid putting pressure on the
child to "perform" in a predetermined manner in order to produce
certain expected results.

> > but I must have done something right to have come by
> > it almost effortlessly -- and I believe I've figured it out!
>
> Well, spill the beans then. That's the 2nd time I've asked,
> despite my editing-out.

Okay, sorry, but I couldn't put it in a short reply. It's going to
require a mini-essay, which I'm having to write in bits and pieces.
I'm going to supply many details, because even seemingly
insignificant details can provide very important clues about the
process. It's possible that others reading this may pick up on
things that I've missed, so I'm sharing this in the hope that we may
all learn something from it.

First, I need to relate several things not a part of my formal
musical training that I believe prepared me for AP development:

1) I began music lessons at age 6, but in the couple of years prior
to that I enjoyed listening to phonograph records (that's what we
called those 78 rpm disks back in the forties). In the course of a
couple of years I had listened to my favorite ones countless times,
and the sounds in vivid detail (including the pitches) became fixed
in my memory. My #1 favorite was the opening section of the first
movement of Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto. It wasn't until
years later that I was surprised to learn, hearing a pop recording on
the radio that I had listened to only days before on the phonograph,
that the turntable was rotating too fast, transposing everything up
roughly a semitone. The Tchaikovsky that I first heard in D major
was supposed to be in D-flat! Likewise, "Waltz of the Flowers" from
the Nutcracker, which I thought was in E-flat, was actually in D!
Fortunately, this did not take place at the time I was memorizing
note names.

2) I began kindergarten at the age of 4 years, 10 months (beating the
deadline by only 3 days), and I recall one song that semester (which
the class sang to the teacher's piano accompaniment) that
particularly impressed me, because the sound of the piano was
different than usual. After I had developed AP I was able to "play
back" that song in my head, and I realized that I had internalized
all sorts of details: 1) it was in 3/4 time; 2) it was in D major,
and 3) the difference in the sound of the piano was due to the melody
being played *in octaves*. I can still remember it, and I could play
it for you today. The important thing to observe here is that *I
remembered the sounds of the pitches before I even had names for
them*, so years later I was able to identify what key the piece was
in!

3) My third observation is only a faint memory. When I was around 3
years old I stayed with my grandparents for a period of several
months. At the time my parents were renting an apartment on the
opposite side of the city (Chicago), and it was not until my 2nd
semester of kindergarten that we moved into a house that had room for
the baby grand piano that was moved from my grandparents' house.
Anyway, while I was there, I spent a lot of time fooling around on
the piano keys. I don't remember exactly what I did, but evidently I
had a very good time, because my mother later told me that she had
gotten rather upset when she learned that I wasn't looking forward to
returning home. This opportunity to experiment probably played a
major role in preparing me to acquire AP.

Now for the formal training.

In 1950, the accordion was very popular, and my dad had wanted to
learn to play one, but never got the opportunity, so he decided to
try the next best thing. I had just turned 6 the previous fall, and
he pestered me a couple of times about taking lessons, but I wasn't
interested. The third time I said yes, just to get him off my back,
and I was enrolled in a 6-week trial course in one of the many
accordion studios that were around at the time. I began lessons on a
rented accordion that had a two-octave treble keyboard and 12 buttons
for the left hand. For a part of the lesson the teacher had me
play "oom-pah-pah" going up and down on all 6 pairs of bass & chord
buttons, just to get the feel of navigating the full extent of the
bassboard. He told me the names of each of the buttons, but it was
too much to remember all at once. One thing I did remember was that
A was on one end and B-flat was on the other end (but not which was
which). As I practiced that week, I remember being especially taken
with the sound of the button pair at one end, and for some
inexplcable reason I felt very strongly that it should be called "A",
because when I played it, it seemed to be saying "A-putt-putt" to
me. (I know that sounds silly, but it made a lasting impression on
me.) I could hardly wait for my second lesson to find out whether it
was really A or B-flat, and to my great delight, it turned out to be
A after all. Joy! That done, I thought it might be useful if I made
sound-with-name associations for the rest of them, which I did within
the next few weeks.

I'd like to make a few observations at this point:

1) It was the *bass*, not the treble, side of the instrument that
gave me my initial impression of pitch-color. The treble keyboard
had two reeds tuned not quite in unison (musette-style), so that the
frequencies beat against one another several times a second -- not
the best thing for singling out pitches. A bass button, on the other
hand, simultaneously sounded several reeds tuned to 3 or 4 different
octaves, and one set of these reeds will typically have the octave
break at a different point in the octave from the others, so as to
produce the illusion that the pitch is constantly ascending (or
descending) when scales are played. In other words, accordion basses
are set up to *decrease the perception of pitch height while
reinforcing (through octave doubling) the perception of pitch color!
*

2) In addition, initially hearing each of these not only as bass
notes but also as major triads (via the chord buttons) helped me to
perceive the character or "color" of both a note and the major
tonality of the same name.

3) What really blew me away over this past weekend was realizing that
not only the kindergarten song that made the greatest impression on
me, but also my favorite section of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto
had the melody *in octaves*. If you're in the process of developing
AP, then I have a hunch that there's something magic about hearing
the pitches in octaves.

When the trial course ended, my dad bought me an instrument with a
longer keyboard (with the reeds tuned in octaves instead of off-tuned
unisons) and more bass buttons, but for some reason, with summer
approaching, I didn't continue with the lessons until the following
fall. In the meantime I became more comfortable on the larger
instrument playing the pieces I had already learned.

My dad also spent a lot of time fooling around with the accordion,
picking out melodies on the treble keyboard. I remember one day he
had a particularly frustrating time trying to find a certain note, so
I directed him to the key I knew he was seeking. Looking at me with
an expression of disbelief, he tried it and was astonished that it
was the correct one. He asked how I knew that, and I told him that I
had memorized the sounds made by all of the white keys. He then had
me turn my back to him, and I named each note as quickly as he played
them at random. My "secret" was finally out, and only then did I
learn that this was something extraordinary -- something that even my
mother's cousin, a very capable pianist, couldn't do.

I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing AP (based on
the above experiences), both for young children and adults, for both
12-ET and other tunings. But since I have little knowledge of
exactly what goes on in adult AP training courses, and since you can
probably figure out most of what I might recommend from the above,
and since this is already too long for a single message, I think I'd
better quit here and leave my suggestions for later.

Others may have similar or different experiences to report and may
want to share those. I figure, the more clues we have, the better
we'll understand what's been going on in our heads.

--George

Hiya George,

>>> I don't consider "moderate success", such as the ability
>>> to distinguish Eb from F# after many months of training,
>>
>> I learned to distinguish them in about 3 hours of training.
>
> I'm curious about how well this worked and was wondering if
> you could be more specific. Were the 3 hours of training all
> in one day in a special facility, or did you do it by
> yourself at home? Did you actually learn to identify each
> of these two pitches cold, i.e., hearing only one of them
> without hearing the other one first in a session? Are you
> still able to do now what you did at the end of the 3 hours?
> Why didn't you go any farther?

As I remember it, a friend had the David L. Burge tapes,
and he loaned the first couple tapes to me (in high school).
The 3 hours were over two consecutive days, and didn't
include the hour or two I spent listening to the tapes now
that I think of it. I drilled myself with my piano (in my
house). I did learn to recognize the pitches cold, and can
still do today, though the ability never translated away
from piano timbre (Burge says this is how it starts, and
the ability to do it trans-timbre comes with practice). I
did try to continue with the course, but I was borrowing
the tapes, which turned out to be cumbersome, and it turned
out you needed a drill partner, which I couldn't find. I
got my Mom to help me a few times, and I got decent accuracy
with A and C, but life was happening and ...

> > > You'll soon reach a point where your
> > > rough sense of pitch-height is not up to the task, and I
> > > suspect that may occur somewhere in the vicinity of the
> > > "moderate successs" to which you refer.
> >
> > No, I was using pitch color, not pitch height. And the
> > studies had people getting all 12 pitches.
>
> So there was some success, then.

Yes. I'll dig up the papers tonight.

> I'm wondering why there's so much bad press to the contrary.

In one of the papers, the investigator himself didn't think
too highly of the success rate. But I think he had
unreasonable expectations of a college study. It often
gives me pause when I remember that most scientific knowledge
is obtained this way... I've participated in probably a dozen
studies in a variety of disciplines in two States, and the
bias in the subject population has always been substantial.
And anything requiring any kind of effort on the part of the
subjects should be considered a fool's errand.

There's a ton of ignorance about AP, as recent threads on
this list show. Then again, the social consensus on autism,
or savants, or schizophrenia, or ... any mental disorder,
really, is pretty overwhelming, isn't it?

I don't want it to sound like learning this stuff outside
of the sensitive period is easy, like there's nothing
stopping people. It's very unlikely any adult has the time
or focus to do something like this. People spend hundreds
of dollars on software like Cubase or Photoshop and never
learn to use it. I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak after
a lifetime of touch-typing on the former, and it almost
killed me. Almost everyone (according to Burge) can hear
the pitch-color contrast between Eb and F#. Turning it
into AP is another matter, especially, I should think, if
they have a well-honed sense of RP.

> > > For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
> > > of "waste" in the following:
> > > http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html
> >
> > The first occurrence implies you can't study both RP and AP.
>
> I don't think it was meant to, or if it was, that you can't study
> both at the same time. The point was that improving one's relative
> pitch is not only possible (regardless of one's age), but it's also
> well worth the time and effort, with none of the drawbacks of AP.
> Not only do I agree wholehearted with this, but I also believe that
> AP is not a substitute for RP and that any musician with AP should
> also work on RP.

Does anyone believe this? Who's saying this, anyway? Even
Burge is adamant that both are needed.

> > And trying to
> > "memorize" isn't going to get you anywhere.
>
> That's rather mystical, but yes, I agree! Following my analogy
> above, the first time you hear the timbre of a clarinet or oboe
> in a
> music appreciation course, you don't have to try to memorize it,
> because that comes automatically after listening to it once or
> twice. Of course, you'll need to remember the name of the
> instrument producing the sound, but what you're memorizing is
> really the *name* of the sound rather than sound itself.

Exactly.

> One problem that must be dealt with in AP training, however,
> is that the tones being compared differ not only in pitch-color
> but also in pitch-height, so it would be helpful to present
> sounds in a way that would enhance one's perception of the
> former while inhibiting that of the latter. As you'll see
> below, this was in fact accomplished very elegantly, and
> completely by chance, in my own experience of acquiring AP.

Holy crap! I can't wait to read it.

> > Since only 12
> > things are involved, if it were a question of memory and
> > exposure, lots more people would have AP.
>
> I found that I didn't have to *try* to memorize pitch-colors,
> because the differences were fairly obvious (is it that young
> children naturally hear things differently?). The only
> memorization I had to do was to associate the pitch-colors
> with their names, so it was indeed the *names* I was
> memorizing.

Yes, exactly right.

More responses under separate cover...

-Carl

> The important thing to observe here is that *I
> remembered the sounds of the pitches before I even had names for
> them*, so years later I was able to identify what key the piece
> was in!

Very cool. Further proof of the concept.

> Now for the formal training.
>
> In 1950, the accordion was very popular,

You mean it isn't today? ;)

(I tried to start a Polka band in my high school.)

> As I practiced that week, I remember being especially taken
> with the sound of the button pair at one end, and for some
> inexplcable reason I felt very strongly that it should be
> called "A", because when I played it, it seemed to be saying
> "A-putt-putt" to me. (I know that sounds silly, but it made
> a lasting impression on me.) I could hardly wait for my
> second lesson to find out whether it was really A or B-flat,
> and to my great delight, it turned out to be A after all.
> Joy! That done, I thought it might be useful if I made
> sound-with-name associations for the rest of them, which
> I did within the next few weeks.

Interesting......

> A bass button // simultaneously sounded several reeds tuned
> to 3 or 4 different octaves, and one set of these reeds will
> typically have the octave break at a different point in the
> octave from the others, so as to produce the illusion that
> the pitch is constantly ascending (or descending) when scales
> are played.

Kinda like Shepard tones.

> In other words, accordion basses
> are set up to *decrease the perception of pitch height while
> reinforcing (through octave doubling) the perception of pitch
> color!

What a sweet concept. Somebody should make AP quiz software
on this principle.

> If you're in the process of developing
> AP, then I have a hunch that there's something magic about hearing
> the pitches in octaves.

OK!

> I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing
> AP (based on the above experiences), both for young children
> and adults, for both 12-ET and other tunings. But since
> I have little knowledge of exactly what goes on in adult AP
> training courses, and since you can probably figure out most
> of what I might recommend from the above, and since this is
> already too long for a single message, I think I'd
> better quit here and leave my suggestions for later.

I never took the full course, but it seemed like the meat of
it was just drills with a friend. Finding a friend to do it
with is a pain, and that's why there are probably a dozen
freeware AP quiz programs out there. According to Burge,
however, a live instrument really helps. Maybe Shepard tones
could make up for the difference.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>
> Hiya George,

Hi, Carl! Thanks for the feedback -- very informative!

> ...
> > I'm curious about how well this worked and was wondering if
> > you could be more specific. ... Why didn't you go any farther?
>
> As I remember it, a friend had the David L. Burge tapes,
> and he loaned the first couple tapes to me (in high school).
> The 3 hours were over two consecutive days, and didn't
> include the hour or two I spent listening to the tapes now
> that I think of it.

Were they merely verbal instruction, or did they contain recorded
sounds that you were supposed to listen to multiple times?

> I drilled myself with my piano (in my
> house). I did learn to recognize the pitches cold, and can
> still do today,

That's encouraging!

> though the ability never translated away
> from piano timbre (Burge says this is how it starts, and
> the ability to do it trans-timbre comes with practice).

Yes, I agree that hearing pitches in a variety of timbres helps
to "expand" or generalize one's perception of pitch-color. I never
had to do any sort of drills to accomplish that; merely listening to
recorded music was all that was necessary, and I usually needed only
to sing an "A" to verify that I was interpreting the pitches
correctly.
> I
> did try to continue with the course, but I was borrowing
> the tapes, which turned out to be cumbersome, and it turned
> out you needed a drill partner, which I couldn't find. I
> got my Mom to help me a few times, and I got decent accuracy
> with A and C, but life was happening and ...

Yeah, I can appreciate that. It's ironic that there are so many
things that young children wish they were old enough to do, whereas
acquiring AP is something that some youngsters have been able to do
(usually "secretly") without any of the direct assistance (such as
drills) that adults seem to require.

> > ...
> > So there was some success, then.
>
> Yes. I'll dig up the papers tonight.

Thanks.

> > I'm wondering why there's so much bad press to the contrary.
>
> In one of the papers, the investigator himself didn't think
> too highly of the success rate. But I think he had
> unreasonable expectations of a college study. It often
> gives me pause when I remember that most scientific knowledge
> is obtained this way... I've participated in probably a dozen
> studies in a variety of disciplines in two States, and the
> bias in the subject population has always been substantial.
> And anything requiring any kind of effort on the part of the
> subjects should be considered a fool's errand.
>
> There's a ton of ignorance about AP, as recent threads on
> this list show. Then again, the social consensus on autism,
> or savants, or schizophrenia, or ... any mental disorder,
> really, is pretty overwhelming, isn't it?

Yeah, I guess so -- but I hope you weren't implying that AP should be
included among mental disorders. ;-)

> I don't want it to sound like learning this stuff outside
> of the sensitive period is easy, like there's nothing
> stopping people. It's very unlikely any adult has the time
> or focus to do something like this.

Yes, so it's not going to be completely successful unless you're
highly motivated. Young children, OTOH, seem to have all the time in
the world, absorb knowledge like sponges, and are capable of being
fascinated by just about anything, so curiosity alone is sufficient
motivation.

> People spend hundreds
> of dollars on software like Cubase or Photoshop and never
> learn to use it. I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak after
> a lifetime of touch-typing on the former, and it almost
> killed me.

More difficult, I think, than if you didn't already know qwerty,
because you have to discard previous key-to-letter associations.

> Almost everyone (according to Burge) can hear
> the pitch-color contrast between Eb and F#. Turning it
> into AP is another matter, especially, I should think, if
> they have a well-honed sense of RP.

I have no opinion whether well-developed RP should make AP
development harder or not, but I definitely think that it wouldn't
make it any easier.

> > > > For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
> > > > of "waste" in the following:
> > > > http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html
> > >
> > > The first occurrence implies you can't study both RP and AP.
> >
> > I don't think it was meant to, or if it was, that you can't study
> > both at the same time. The point was that improving one's
relative
> > pitch is not only possible (regardless of one's age), but it's
also
> > well worth the time and effort, with none of the drawbacks of AP.
> > Not only do I agree wholehearted with this, but I also believe
that
> > AP is not a substitute for RP and that any musician with AP
should
> > also work on RP.
>
> Does anyone believe this? Who's saying this, anyway? Even
> Burge is adamant that both are needed.

I don't think anyone is saying that AP is a substitute for RP, but
some authorities feel that it's necessary to say that it *isn't* so
that no one gets that impression.

Sorry, but I'm out of time. I'll respond to your other message
tomorrow.

--George

> > As I remember it, a friend had the David L. Burge tapes,
> > and he loaned the first couple tapes to me (in high school).
> > The 3 hours were over two consecutive days, and didn't
> > include the hour or two I spent listening to the tapes now
> > that I think of it.
>
> Were they merely verbal instruction, or did they contain recorded
> sounds that you were supposed to listen to multiple times?

The tapes I had were purely verbal.

> > though the ability never translated away
> > from piano timbre (Burge says this is how it starts, and
> > the ability to do it trans-timbre comes with practice).
>
> Yes, I agree that hearing pitches in a variety of timbres helps
> to "expand" or generalize one's perception of pitch-color. I
> never had to do any sort of drills to accomplish that;

To clarify: Burge doesn't drill you on this, either. He merely
says that when you're first learning awareness of pitch color
(his phrase), he has observed his students often can only here
it on their own instrument at first (whichever instrument they
play). Later, with continuing practice on that same instrument,
they can here it on all instruments.

> Yeah, I can appreciate that. It's ironic that there are so many
> things that young children wish they were old enough to do, whereas
> acquiring AP is something that some youngsters have been able to do
> (usually "secretly") without any of the direct assistance (such as
> drills) that adults seem to require.

Children can actually acquire almost anything without assistance.
Certainly any skill. Check out the 9-year progression of the
2-year old drummer:

http://sneakmove.com/2007/07/9-year-progression-of-two-year-old.html

The way we think of education for children is seriously warped.
By the time I was 12 or 13, I was already seriously pissed about
this, and wished I could go back to do it over.

> > > So there was some success, then.
> >
> > Yes. I'll dig up the papers tonight.
>
> Thanks.

Heh. Howabout *tonight*?

Paul T. Brady
Fixed-Scale Mechanism of Absolute Pitch
JASA, vol. 48, #4, part 2, 1970

M. Rush
Investigation of the effectiveness of training on absolute pitch in
adult musicians
PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1989

Lola L. Cuddy
Practice Effects in the Absolute Judgment of Pitch
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 43, #5, 1968

Marguerite Elaine Nering
Study to determine the effectiveness of the David L. Burge technique
for development of Perfect Pitch
Thesis (M.A.), University of Calgary, 1991

I know I've read two of these. I can't find the actual papers at
the moment, embarrasingly enough. Nor on the web, as all of these
are apparently in intellectual property hell (including two
that are almost 40 years old!). If anyone has PDFs, it would
be much appreciated if they would post them somewhere temporarily.

> > There's a ton of ignorance about AP, as recent threads on
> > this list show. Then again, the social consensus on autism,
> > or savants, or schizophrenia, or ... any mental disorder,
> > really, is pretty overwhelming, isn't it?
>
> Yeah, I guess so -- but I hope you weren't implying that
> AP should be included among mental disorders. ;-)

:) I realized the potential ambiguity of that after I'd
sent it.

-Carl

Anyway back to the quiz, it seems to me that one thing
that's very confusing if you tend to hear notes in terms
of component pitches is that if you hear a G, actually
it is a whole blend of different pitches - even on a pure
sounding instrument like flute or recorder, the note is
coloured quite a bit by the inharmonic pitches in the
attack (otherwise it would sound like a sine wave)
- which confuses the issue, since you are trying to
remember a cluster of pitches rather than an individual
pitch.

-----------

yea that's a good point because where does the line get drawn between
harmony such as the combination of "notes" versus synthesis which is
more or less the combination of "sounds" and in this case you mentioned
the sine wave---a vital component of synthesis.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@...> wrote:
>...
> [GS, re the accordion:]
> > A bass button // simultaneously sounded several reeds tuned
> > to 3 or 4 different octaves, and one set of these reeds will
> > typically have the octave break at a different point in the
> > octave from the others, so as to produce the illusion that
> > the pitch is constantly ascending (or descending) when scales
> > are played.
>
> Kinda like Shepard tones.

Yes.

> > In other words, accordion basses
> > are set up to *decrease the perception of pitch height while
> > reinforcing (through octave doubling) the perception of pitch
> > color!
>
> What a sweet concept. Somebody should make AP quiz software
> on this principle.

Yes, indeed, and I'm happy to see that Robert Walker has offered to
look into this.

> > If you're in the process of developing
> > AP, then I have a hunch that there's something magic about
hearing
> > the pitches in octaves.
>
> OK!
>
> > I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing
> > AP (based on the above experiences), both for young children
> > and adults, for both 12-ET and other tunings. But since
> > I have little knowledge of exactly what goes on in adult AP
> > training courses,

Your input is helping to change that. Frankly, I'm quite surprised
by the apparent *absence* in Burge's course of the several specific
things that would IMO be the most helpful. I'm no expert on this by
any means, but I just can't help thinking that there's room for
improvement in these AP courses.

> > and since you can probably figure out most
> > of what I might recommend from the above,

Or perhaps I'm assuming too much. I'll need to elaborate on this
later (in a separate message).

> > and since this is
> > already too long for a single message, I think I'd
> > better quit here and leave my suggestions for later.
>
> I never took the full course, but it seemed like the meat of
> it was just drills with a friend. Finding a friend to do it
> with is a pain, and that's why there are probably a dozen
> freeware AP quiz programs out there.

You've said so much about drills in connection with that AP course
(and the attendant difficulty in carrying them out) that, considering
that my own AP experience consisted of 0% drills, I can't help
asking, "What's wrong with this picture?"

> According to Burge,
> however, a live instrument really helps.

I agree, and, as Robert suggested, I think it should be a live fixed-
pitch instrument. It's important to be aware of the names of each of
the sounds are as you listen to them, so the person trying to acquire
AP should spend periods of time slowly playing the instrument and
taking in (or exploring) the pitch-colors.

If you use recordings (and I *do* see a need for them), then a high-
fidelity sound system would be preferable to tiny speakers, to give a
better feeling of "presence."

> Maybe Shepard tones
> could make up for the difference.

I can't say for certain that Shepard tones would be any better or
worse than instrumental tones with the pitches doubled at one or more
octaves. A recording or synthesis of a full pipe organ sound (or
accordion basses) may in fact be preferable to Shepard tones, because
it would come closer to having a live instrument.

I don't think the objective is to completely eliminate differences in
pitch height, but rather to *emphasize pitch color* (over pitch
height) by reinforcing it with multiple octaves. It's a lot like the
difference between trying to perceive green by seeing a green object
vs. walking into a room filled with green objects.

--George

> > > I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing
> > > AP (based on the above experiences), both for young children
> > > and adults, for both 12-ET and other tunings. But since
> > > I have little knowledge of exactly what goes on in adult AP
> > > training courses,
>
> Your input is helping to change that. Frankly, I'm quite
> surprised by the apparent *absence* in Burge's course of
> the several specific things that would IMO be the most
> helpful. I'm no expert on this by any means, but I just
> can't help thinking that there's room for improvement in
> these AP courses.

I'm sure there's room, but keep in mind I only had 2 or 3
of Burge's 12 (or more) tapes.

-Carl

I wrote:

> I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing
> AP (based on the above experiences), both for young children
> and adults, for both 12-ET and other tunings. ...

Okay, here are my suggestions.

As you might have guessed, those less-structured activities for very
young children I had in mind involve exactly the sort of things I did
prior to my first music lessons:

1) Simply sit the child down in front of a recently tuned piano (or
an electronic keyboard accurately pitched) and let him/her play
around with it, making no attempt to direct the process unless the
child asks you to, or asks questions. If it's an electronic
keyboard, then I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea to vary
the timbre at first, because that may draw the child's attention away
from hearing pitch-color.

2) Provide music (including "good" music) for the child to listen to,
particularly music with passages played in octaves. Don't discourage
the child from repeatedly listening to the same thing, because
repetition builds familiarity with the musical content, including
pitch.

Notice that there are no goals, other than that of allowing these to
be enjoyable experiences.

After that, then try a note-naming game, perhaps using an electronic
keyboard with a timbre containing pitches in octaves (such as a pipe
organ -- no vibrato, please!).

For musicians without AP who want to attempt to acquire it without
assistance, I have a few ideas that you could try:

1) If you happen to have any recordings of music that you listened to
and enjoyed as a young child, then listen to them again today,
tomorrow, the day after, for several days. It doesn't matter how
childish or silly the music might seem. The idea is to revisit,
revive, and reconnect with music that you may have internalized at an
early age. (It's important that you hear them in the same key as
before, so if the playback equipment you had as a child was off-speed
by any significant amount, then you probably won't hear it in the
same key, which defeats the purpose.) If you can't think of anything
for this step, then go on to step #2.

2) Repeat step #1 with recordings of music that you're already
familiar with (even if only as an adult), preferably with very
memorable passages played in octaves. It should be something that's
invariably played in a single "standard" key. If nothing else
immediately comes to mind, then try listenening to the first part of
Beeethoven's 5th symphony (up to where the horns play in unison to
usher in the 2nd theme) at least once or twice a day, every day for a
week.

3) Find a quiet room where you won't be interrupted by anyone else
and won't hear any music coming from outside. Have some sort of
fixed-pitch musical instrument (or computer program) handy on which
you can play reference pitches, but don't play anything yet. If
you've just listened to some music and still have it going through
your head, then stop and try again later. (If it's still going
through your head a half-hour later, then maybe something desirable
is happening, and you should go ahead anyway.) Now think of one of
the pieces of music that you listened to in #1 or #2, above. Try to
imagine the actual sounds, and then attempt to sing the notes aloud.
Then play the notes on your reference instrument to see how close you
came. If you succeeded, then you may be ready for step #4 (but if,
after some time, you didn't, you can try step #4 anyway).

4) On an instrument of fixed pitch, play around with single notes in
simple patterns, or (if you're able) in octaves, or use a timbre
that sounds in octaves. Some of these melody patterns could be
portions of what you listened to in steps #1 and #2, above (in the
same key). Don't make any particular effort to "memorize" any of the
sounds, but just spend some time every day playng the same things
each time. Repetition is the key to getting these things to sink
into your head. After a week, start a session by thinking of one of
the simple melody patterns you played, and try to "play it back" in
your mind and/or sing it aloud before playing it on the keyboard. If
you succeed in coming up with the correct pitch a few times (in
separate sessions), then try playing the same things using a
different timbre (or a different instrument; at this point you might
try using an instrument with flexible pitch, if you're reasonably
proficient), to begin generalizing your impression of the pitch-
colors.

5) At this point you may want to try some AP drills. If the previous
steps were as successful as I'm hoping, you may find this step is
unnecessary.

I need to emphasize that I have no experience or training AP in
adults, and my only qualifications in making the above suggestions
are that I'm able to remember what was helpful in enabling me to
acquire AP, unassisted, at the age of 6.

If you've acquired AP in 12-ET and want to develop it microtonally,
then I have a couple more suggestions, based on the above techniques,
that I've been able to verify as effective from my own experience:

6) Select one or more microtonal pieces in a tuning that you'd like
to internalize. Listen to it repeatedly (in separate sessions over a
period of time) until you can "play back" in your head their most
impressionable parts. It might be helpful to obtain a score of one
or more of these, in order to help you associate the pitches with
their notes (which might be necessary, if there are any strange
progressions). If no music exists in the tuning you'd like, then it
might be best to write something, in which case you'll either have a
score, or you won't need it (since you'll already be familiar with
the piece).

When I first experimented with a retuned electronic organ some years
back, I tuned 12-note subsets of 31-ET and recorded them on tape for
my own amazement. After listening to some of these a few times, I
found that I was able to remember the pitches.

I've collected a lot of sound files from MMM and often listen to my
favorite ones. Among the ones I'm able to play back (at least
portions) in my head are Harry Partch's "Two Greek Studies" in JI,
Aaron Johnson's "Juggler" in 19-ET, Herman Miller's "Mizarian
Porcupine" in 15-EDO (particularly that legendary progression at the
very end), and the fragment of a jazz piece I started using a 9-tone
MOS subset of 17-ET.

7) Do step #3 with one or more of the pieces you selected in step #6.

8) Do step #4 using your chosen tuning.

Notice that, except for step #5, no drills (or activities requiring
the assistance of another person) were involved.

Don't be afraid to experiment with variations on the above, or with
your own ideas.

For anyone trying out any of these ideas, I wish you success!

--George

Perhaps a relevant anecdote from (literally) yesterday- my son (3
1/2 years old) asked me to sing him the Roman song (his favorite
movie is "Fall of the Roman Empire", music by Tiomkin). I sang the
theme melody, accurately, but he cried, insisting that it was wrong.
He then sang it, with simplified rhythm, and I tried again, using
his rhythm. This happened a couple of times. He got upset and angry
with me, describing how the Romans were fighting and so on. It took
me a few seconds to visualize the film, then I realized why he was
so upset- I sang the theme at the original pitch (going into
falsetto), as he had been doing, and with the original rhythm (not
his simplified version of the rhythm) and he laughed joyfully,
making me repeat it over and over.

Fortunately my wife was then able to distract him while he was
getting very upset that neither of us could remember the suspense
music that accompanies the barbarians hiding in the woods (it's
awfully similar to the intro to Gudunov, IIRC). Have to listen to it
and learn it with care, LOL.

It looks like I'm going to be concentrating on "relative pitch" with
my son, and just let his "AP" turn out whatever it wants to be-
he'll get plenty of exposure to all kinds of "standards", thankfully.

-Cameron Bobro

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "George D. Secor" <gdsecor@...> wrote:
>
> --- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@> wrote:
> > > [gs:]
> > > I'm giving you my "take" on what the research indicates. I
don't
> > > consider "moderate success", such as the ability to
distinguish
> Eb
> > > from F# after many months of training, to be successful, and
> here's
> > > why.
> >
> > I learned to distinguish them in about 3 hours of training.
>
> I'm curious about how well this worked and was wondering if you
could
> be more specific. Were the 3 hours of training all in one day in
a
> special facility, or did you do it by yourself at home? Did you
> actually learn to identify each of these two pitches cold, i.e.,
> hearing only one of them without hearing the other one first in a
> session? Are you still able to do now what you did at the end of
the
> 3 hours? Why didn't you go any farther?
>
> > > In order to distinguish middle C from the C an octave lower or
> > > higher, it's necessary to use information other than an
impression
> > > of the "pitch-color" perceived by persons with AP.
> >
> > Right.
> >
> > > Fortunately, an octave separation between tones is sufficient
> > > to distinguish one from the other using the rough sense of
> > > pitch-height that all musicians possess:
> >
> > Right.
> >
> > > let's try that in
> > > a subsequent session with the tones a major 7th apart, then a
> > > minor 7th, then a major 6th, etc., making the distance
> > > progressively smaller.
>
> Now that I think about it, this method may actually be useful for
> developing AP, because it keeps one (and only one) pitch constant
> within a varying context, so you may actually learn to recognize
its
> pitch-color through many repetitions. (But that's just
an "aside".)
>
> > > You'll soon reach a point where your
> > > rough sense of pitch-height is not up to the task, and I
> > > suspect that may occur somewhere in the vicinity of the
> > > "moderate successs" to which you refer.
> >
> > No, I was using pitch color, not pitch height. And the
> > studies had people getting all 12 pitches.
>
> So there was some success, then. I'm wondering why there's so
much
> bad press to the contrary. Perhaps some of these courses are not
as
> good as the one you took.
>
> > > For a more informed opinion, search for the two occurrences
> > > of "waste" in the following:
> > > http://www.jackgrassel.com/pages/perfect_pitch.html
> >
> > The first occurrence implies you can't study both RP and AP.
>
> I don't think it was meant to, or if it was, that you can't study
> both at the same time. The point was that improving one's
relative
> pitch is not only possible (regardless of one's age), but it's
also
> well worth the time and effort, with none of the drawbacks of AP.
> Not only do I agree wholehearted with this, but I also believe
that
> AP is not a substitute for RP and that any musician with AP should
> also work on RP.
>
> > The second discusses 350 hours of learning to distinguish
> > two notes. I don't believe *anyone* would have the patience
> > to work on two notes for that long to achieve success.
>
> It doesn't say exactly what they worked on or how they worked on
it,
> only that the results weren't any better than that. I would have
to
> agree that if this was the case, it was a colossal waste of time.
>
> > He
> > also mentions some guy wandering around with a tuning fork
> > for a year. I did that for a month in 1994, and I discovered
> > that this can never work to train AP.
>
> I agree.
>
> > You don't know what
> > to listen for without comparing tones.
>
> Yes. It's like observing the differences in timbre between a
> clarinet, oboe, trumpet, and violin. You more easily perceive the
> characteristic sound of each one of these by comparing it with the
> others.
>
> > And trying to
> > "memorize" isn't going to get you anywhere.
>
> That's rather mystical, but yes, I agree! Following my analogy
> above, the first time you hear the timbre of a clarinet or oboe in
a
> music appreciation course, you don't have to try to memorize it,
> because that comes automatically after listening to it once or
> twice. Of course, you'll need to remember the name of the
instrument
> producing the sound, but what you're memorizing is really the
*name*
> of the sound rather than sound itself.
>
> One problem that must be dealt with in AP training, however, is
that
> the tones being compared differ not only in pitch-color but also
in
> pitch-height, so it would be helpful to present sounds in a way
that
> would enhance one's perception of the former while inhibiting that
of
> the latter. As you'll see below, this was in fact accomplished
very
> elegantly, and completely by chance, in my own experience of
> acquiring AP.
>
> > Since only 12
> > things are involved, if it were a question of memory and
> > exposure, lots more people would have AP.
>
> I found that I didn't have to *try* to memorize pitch-colors,
because
> the differences were fairly obvious (is it that young children
> naturally hear things differently?). The only memorization I had
to
> do was to associate the pitch-colors with their names, so it was
> indeed the *names* I was memorizing.
>
> > > > Thanks. I think a note-naming game will be sufficient,
> > >
> > > Contrary to what you might think, I have good reason to believe
> > > that it might *not* be the best way,
> >
> > First off, wouldn't you say that Weiger's method is a "simple
> > note-naming game"?
>
> Yes, it's necessarily simple. I didn't say it wouldn't work, only
> that I didn't think it was necessarily the best way -- at least by
> itself. As you'll see below, I think that it helps if this sort
of
> activity is preceded by other, less structured, experiences in
which
> music and/or musical pitches are absorbed and internalized in a
way
> that literally sets the child up for success in the game. These
> kinds of activities can be provided at an earlier age than might
be
> appropriate for a note-naming game, because they allow the child
to
> have fun on his/her own terms and also avoid putting pressure on
the
> child to "perform" in a predetermined manner in order to produce
> certain expected results.
>
> > > but I must have done something right to have come by
> > > it almost effortlessly -- and I believe I've figured it out!
> >
> > Well, spill the beans then. That's the 2nd time I've asked,
> > despite my editing-out.
>
> Okay, sorry, but I couldn't put it in a short reply. It's going
to
> require a mini-essay, which I'm having to write in bits and
pieces.
> I'm going to supply many details, because even seemingly
> insignificant details can provide very important clues about the
> process. It's possible that others reading this may pick up on
> things that I've missed, so I'm sharing this in the hope that we
may
> all learn something from it.
>
> First, I need to relate several things not a part of my formal
> musical training that I believe prepared me for AP development:
>
> 1) I began music lessons at age 6, but in the couple of years
prior
> to that I enjoyed listening to phonograph records (that's what we
> called those 78 rpm disks back in the forties). In the course of
a
> couple of years I had listened to my favorite ones countless
times,
> and the sounds in vivid detail (including the pitches) became
fixed
> in my memory. My #1 favorite was the opening section of the first
> movement of Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto. It wasn't until
> years later that I was surprised to learn, hearing a pop recording
on
> the radio that I had listened to only days before on the
phonograph,
> that the turntable was rotating too fast, transposing everything
up
> roughly a semitone. The Tchaikovsky that I first heard in D major
> was supposed to be in D-flat! Likewise, "Waltz of the Flowers"
from
> the Nutcracker, which I thought was in E-flat, was actually in D!
> Fortunately, this did not take place at the time I was memorizing
> note names.
>
> 2) I began kindergarten at the age of 4 years, 10 months (beating
the
> deadline by only 3 days), and I recall one song that semester
(which
> the class sang to the teacher's piano accompaniment) that
> particularly impressed me, because the sound of the piano was
> different than usual. After I had developed AP I was able
to "play
> back" that song in my head, and I realized that I had internalized
> all sorts of details: 1) it was in 3/4 time; 2) it was in D major,
> and 3) the difference in the sound of the piano was due to the
melody
> being played *in octaves*. I can still remember it, and I could
play
> it for you today. The important thing to observe here is that *I
> remembered the sounds of the pitches before I even had names for
> them*, so years later I was able to identify what key the piece
was
> in!
>
> 3) My third observation is only a faint memory. When I was around
3
> years old I stayed with my grandparents for a period of several
> months. At the time my parents were renting an apartment on the
> opposite side of the city (Chicago), and it was not until my 2nd
> semester of kindergarten that we moved into a house that had room
for
> the baby grand piano that was moved from my grandparents' house.
> Anyway, while I was there, I spent a lot of time fooling around on
> the piano keys. I don't remember exactly what I did, but
evidently I
> had a very good time, because my mother later told me that she had
> gotten rather upset when she learned that I wasn't looking forward
to
> returning home. This opportunity to experiment probably played a
> major role in preparing me to acquire AP.
>
> Now for the formal training.
>
> In 1950, the accordion was very popular, and my dad had wanted to
> learn to play one, but never got the opportunity, so he decided to
> try the next best thing. I had just turned 6 the previous fall,
and
> he pestered me a couple of times about taking lessons, but I
wasn't
> interested. The third time I said yes, just to get him off my
back,
> and I was enrolled in a 6-week trial course in one of the many
> accordion studios that were around at the time. I began lessons
on a
> rented accordion that had a two-octave treble keyboard and 12
buttons
> for the left hand. For a part of the lesson the teacher had me
> play "oom-pah-pah" going up and down on all 6 pairs of bass &
chord
> buttons, just to get the feel of navigating the full extent of the
> bassboard. He told me the names of each of the buttons, but it
was
> too much to remember all at once. One thing I did remember was
that
> A was on one end and B-flat was on the other end (but not which
was
> which). As I practiced that week, I remember being especially
taken
> with the sound of the button pair at one end, and for some
> inexplcable reason I felt very strongly that it should be
called "A",
> because when I played it, it seemed to be saying "A-putt-putt" to
> me. (I know that sounds silly, but it made a lasting impression
on
> me.) I could hardly wait for my second lesson to find out whether
it
> was really A or B-flat, and to my great delight, it turned out to
be
> A after all. Joy! That done, I thought it might be useful if I
made
> sound-with-name associations for the rest of them, which I did
within
> the next few weeks.
>
> I'd like to make a few observations at this point:
>
> 1) It was the *bass*, not the treble, side of the instrument that
> gave me my initial impression of pitch-color. The treble keyboard
> had two reeds tuned not quite in unison (musette-style), so that
the
> frequencies beat against one another several times a second -- not
> the best thing for singling out pitches. A bass button, on the
other
> hand, simultaneously sounded several reeds tuned to 3 or 4
different
> octaves, and one set of these reeds will typically have the octave
> break at a different point in the octave from the others, so as to
> produce the illusion that the pitch is constantly ascending (or
> descending) when scales are played. In other words, accordion
basses
> are set up to *decrease the perception of pitch height while
> reinforcing (through octave doubling) the perception of pitch
color!
> *
>
> 2) In addition, initially hearing each of these not only as bass
> notes but also as major triads (via the chord buttons) helped me
to
> perceive the character or "color" of both a note and the major
> tonality of the same name.
>
> 3) What really blew me away over this past weekend was realizing
that
> not only the kindergarten song that made the greatest impression
on
> me, but also my favorite section of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto
> had the melody *in octaves*. If you're in the process of
developing
> AP, then I have a hunch that there's something magic about hearing
> the pitches in octaves.
>
> When the trial course ended, my dad bought me an instrument with a
> longer keyboard (with the reeds tuned in octaves instead of off-
tuned
> unisons) and more bass buttons, but for some reason, with summer
> approaching, I didn't continue with the lessons until the
following
> fall. In the meantime I became more comfortable on the larger
> instrument playing the pieces I had already learned.
>
> My dad also spent a lot of time fooling around with the accordion,
> picking out melodies on the treble keyboard. I remember one day
he
> had a particularly frustrating time trying to find a certain note,
so
> I directed him to the key I knew he was seeking. Looking at me
with
> an expression of disbelief, he tried it and was astonished that it
> was the correct one. He asked how I knew that, and I told him
that I
> had memorized the sounds made by all of the white keys. He then
had
> me turn my back to him, and I named each note as quickly as he
played
> them at random. My "secret" was finally out, and only then did I
> learn that this was something extraordinary -- something that even
my
> mother's cousin, a very capable pianist, couldn't do.
>
> I was going to follow this with my ideas for developing AP (based
on
> the above experiences), both for young children and adults, for
both
> 12-ET and other tunings. But since I have little knowledge of
> exactly what goes on in adult AP training courses, and since you
can
> probably figure out most of what I might recommend from the above,
> and since this is already too long for a single message, I think
I'd
> better quit here and leave my suggestions for later.
>
> Others may have similar or different experiences to report and may
> want to share those. I figure, the more clues we have, the better
> we'll understand what's been going on in our heads.
>
> --George
>