Want Perfect Pitch? You Might Be Able To Pop A Pill For That

It cleared up in a few days, but was very disconcerting while it was happening (especially as I was in the middle of composing a piece of music).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplacusis

What bugged me was the intervals were off. It's hard to describe, but, for those not familiar with how the notes are laid out, 60Hz is quarter step below B, 120 is quarter step below B, 240 is quarter step below B, and so on. However, as you get higher, the frequency difference gets larger (B is actually 61.75ish Hz and B flat is 58.25ish Hz, next higher is 123.5ish Hz and 116.5ish Hz, and so on). Things were translated ~1/4 octave higher, which completely threw everything off because the 60Hz sound no longer fell evenly between two notes or even directly on a note, it was an 1/8th step away. This meant that as the notes got further away from 60Hz (higher or lower), the distance to the note got larger. So while everything was still evenly in tune, my guidepost began to really suck.

Long story short: I have no idea why it did what it did, but it was freaky. However, it was probably the most amenable side-effect I had from the medication.

The list of side effects is rather long, just like most of these psych meds. There's a reason bipolar folks tend to not want to take their meds or go off them.

For me it didn't extend beyond that however.

But long before I could complete the exercise, I was able to tune my guitar perfectly, and I can still tune it fine in a very loud environment, or on stage without the full ability to hear it myself. After playing it for long enough a good guitar made from good tone-woods will resonate like a bell around the "home" frequencies you play a lot. For me, in DADGAD tuning that's a "D" that makes the rosewood echo, but the "A"'s are plenty strong too. If it's out by even a few cents, the guitar just plain doesn't feel right.

I've had the ability to name the key of a song by ear for a few years...probably since my freshman year of undergrad. At that point I had been playing guitar for about 7 years, and had somehow internalized key signature.

For me, it feels very calculated, although I didn't begin doing it intentionally. I essentially compare a new song against an internal database of known songs. For instance, my reference song in B minor is "Comfortably Numb". If I hear a new song that sounds like it's in the same key, it must also be B minor. After I built up an internal collection for each key and practiced enough, it went from being a mechanical process to an intuitive one. It's not perfect, though; most of the "boring" keys sound similar. That is, I have a lot of trouble distinguishing between C, G, and F - fewer accidentals means less "color". In addition, keys within a fifth of each other can sound really similar since they're only one accidental apart. I'll often misidentify something in Bb minor as being in F minor, or something in E as being in B. Surprisingly though, half-step differences end up sounding very different. My wife and I watched Pitch Perfect recently, and during a scene where two women were singing "Titanium", the fact that they were singing it in B minor rather than C minor was extremely apparent.

If you listen to how people with absolute pitch describe their experience, you will realize that they are experiencing perceptions that you cannot. That is interesting.

Relative pitch is just recognition of intervals between notes and the qualities of different chords, but you're right in that perfect pitch and relative pitch are quite unrelated.

My brother and I are both musicians with perfect pitch, and we've found it useful in a variety of circumstances. To name a couple, it really helps if you're jamming and want to pick up a progression quickly, or if you're DJing and want to key match. I will concede that Traktor recently got key detection, which is nice, but especially when playing live I find that key segues will pop into my head without having to search for the next song in the right key.

Even the best relative pitch cannot help you exactly memorize a melody -- if you are unable to remember what note it actually starts on, you haven't remembered it fully.

Classically trained musician without absolute pitch here. I would say yes and no to your comment. My undergrad degree was in flute, and I can assure you that absolute pitch can be quite helpful for wind players especially. My teacher had it, and would be able to tell you if you were out of tune even if you hadn't played with a piano or other reference point.

On the other hand, I once sat between two flutists who both claimed to have absolute pitch but were playing out of tune relative to each other (and each refusing to adjust to the other since... they had absolute pitch). So, it doesn't actually mean you're going to be perfect.

By "inexpensive electronic tools," perhaps you mean these tuners that you can attach to guitars and whatnot? These are certainly helpful for stringed instruments, but are basically irrelevant if you play a wind instrument. Most musicians with relative pitch only need a single reference note and then they're ok. Where relative pitch tends to fail you, however, is over longer periods of time when the pitch tends to drift. You hear this in lots of school orchestras. The pitch will tend to drift upwards (at least in the strings) over a long work. Here, no mechanical/electronic device is going to help you.

Perfect pitch is a real-life superpower for musicians. I'll grant, like another commenter said, that if I had child-like neuroplasticity, attaining perfect pitch would just be icing on the cake.

I discovered I had perfect pitch as a 7-year-old on the way back from church. I was newly a cathedral chorister annd had had a lot of classical music lessons (piano, singing, even recorder) and exposure since I was 4. I just remembered what C was, assuming other people could do that.

However, it's variable, and I had to work on tuning over the next few years to calibrate my sense of pitch, because choirs go out of tune when unaccompanied, as we sometimes were. It was good practice, but I did become somewhat obsessed with knowing "correct" pitch. There are others with much more finely-tuned perfect pitch, including some who claim to hear 1/8 semitone very easily. I was never that precise, and even having not played or sung much music for a few years recently (never really bought into the magic, but loved the music, so not much church really) found my pitch calibration had dropped a semitone, although this could be general memory confusion because of all the Baroque music I did at one point in time.

I heartily recommend Chris Aruffo's work, as well. All the stuff in Research Phases 1-17 in "AP Research" is really quite fascinating and well cited. I hung on every new post as they came and was convinced that by the end of it he'd have acquired perfect pitch, but alas 10 years later it seems it was not to be. Still an interesting read, though.