[Harp-L] Absolute or Perfect Pitch Harp-L Digest, Vol 187, Issue 3

[rhhammersley@xxxxx]

Recent discussions made me put my professional psychologist hat on and do a
literature search for what is known about this topic which I shall
summarise. If anyone wants pointers to the original papers contact me off
list. Many of them are open access. 

As an aside, photographic memory does exist but it is rare and not
infallible (indeed neither are photographs). Plus, some people find it
intrusive because they do not want to remember all the details that they
spontaneously remember which interfere with everyday living - imagine if
every time you went to the store to buy milk you could recall all the
conversations that you had ever had with the shopkeeper...

Absolute pitch:
Is not an all or nothing ability but there is a clear separation between
people who have the skill and those that do not when musicians are tested.
85% correct or more is one accepted definition of absolute pitch. Those
without the ability don't get anywhere near that level.

It is an inherited ability, which runs in families. " absolute pitch is
likely genetically heterogeneous, with environmental, epigenetic, and
stochastic factors also perhaps contributing to its genesis" 

Some languages are tonal, notably Mandarin Chinese, so the skill would be an
advantage. One study found that it was more prevalent amongst musically
educated Mandarin speakers than amongst musically educated USA non tonal
language speakers. 

Practice and musical skill improve absolute pitch performance but cannot
make someone without AP perform at the AP level.

Early exposure to music is important or the skill does not develop much.
This also explains why the culturally relative scales and note names are
what AP is applied to. Middle Eastern or South Asian musicians with AP will
hear and produce different notes if they are trained in the traditional
classical musics. 

Performance on the white keys ie the key of C is better than on the sharps
and flats. 

Performance is affected by the timbre of the notes. But the scientific
studies are all based on naming simple single tones, or singing single
notes to order.

Moving out of science, in real musical situations there are a lot of other
factors to consider. Like in performance it can be challenging to even hear
what some of the other musicians are playing, never mind name pitches. Also
some music requires different players to avoid being "captured" by what
others are playing. This is probably more obvious for rhythm - you are
trying to play 3/4 over 4/4 - it is easy to slip into 4/4. But the same
applies to pitch if you are trying to play dischords, or complex harmonies,
it is easy to slip and normalise the notes. 

Some musicians are very good at spotting wrong notes in real musical
situations. Apparently Frank Sinatra could hear one wrong note in an entire
orchestra for instance. Whether this is due to AP or other skills we don't
know. 

To sum up, AP is useful in situations where absolute pitch carries meaning
whether in a tonal language or hitting the right note. It is a hassle in
situations where AP does not carry meaning. For instance some people with AP
find it difficult or distressing to transpose to another key because to them
different keys sound much more different than they do for non AP people. I
once read that some classically trained musicians with AP find listening to
live music distressing because of the mistakes they can hear and prefer
reading scores.  
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