# Babies and perfect pitch



## madbulk (Nov 6, 2009)

I have never heard that and as blindly as I could ever accept it, I'll instead blindly disbelieve it.

But much more importantly, congratulations. Lots of ecstatic fathers here will tell you, daughters are awesome.

Sorry. Don't have an answer to your question, but of all the early things you could begin to install, like Bach... well, truthfully I just couldn't care less about perfect pitch. So I guess I should just shut up. But I've had all this coffee, you see.


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## nikolas (Nov 6, 2009)

Wow James! Congrats and all the best to you little daughter and your wife.

I've also never heard of such a thing about perfect pitch, and to be honest I've come to regard it as some kind of defect (imagine being in any concert and fearing every wrong note! :D). Don't sweat about it. Put some Ligeti on, some of your own music, some beatles, some queen, some NIN and whatever else comes in mind.


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Nov 6, 2009)

Put on some Pink Floyd. Works wonders on babies.

More on topic, sorry, no good advice or answers here either. But seriously, always remember there's also a bunch of disadvantages to having perfect pitch. Many of the people I know who have it rather wish they didn't.


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## MacQ (Nov 6, 2009)

Funny ... I had perfect pitch until I was about 6 or 7. I remember (and have been told since) that I could always reliably sing an A above middle C in my early-childhood Kodály Method lessons. This can still be taught to people, and I've seen it. In this case, repetition is the key (no pun intended). This might be described as "pitch memory" rather than perfect pitch.

I think that with the proper first reference and a good understanding of interval relationships, just about anybody can sing with "perfect" intonation. Whether they're aware of the small tuning shifts as they happen is another thing entirely, and something which I'm not sure is actually trainable. The very nature of equal tempered tuning clouds things a bit, as pure tuning is what we strive for in choral music. The shifting of chordal notes slightly sharp or flat in real-time to dance around that perfect harmonic alignment of tones.

So, I think the real value lies not in "perfect pitch" necessarily, but a firm grasp of interval relationships. This way your daughter can have an enjoyable music experience in her life, and yet still let her be able to sing in ensembles where the tuning may drift.

But singing ... yeah, I think my 12 years of Boys Choir under Gerald Wirth (current artistic director of the Vienna Boys Choir) were as much responsible for my abilities than any of my years of piano. Perhaps moreso. There's something immediate about the voice, and always having that instrument available whenever you need it. (Unless you had swine flu for the past 2 weeks like I did ... in which case it's very frustrating when you try to "play" your vocal instrument and end in a coughing fit on the floor.)

But I digress. Exposure to music early on in life is what I feel is necessary, and I'm sure you'll do plenty of that for her. I joke with my fiancé that if we ever have tone-deaf children, I'll probably disown them!

~Stu


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## synergy543 (Nov 6, 2009)

Congratulations James!

Yes, English babies are born with perfect pitch A=443.

American babies are born with perfect pitch A=440

Just don't move to America or the kid could get really confused.


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## RiffWraith (Nov 6, 2009)

Umm, play her some Mozart?


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## RiffWraith (Nov 6, 2009)

Well, this is interesting:

_...Chinese-speakers--along with half of the world--use pitch to convey words' meanings. For example, in the Chinese dialect of Mandarin, the word "ma" when spoken in a high pitch means mother, while "ma" in a lower tone means hemp. And because children speaking these languages learn to associate words with pitches, they may be up to nine times more likely to develop a rare musical ability known as absolute pitch...._


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## mf (Nov 6, 2009)

If perfect pitch is "the ability to name or reproduce a tone without reference to an external standard," then babies under 6 months are very unlikely to have it.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 6, 2009)

I think in some regard that could be true, but probably not realistically attainable. When we are new born, we are "perfect" without any imperfection, until... For example all new born have the perfect technique to play piano, not a single lesson would be needed for the technique if it was possible to maintain that perfection until he becomes a child and starts taking piano lessons, but by then most kids have already lost that natural coordination and very hard to regain later on. But for the prefect pitch, I would think that happens once all the sounds or pitches are recorded in your mind, so I have a harder time seeing that for babies, but who knows, so much happens in the first few years of a baby.


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## rgames (Nov 7, 2009)

"Perfect" pitch is not a good term - "pitch memory" is much better because "perfect" implies adherence to some standard and there is no standard for pitch.

If you have perfect pitch, and if you are born with it, which reference would that be? And why would the human body have a preference for one over another? And in which system of intonation would that be placed? And under what culture's standards? And during what period in history? Obviously there is no universal standard, so the concept of "perfect" can't really apply.

What people do have is different aptitudes for pitch memory and different sensitivities to varitions in pitch. If you have the ability to "remember" certain pitches then you can easily identify them, and if you have excellent sensitivity to variations in pitch (i.e. a good ear for intervals) then you can identify other pitches relative to the ones you have memorized.

The notion that babies are born with those arbitrary references ingrained in their brains is ridiculous - they need to be exposed to the references, then their aptitude for pitch memory can be realized.

I like to use the example of wine tasters - the folks who are really good at it can take a sip of wine and tell you what's in it, down to extreme levels of detail. Well, they have the aptitude for "taste memory" and have spent time setting their references. They were not, however, born with "perfect taste" - they had to learn what each stimulus represented.

Everyone has some degree of pitch memory (or taste memory). Most every musician can listen to a pitch and tell you where it falls in the standard SATB ranges. Can they all tell you whether it's a C or C#? No - but they can all tell you whether the part should go to the sopranos or the tenors. Well, that's a degree of pitch memory, not as refined as some, but still the same concept. People with "perfect pitch" have the ability to narrow it down to individual semitones, not just octaves.

Similarly, many folks can tell the difference in taste between red and white wines and the major varieities. But some people can take it down to much finer levels of detail. Same thing. Nobody is born knowing those things - rather, they're born with an aptitude to identify them and experience and training do the rest.

rgames


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## bryla (Nov 7, 2009)

mf @ Sat Nov 07 said:


> If perfect pitch is "the ability to name or reproduce a tone without reference to an external standard," then babies under 6 months are very unlikely to have it.


The only thing that I've heard babies utter are letters.... Aaaa, fffff, da and stuff like that, so maybe they're just saying what notes they hear. Last baby I heard said something like geeeeeeeee-sharp


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## mf (Nov 7, 2009)

rgames was spot on. Perfect (or absolute) pitch is a myth, and it's surprising how many musicians fall for it. It is an acquired skill based on good memory and training, that's all it is. 
And it's not even important to say the exact name of the note. Much more important is to recognize intervals, chords, and rhythms.


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## bryla (Nov 7, 2009)

mf @ Sat Nov 07 said:


> Perfect (or absolute) pitch is a myth,... It is an acquired skill based on good memory and training, that's all it is.


I disagree. Everybody I've known with it, have never done anything to get it, and could do it just as easily when they were 5-6-7 year olds as 20 or 30 or 60


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## mf (Nov 7, 2009)

'Perfect pitch' is not an innate quality that some do posses while others don't. As rgames said, it's just an acquired skill based on the common human capacity to identify and memorize pitches. It's pitch memory, really.
What you say is correct too: some people acquire skills more easily (need less training) than others. That only means that their better memory makes training shorter.


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## Hannes_F (Nov 7, 2009)

I guess in this forum we will find both persons with perfect pitch (... memory) that were born with it (at least I assume that) and others that learned it by training (me being an example).


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 7, 2009)

mf @ Sat Nov 07 said:


> 'Perfect pitch' is not an innate quality that some do posses while others don't. As rgames said, it's just an acquired skill based on the common human capacity to identify and memorize pitches. It's pitch memory, really.
> What you say is correct too: some people acquire skills more easily (need less training) than others. That only means that their better memory makes training shorter.



But couldn't there be some innate qualities that makes it easier for some to acquire this skill?


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## mf (Nov 7, 2009)

Hannes_F @ Sat Nov 07 said:


> I guess in this forum we will find both persons with perfect pitch (... memory) that were born with it (at least I assume that) and others that learned it by training (me being an example).


Everyone who is not tone deaf is able to identify and then recognize pitches. It's just that some will perform better than others at storing and retrieving the pitch memory data. Thus, some will be able to name the pitches after less training than others. But it's not an inborn capacity, because everybody needs training - some less, some more.
It's not like sucking the tit - THAT is an inborn capacity, because it doesn't need training at all, it's instinctive. Since pitch recognition needs prior exposure to sounds and their names, clearly it's not an inborn capacity. It's not an instinct but a conscious intellectual activity based on acquired skill.



Guy Bacos @ Sat Nov 07 said:


> But couldn't there be some innate qualities that makes it easier for some to acquire this skill?


I don't think you would call 'innate quality' the capacity of Usain Bolt to run faster than I do. We both can run. But the idea is that running is not an innate quality but an acquired skill based on training. And then some will perform better than others, because we're all different individuals, we won't perform exactly the same way, like machines. Same about pitch memory and everything else.
But you're right, some may be born with longer leg bones, or better neuronal connections, than others - which will surely make the training more efficient.


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## bryla (Nov 7, 2009)

mf @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> Everyone who is not tone deaf is able to identify and then recognize pitches.


Nobody is tonedeaf


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## Hal (Nov 8, 2009)

i thought so till i met this producer in and advertising agency who cant tell the difference between notes,and cant sing the simple melody i just composed for the campain and he told me there is people like him too "tonedeaf"
i found this very weird he is a friend and told me that like 5 times before


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## Stephen Baysted (Nov 8, 2009)

Yup, rgames and others are correct; perfect pitch cannot exist as an innate sense since pitch is absolutely arbitrary - it's culturally, geographically and historically determined. Moreover, the pitch relationships within keys historically have been altered depending upon the desires/objectives of the composers and indeed the instrument makers (ie. the deployment of different tuning systems of which there are many hundreds). And as we all know, equal temperament isn't natural.


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## Hannes_F (Nov 8, 2009)

mf @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> Everyone who is not tone deaf is able to identify and then recognize pitches. It's just that some will perform better than others at storing and retrieving the pitch memory data. Thus, some will be able to name the pitches after less training than others.



You are right but could add one thing: Some have trained it more in past lives and others less. Or, how Platon would have put it: Learning is remembering.

We had a similar discussion recently about what talent is. The valuation strongly depends on which world view you have. If you consider for a moment that there could be cyclical living and learning these questions and their answers would fall in place easily.


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## bryla (Nov 8, 2009)

Hal @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> i thought so till i met this producer in and advertising agency who cant tell the difference between notes,and cant sing the simple melody i just composed for the campain and he told me there is people like him too "tonedeaf"
> i found this very weird he is a friend and told me that like 5 times before


Okay: nobody is not tonedeaf. There are maybe a handful of tonedeaf people IN THE WORLD. Thing is: if you're tonedeaf you can't even recognize your mothers voice! Tonedeaf is not telling the difference between notes or singing a simple melody


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## bryla (Nov 8, 2009)

Rousseau @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> pitch is absolutely arbitrary - it's culturally, geographically and historically determined.


And a physical law!!! naming the pitch is cultural, geographical and historical - not the pitch itself!

If a child hears a song ones, and then sings it consistently in the same key every time he sings it - even after a year: that is perfect pitch! and has nothing to do with the cultural, geographical and historical way of perceiving the pitch


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## Rob (Nov 8, 2009)

> pitch is absolutely arbitrary - it's culturally, geographically and historically determined.



I'm with bryla on this, pitch is an objective thing... 440hz is what it is, no matter how you call it. The PP possessor recognizes the frequency, not the name... and like Hannes, I have too trained my perfect pitch, and have a nice deal of it


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## Stephen Baysted (Nov 8, 2009)

Rob @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> > pitch is absolutely arbitrary - it's culturally, geographically and historically determined.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm with bryla on this, pitch is an objective thing... 440hz is what it is, no matter how you call it. The PP possessor recognizes the frequency, not the name... and like Hannes, I have too trained my perfect pitch, and have a nice deal of it



There are two ways of looking at this question.

The first is, if you were in Paris in 1750 and asked someone with 'perfect pitch' to give you an 'A', chances are that this would be around 417-419 hz (because that is roughly what A was at that time in France). If you were in Leipzig in 1750 and asked someone with 'perfect pitch' to give you an 'A', that are would likely be around 480-490hz. This means that pitch is relative, historically and geographically determined. Were you chaps aware that so-called concert pitch (a=440hz) was only fixed by international convention in the late 1930s? And that all the evidence suggests that pitch is on the rise once again? (go to Vienna, and you'll hear something much closer to 442/443). That 440=A is entirely arbitrary; and for most of the history of western music, depending on century, region and sometimes city, 440hz may not have even represented what was recognised as a musical pitch falling within a scale. 

Now, the second way of looking at the question. 'Perfect Pitch' is simply a developed ability to 'recall' pitches without reference to a given (present) pitch. BUT, this is still recall and a facet of the memory however well developed or however rapid it is. This memorisation of pitch is entirely dependent on experience and environment - and indeed history, geography and cultural priorities.


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## Rob (Nov 8, 2009)

Rousseau, I'm perfectly aware of the fluctuations of reference tones in history, nevertheless I'm sure that the perception of 440hz (or any frequency that is) has always been the same from year 0 up to now... then I don't care if somebody tells me that's what we call "A" or "M". It seems clear to me... culture only changes the names associated to the frequency, not its perception.


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## rJames (Nov 8, 2009)

Congrats to you and your family, James!

I can say without a doubt that both of my daughters had perfect pitch at birth but seemed to have lost it while swimming up to the surface after their underwater birth.

Their cries were something like a double E#, three octaves above middle C when they broke the surface.

Regarding listening to Mozart or other classical music while in the crib. (I wouldn't start them on Death Metal yet) Do it! 

While they may not be that smart, at least they haven't gotten any tattoos or piercings yet. (9 and 11...i guess that's not that great a record yet is it?)


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## Ed (Nov 8, 2009)

Use this opportunity to create a music genius.


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## Stephen Baysted (Nov 8, 2009)

Rob @ Sun Nov 08 said:


> Rousseau, I'm perfectly aware of the fluctuations of reference tones in history, nevertheless I'm sure that the perception of 440hz (or any frequency that is) has always been the same from year 0 up to now... then I don't care if somebody tells me that's what we call "A" or "M". It seems clear to me... culture only changes the names associated to the frequency, not its perception.




With respect Rob, that's illogical.

'Perfect pitch' (which should really be called relative pitch) defines itself by the developed ability to recall pitches and to identify (and name) pitches WITHIN A GIVEN MUSICAL SYSTEM. Nobody with 'perfect pitch' works in Hz (TODAY's equally tempered concert G# = approx 415.3 hz, but unless one knew that, one could not recall or identify that frequency, but would instead refer to it as either a G# or Ab), perfect pitch works only in and with reference to prevailing musical pitch (which is historically, geographically and culturally determined). That is a fact and is born out by a vast amount of research (both scientific and musicological). 

The other, arguably most important aspect of this, is tuning. Equal temperament is not natural; it is a conscious swerving away from nature in order to subdivide the octave into 12 equal parts. Think about that carefully. The pitches and scales that are formed by equally tempered tuning deviate from natural intervals (given by both aliquot divisions and the harmonic series) by, in many cases, significant amounts. Equal temperament is a relatively new phenomenon (and one that was only perfected in the early 20th century) - it was historically always shunned by music theorists as being undesirable since it eradicated natural intervals and the different pitch nuances in each key. BUT the intervals and pitches that are recalled by people with perfect pitch TODAY are equally tempered pitches which generally (but crucially not uniformly) conform to approx a=440hz. The pitches that ppl recall and can identify today therefore are not natural pitches, but culturally and historically determined ones.

Cheers


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## Rob (Nov 8, 2009)

Rousseau @ 8th November 2009 said:


> Rob @ Sun Nov 08 said:
> 
> 
> > Rousseau, I'm perfectly aware of the fluctuations of reference tones in history, nevertheless I'm sure that the perception of 440hz (or any frequency that is) has always been the same from year 0 up to now... then I don't care if somebody tells me that's what we call "A" or "M". It seems clear to me... culture only changes the names associated to the frequency, not its perception.
> ...



with all respect, Rousseau, you are missing my point... well, english is not my language, so it might be that it's me not able to express myself properly. Anyway,
we all know the history of temperament, ( there's also a fine book by Stuart Isacoff on that ), what I'm saying is I can tell you a certain tone is an E, for instance, because of its absolute frequency, and that's the perfect pitch ability, at least as I know it. It's about pitches, not names. Or we are talking different things...


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## Stephen Baysted (Nov 8, 2009)

But Rob, E doesn't have an absolute frequency! That's the point.


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## Rob (Nov 8, 2009)

Rousseau @ 8th November 2009 said:


> But Rob, E doesn't have an absolute frequency! That's the point.



when a tone is within a certain range of frequencies, we call it E... really, Rousseau, on one hand I thank you because this is a very fascinating subject for me, on the other I don't think I'm understanding what you are saying, ( I'm not saying it doesn't make sense)


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## mf (Nov 8, 2009)

Let's come down to earth and see how all these go in real life.
A little girl (Jenny) hears a 440Hz tuning fork for the first time, likes the sound, sings it loud, and asks "mommy, what is this?" - "it's called an 'A,' sweet hart." 
Next morning, while waking up Jenny, mother playfully asks "give mommy an A, sweet hart," and Jenny happily sings an A(aaaaa...)
After a few weeks mother and daughter listen to a live orchestra performance on TV and, in the beginning, while the oboist holds a long note and the strings take over, Jenny jumps in surprise: "listen mommy, they like A too." (now, mind you, the oboe was playing a 433Hz pitch and the violins were playing a cluster of pitches within the range of 429-437Hz.) 
Two questions: Is there anything "perfect" in this story? Was Jenny's knowing of the A - inborn?
Moral:
As with colors, humans have the capacity to learn, memorize, and retrieve sounds and their (learned) names. And that is not an inborn, instinctual 'knowing,' like babies instantly and mindlessly 'knowing' what a nipple is and does serve to, but an acquired skill based on exposure, learning, memory storage, and memory retrieval. 

So "perfect pitch" is a misnomer, and its "inborn nature" a myth. It should better be called Pitch Recognition, and its true nature (i.e.: learned skill) acknowledged - at least among musicians.

edit - Rousseau, you beat me a few minutes at the girl example, but I find consolation in seeing that great minds think alike. o-[][]-o


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## Rob (Nov 9, 2009)

ok, let's forget it


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## stevenson-again (Nov 9, 2009)

> So, my point is this. Pitch naming is arbitrary. What we call pitches (a, e, g# etc) is historically and geographically determined. BUT if you agree that the ability to recall pitch and name pitch is based on your development as a human in society (which all the evidence points to), then perfect pitch is entirely bound up in that society's music and indeed musical instruments.



rouseau - you keep missing robs point. he is agreeing that pitch NAMING is arbitrary, but the actual frequency is not. 440 Hz is 440 Hz regardless what you call it. he is arguing that the ability to recognize the pitch, regardless what it is called, can be learnt.

take a rose (by any other name). in one language it might be called, 'rose', in another language it might be called 'sausages'. it is still a flower with that appearance, smell, and nasty pointy things on the stems. regardless what it is called it is what it is.

440 Hz is 440 cycles per second. provided we are agreed on the length of a second we say specifically that a pitch formed from a resonating object cycling at 440 times a second will provide us with something we can name and remember. we might like to call that pitch 'sausages', for the sake of argument.

even if we don't agree on the length of a second (which is also an arbitrary measurement of time), whatever measurement we do use that corresponds to that length generally agreed to be a second, there will be an equivalent pitch, which, if phase inverted, would cancel out the pitch we determined to be 440 Hz (with our agreed measure of a second).

it gets slightly trickier if the resonating object is on a train either moving toward us or away from us, but provided we can run fast enough, we could probably take the measurement needed to find the equivalent pitch.

it gets trickier still if the pitch is being played on one side of the event horizon of a black hole and the phase inverted pitch is playing on the other, but frankly trying to perform such an experiment would be faintly ridiculous.


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## Stephen Baysted (Nov 9, 2009)

Do black holes exist? I've never seen one :mrgreen: 

Yes I can see the point, and what you and Rob are saying, but that's not how perfect pitch works in practice; because it is part and parcel of musical experience rather than a purely acoustical one. 

Yes, a certain pitch can be recalled because of exposure to it (ie 440hz -which incidently only has significance because it was agreed to be a reasonable 'A' in committee in the 1930s). However, all other pitches that are relative to that pitch that can be recalled depend exclusively for their significance on the prevailing musical culture at the precise historical and geographical moment. IF this wasn't the case, then perfect pitch would be musically useless since pitch recall would be purely acoustic (based on the harmonic series). 

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Cheers


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## Hannes_F (Nov 9, 2009)

Ok from looking on this conversation I think every party has stated their position three times or so ... everybody got what the other side meant, no? :D


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## stevenson-again (Nov 9, 2009)

well, no i don't think everybody does quite get what the other saying just yet, but we might be closer:



> Yes I can see the point, and what you and Rob are saying, but that's not how perfect pitch works in practice; because it is part and parcel of musical experience rather than a purely acoustical one.



actually i know quite a bit about the historical movement of pitch but it is still beside the point (or robs point). at least there might be a point of argument in the statement from you i have quoted. while i have no strong opinions on the matter it is at least debatable as to whether perfect pitch works like this in practice. i think rob would argue and i suspect he may be right, that you can 'learn' ever narrower precision of pitch in terms of cycles per second.

so someone maybe able to learn tell cycles per second to within perhaps 5-6 cycles per second, however it is named. this is regardless of culture, period in time, and any other cultural effect. where i might agree is that it would be difficult in practice to do this without the imposition of some kind of labeling that by virtue of its existence would therefore have some kind of cultural attachment. never-the-less, the mechanism by which this functions exists in physics rather than culture (i suspect).


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## Rob (Nov 9, 2009)

oh yes Stevenson, thank you, it's comforting being understood...  
You made the point very clear. Now as Hannes suggested, I'm retiring from this conversation...


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## Hannes_F (Nov 9, 2009)

SergeD @ Mon Nov 09 said:


> how a 3 years boy can read Japanese, Korean, German, and English with about no cultural background to start from ?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Ung-Yong
> 
> Since it's all related to neuronal architecture a baby could born with this chip having all the references to this specific musical culture. A good Darwin natural selection example.



Hmm ... you quote a perfect example of how mind has its own evolution and yet you explain it all by darwinistical neurons? This is as materialistic as it could be in theòW‡   ¶3ÊW‡   ¶3ËW‡   ¶3ÌW‡   ¶3ÍW‡   ¶3ÎW‡   ¶3ÏW‡   ¶3ÐW‡   ¶3ÑW‡   ¶3ÒW‡   ¶3ÓW‡   ¶3ÔW‡   ¶3ÕW‡   ¶3ÖW‡   ¶3×W‡   ¶3ØW‡   ¶3ÙW‡   ¶3ÚW‡   ¶3ÛW‡   ¶3ÜW‡   ¶3ÝW‡   ¶3ÞW‡   ¶3ßW‡   ¶3àW‡   ¶3áW‡   ¶3âW‡   ¶3ãW‡   ¶3äW‡   ¶3åW‡   ¶3æW‡   ¶3çW‡   ¶3èW‡   ¶3éW‡   ¶3êW‡   ¶3ëW‡   ¶3ìW‡   ¶3íW‡   ¶3îW‡   ¶3ïW‡   ¶3ðW‡   ¶3ñW‡   ¶3òW‡   ¶3óW‡   ¶3ôW‡   ¶3õW‡   ¶3öW‡   ¶3÷W‡   ¶3øW‡   ¶3ùW‡   ¶3úW‡   ¶3ûW‡   ¶3üW‡   ¶3ýW‡   ¶3þW‡   ¶3ÿW‡   ¶4 W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡   ¶4W‡


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## SergeD (Nov 9, 2009)

Oups... sorry Hannes did I mentionned human mind ? Or intelligence ? Or evolution ?

My point is that any information or knowledge must be transmitted by a device in order to be received by another device. Thoses devices must share the same protocol of communication to make it correctly transmitted. 

So Mr. Kim could be not intelligent and still own a neuronal architecture having the exact protocol configuration to decode languages. 

The word engineering would be more appropriate than materialism.

And I would bet .02 cents that in few decades the neuronal architecture decoding will be the next DNA sequencing activity field.

SergeD


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## mf (Nov 9, 2009)

SergeD @ Mon Nov 09 said:


> rgames @ Sat Nov 07 said:
> 
> 
> > The notion that babies are born with those arbitrary references ingrained in their brains is ridiculous - they need to be exposed to the references, then their aptitude for pitch memory can be realized.
> ...


SergeD, you have answered your question yourself: "it's all related to neuronal architecture." In other words, a better neuronal wiring will correspond to making better connections among sensations and their corresponding perceptions. Which leads to better memory storage, better memory retrieval, faster learning, more reliable recalling, and all. That applies to pitch recognition, language learning, and everything else that is based on neural connections.

There is no "chip" in the brain at the birth containing cultural information such as tempered (Western) pitches, Arabic scales, Korean language, or whatever. There is only neural circuitry, slightly different in each individual, which accounts for different people developing of different abilities to different degrees. The only "chip" there is, is a general capacity for learning.


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## Hannes_F (Nov 9, 2009)

You could both discuss hundred years and would still miss the main thing. Human mind is so much more than neuronal architecture. 

In your book a human being is just a bag of self-organized dust that happened to develop a brain over millions of years by chance and selection. Now this brain _assumes_ it had something like conciousness or mind ... but it is in error because it is all just neuronal activity behaving to codes and whatnot.

In my book a human being_ is_ a center of conciousness. A human being does not _have_ conciousness, it _is_ it. This conciousness is what I see if I look into human eyes and, very important, this conciousness is what I hear if I hear somebodys music in this forum. Brain, neurons, DNA, the whole body ... these are all just instruments, and if we had none of them we would have developed something else. Just as you use another instrument in your compositions if one of them does not work as you wanted it to.

Now I expect you perhaps to call me a dreamer and to think you are much more realistic. But for me it is totally down to earth and realistic to acknowledge the dual consistence of nature (including myself and anybody else) in the tension between mind and matter ... and it is totally unrealistic and naive to reduce it to matter alone.

Serge, I think you are right and the neuronal architecture will be decoded as a next big field of research. But if we look one, two or three hundred years ahead then the dynamics between mind and matter will still be there but materialistic neuroscience will be a faded episode of history. It will not have been helpful at all in solving any of our real problems because these are all domiciled in the regions of human thought.


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## Hannes_F (Nov 9, 2009)

BTW Serge, the word engineer comes from genius. A good engineer is somebody that forms the world with the power of ideas.


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## mf (Nov 9, 2009)

Engineer comes from engine (machine), which comes from ingenious (clever inventor), which in turn comes from generare (bringing into being). 
So, an engineer doesn't need to be a genius (which btw has a different gen-ealogical tree, based on genus).

I share your beliefs in the spiritual human side, only that this has nothing to do with pitch recognition, which is clearly related to neural connections. I'm sure a _cruel_ surgeon can cut the particular brain nerve(s) that take care of pitch recognition, if you REALLY need proof. So, no need for metaphysics, for there's nothing transcendental about pitch recognition.


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## SergeD (Nov 9, 2009)

Hey Hannes,

I'm on your side don't get me wrong. But we talk here about abilities not human being and consciousness.

Could we agree with life engineering ? 

On a smaller scale I just try to figure out how a 3 years boy can understand something he never heard about in his life. And I don't believe about the 220 IQ equation. My guess is that every brain learning Japanese develops the same distinctive neuronal configuration. And once in a while a person born with this exact configuration. That person does not know the Japanese but the learning will be like a download process.

mf,
I used the word chip in that way "a neuronal configuration" like circuitry. 

My english drivers are heating, must stop

SergeD


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## Hannes_F (Nov 10, 2009)

mf @ Tue Nov 10 said:


> ingenious (clever inventor)
> , which in turn comes from generare (bringing into being).
> So, an engineer doesn't need to be a genius (which btw has a different gen-ealogical tree, based on genus).



Hmm ....

I think it is etymology, not genealogy. According to these sources the word comes from ingeniare and the root is gignere, actually the same root as for genius.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=engine
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=genius
http://lexika.digitale-sammlungen.de/ad ... 32_4_0_108

That is interesting because all gignere means to beget, to produce, to create. This shows how self-evident it was in former times that every creation or production comes from the particular inner spirit.



> I share your beliefs in the spiritual human side







> only that this has nothing to do with pitch recognition, which is clearly related to neural connections. I'm sure a _cruel_ surgeon can cut the particular brain nerve(s) that take care of pitch recognition, if you REALLY need proof. So, no need for metaphysics, for there's nothing transcendental about pitch recognition.



How can you think that? Such experiments have been done before but they only prove that the instrument will not work any more if damaged. If my car is broken I cannot steer it any more.

However the brain is not just a tool in the sense of a electro-mechanical-chemical machine, it is an organ with its own life, and as such much more complicated and fascinating as a simple neuronal network could be. But still conciusness is the driving factor behind everything. Hey, we can even re-arrange the layout of our brain by mental demand (and everybody that has had years of mental training will show a different neuronal structure from somebody that hadn't). Bye bye machine, welcome life!

I think it is essentially important not to loose the differentiation between cause and effect, especially if we regard ourselves. These questions influence every of our decisions, everything that we do or say, and of course every note of music that we hear or write.


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## mf (Nov 10, 2009)

Hannes_F @ Tue Nov 10 said:


> I think it is essentially important not to loose the differentiation between cause and effect, especially if we regard ourselves.


What do you mean by that? Cause and effect of what?


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## careyford (Nov 11, 2009)

Hey James, congratulations! I'm only a few months behind (a boy due in January). So if you find out how to give your daughter perfect pitch, let me know!

Best,
Richard


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## Revson (Nov 11, 2009)

bluejay @ Fri Nov 06 said:


> Hi gang.
> 
> Well I'm the ecstatic father of a 45 day old daughter at the moment and obviously these last few weeks have been an amazing time.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing that great event - brings back memories of early days with our now 18 month old son. What a wild ride - "falling in love" with our son hit me like a truck and I never saw it coming.

Setting aside the concept of perfect pitch, I believe that during these early months and years when neuronal systems are at their most plastic you can indeed influence the expression of whatever pitch sensitivity she may have the potential to develop. Babies are a bundle of genetic potential, but genes will express in development more or less depending on stimulating experience.

Our son has heard a lot of music, but moreover I always reflect back to him any "musical" event he is involved in. If he banged out 3 notes by accident on his little 5 note toy "piano," I would step to the piano or guitar or just sing those notes back to him. If he swats the table a couple of times, I swat the table just as he has, and maybe tease out some kind of rhythmic pattern.

I did this from earliest days, before I saw any recognition on his part. Somewhere around the middle of his first year, I could see him pause and focus, clearly trying to come to grips with what I was doing and its relationship to what he had just done. I think it likely this is the kind of external "tug" his development will respond to.

I do think this kind of interaction is essential, and more powerful than simply playing music in his presence. They are so exquisitely tuned in to Mom and Dad.


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## Lunatique (Nov 22, 2009)

RiffWraith @ Fri Nov 06 said:


> Well, this is interesting:
> 
> _...Chinese-speakers--along with half of the world--use pitch to convey words' meanings. For example, in the Chinese dialect of Mandarin, the word "ma" when spoken in a high pitch means mother, while "ma" in a lower tone means hemp. And because children speaking these languages learn to associate words with pitches, they may be up to nine times more likely to develop a rare musical ability known as absolute pitch...._



It's really not all that different from how English speakers discern the tone of someone's voice or whether someone is asking a question by raising the pitch at the end of the sentence. All it is is a change of pitch. Is there any actual overwhelming evidence of any specific culture having a dramatically higher ratio of perfect pitch?


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## Ian Livingstone (Dec 7, 2009)

only just skipped through this thread - but couple of things:-

I have perfect pitch myself and it really isn't that much use other than a party trick. Relative pitch is much more use in the real world. In fact PP caused alot of problems for me when I was learning music at school as the tape machine on aural tests was often running at the wrong speed, so I had to learn to transpose from what I was told was the starting note. Non 440 tuning however slight also causes me confusion, happened last week in Bratislava and really threw me for a while.

re: developing perfect pitch I always thought for me was due to learning piano from age 5 on a piano tuned to Bb, and then constantly re-adjusting to a C piano at school. I've never studdied how you can acquire it, I've just had it from as long as I can remember.

However my dad who is a non-musician (he never had the opportunity to take up an instrument) - can sing me the starting note to Beethoven's 5th perfectly everytime. So I guess he has it too although he doesn't know what the notes are called.

Ian


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## cc64 (Dec 7, 2009)

Ian Livingstone @ Mon Dec 07 said:


> However my dad who is a non-musician (he never had the opportunity to take up an instrument) - can sing me the starting note to Beethoven's 5th perfectly everytime. So I guess he has it too although he doesn't know what the notes are called.
> 
> Ian



hi Ian, that's incredible.

When i was a kid, my sister was trying to learn the guitar and i would tune it for her, with great difficulty, using our Piano. 

She went to live with our grandmother for a while so i couldn't tune it for her during that time. One day i went to visit Granny and the guitar was perfectly tuned. I said hey who tuned the guitar, she said" you're sister was driving me nuts with her bad sounding guitar so i fixed it!" >8o 

This got me thinking, Hey the garbage man probably has perfect pitch and here i am struggling to figure out if "And I Love Her" is in minor or major :oops: 

Claude


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## mf (Dec 7, 2009)

cc64 @ Mon Dec 07 said:


> here i am struggling to figure out if "And I Love Her" is in minor or major :oops:


Minor. I mean, he was major but she was minor for sure. Well, she was just 17, you know what I mean.


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## cc64 (Dec 7, 2009)

mf @ Mon Dec 07 said:


> Minor. I mean, he was major but she was minor for sure. Well, she was just 17, you know what I mean.



Well he must have been around 18... 

Speaking of wich: God am i the only one feeling a bit of a late-bloomer-under-achiever when thinking that Lennon and McCartney where 28 when the Beatles disbanded?!? >8o :D

CC


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## mf (Dec 8, 2009)

Yes, we all are. Consider also that Schubert died at 31 and Mozart at 36.
Good reminder, time to work. Thanks!

Found a nice quote:
"We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance." - Mozart
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-ent ... 04128.html


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