Klarinet Archive - Posting 000362.txt from 2003/08

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Perfect vs. Relative pitch
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 14:47:03 -0400

There have been posts concerning the usefulness and drawbacks of perfect pitch, but not much said
about the flip-side of the topic. Every college music degree program in the U.S. (if not the
world) has an aural skills component, commonly known as ear training. They don't teach perfect
pitch in ear training classes. They teach relative pitch (melodic and harmonic), and they teach
rhythm. In fact, there is some question regarding whether perfect pitch can actually be
"learned", as opposed to being an inborn talent. If your definition of perfect pitch is merely
being able to identify a note name upon hearing a note, then there are multitudes of musicians --
myself included -- who have developed the ability to do that. These people weren't born with the
ability. If your definition, however, includes the ability to know/sense whether that note is out
of tune -- and by how much -- without any other reference pitch (whether external or inside your
head), then the list of people who meet the definition becomes suddenly much smaller.

Developing one's sense of relative pitch -- to the point where one can name a note upon hearing it
in isolation -- still involves an internal comparison to other pitches, no matter how quickly that
comparison occurs, and whether conscious or not. Absolute pitch, in its purest form, is a
visceral/intuitive experience for those who possess the ability. The note itself -- its frequency
of vibration -- has properties that a person with perfect pitch inwardly perceives to be uniquely
identifiable. It has nothing to do with any other pitch. I've never encountered anybody with
perfect pitch whose application of it involved synesthesia or anything, e.g., literally seeing a
certain shade of color in their mind depending on the frequency of the note, but it's that kind of
absolute innate trigger that characterizes perfect pitch, as well as one's ability to know whether
it is at, above, or below the exact frequency identified as the note itself.

In aural skills classes, students learn to detect and identify not individual notes, but the
intervals between them. It is a distinct and completely separate skill from perfect pitch, and it
is often more difficult for people *with* perfect pitch to develop. Without a sense of relative
pitch, a person with perfect pitch is musically clueless about the interval that separates two
notes. If the notes are played separately, (s)he can name them instantly, but (s)he has no idea
how to perceive or express the distance between them. (S)he might not even be able to identify
the individual notes if they're played simultaneously, as opposed to in succession, because (s)he
must mentally pick out each note from the simultaneity in order to separately identify it. That
isn't a natural skill either. Relative pitch involves identifying the interval via the quality of
the *simultaneity* itself, not the individual notes. The "gifted" person also won't be able to
sing a relative interval if directed to do so, e.g., a perfect 4th up from a given pitch (a la
V-I) unless they think of the second note and then sing it in conceptual isolation from the first.
This defeats the intended purpose of exercise. Individual notes in succession do not comprise
the scales and harmonies upon which music is based. Scales and harmonies are characterized by the
intervals that separate the notes within. Developing an intuitive sense of what those intervals
sound like -- and the significance of their relationships to each other -- is a fundamental
musical skill, a prerequisite to learning harmony, phrasing and musical expression. Relative
pitch involves exposure to -- and assimilation of -- the organic and interconnected nature of
notes and harmonies that are at the foundation of the music that we hear and perform. That
organicism is where the "music" resides in what we hear. I've known quite a few people with
perfect pitch who couldn't hum a catchy tune to save their lives. They just knew the name of each
note.

Neil

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