5 ms·

Perfect pitch is overrated. In college as a music student with excellent relative pitch, I routinely outscored peer students with perfect pitch when taking clas

Perfect pitch is overrated. In college as a music student with excellent relative pitch, I routinely outscored peer students with perfect pitch when taking classical ear training courses. Perfect pitch is more of a parlor trick. It's occasionally useful when trying to tune a stringed instrument by yourself, and distracting if your ensemble starts to drift off key while remaining in tune with each other. Also, trained relative pitch is better than untrained perfect pitch. For instance, if my instructor played four bars of a four-part bach chorale on the piano (sixteen quarter notes, perhaps a couple of eighth-note passing tones), I could fully notate it within three repetitions, sometimes on first listen - if I were initially told what key it was in. Someone with untrained perfect pitch would be able to tell if the instructor was lying about what key it was in, but they wouldn't be able to notate it. So in that scenario, the only thing it's useful for is recognizing what key it's in. If I hadn't been told, I could have just notated it in C and then transposed it to the right key later. I would later learn that being able to notate a bach chorale by ear is nothing compared to the kind of ear skills you need as a jazz musician - but again, there, perfect pitch isn't important or super useful. We learn chord relations - it's all relative.

psychometry 8y ago
Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how overrated red and green are. First, someone with "untrained" AP (I assume you mean no musical training) wouldn't be in a position where they'd be needing to transcribe a Bach chorale, would they? Any AP possessor with musical training--I am one--finds transcription trivially easy since there's only rhythm to figure out. While it can be momentarily distracting when music doesn't match its normal key due to transposition or tuning issues, I can move past it without too much effort, although I am continually aware of the discrepancy. It's like the visual illusion where the ballerina can spin both clockwise and counterclockwise depending on your perspective. The biggest benefit is being able to identify the key without having to do the initial hunt for the tonic by testing notes. This is very useful in an accompaniment situation.
- jancsika 8y ago
  > Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how overrated red and green are. Ooh, that is such an intriguing analogy. I think it's wrong. The analogy should be a colorblind person complaining that the ability to guess html hex color values is overrated for the purpose of measuring, analyzing, and describing how a combination of colors affects the mise en scene in a given film still. We must also add the complication that most televisions and places where people look at scenes the colors tend to gradually ramp down in frequency as the lights get tired.
  - dfan 8y ago
    In a lot of classical music, especially since 1900, pitch classes play a really fundamental role. When, say, G is a prominent pitch class for a while, and then I hear it come back a few minutes later, that lets me understand the structure of the piece better than if I didn't recognize it. So absolute pitch has a real use, and I don't think it's quite fair to put it on the level of "absolute hex color values". Of course, there is a lot of subtle stuff going with color design in TV and movies that generally passes me right by, so maybe I should be spending more time trying to appreciate that and less time getting excited about identifying Gs in atonal music...
    - jancsika 8y ago
      > When, say, G is a prominent pitch class for a while, and then I hear it come back a few minutes later, that lets me understand the structure of the piece better than if I didn't recognize it. Give me a controlled example where the return of the prominence of pitch class G lets you understand the structure of a section of music. Controlled example would mean: * the orchestration used for the G is different at moment A and moment B, OR the piece is for a solo instrument. Otherwise you could be hearing a timbral connection and confusing it for a pitch class connection. * the G at moment B is in a different octave. Otherwise you could be hearing a pitch connection and confusing it for a pitch class connection. (Esp. if you have perfect pitch.) * the musical texture at moment A is different from moment B. Otherwise you could just be hearing a textural connection (e.g., big orchestral hit, moment where the woodwinds return, etc.) and confusing it for a pitch class connection. * it's not a tonal piece of music. Otherwise you could be hearing the same or similar harmonic progression and confusing it with a pitch class connection. * moment A is melodically dissimilar from moment B. Otherwise you could be hearing a melodic connection and confusing it with a pitch class connection. I can't think of any musical moments that meet those constraints.
stevenking86 8y ago
I agree. I was a music major long ago and at least as far as musical applications go, relative pitch is much more valuable. Hearing intervals and harmony is much more important for the performance of music.

psychometry 8y ago

Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how overrated red and green are. First, someone with "untrained" AP (I assume you mean no musical training) wouldn't be in a position where they'd be needing to transcribe a Bach chorale, would they? Any AP possessor with musical training--I am one--finds transcription trivially easy since there's only rhythm to figure out. While it can be momentarily distracting when music doesn't match its normal key due to transposition or tuning issues, I can move past it without too much effort, although I am continually aware of the discrepancy. It's like the visual illusion where the ballerina can spin both clockwise and counterclockwise depending on your perspective. The biggest benefit is being able to identify the key without having to do the initial hunt for the tonic by testing notes. This is very useful in an accompaniment situation.

jancsika 8y ago
> Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how overrated red and green are. Ooh, that is such an intriguing analogy. I think it's wrong. The analogy should be a colorblind person complaining that the ability to guess html hex color values is overrated for the purpose of measuring, analyzing, and describing how a combination of colors affects the mise en scene in a given film still. We must also add the complication that most televisions and places where people look at scenes the colors tend to gradually ramp down in frequency as the lights get tired.
- dfan 8y ago
  In a lot of classical music, especially since 1900, pitch classes play a really fundamental role. When, say, G is a prominent pitch class for a while, and then I hear it come back a few minutes later, that lets me understand the structure of the piece better than if I didn't recognize it. So absolute pitch has a real use, and I don't think it's quite fair to put it on the level of "absolute hex color values". Of course, there is a lot of subtle stuff going with color design in TV and movies that generally passes me right by, so maybe I should be spending more time trying to appreciate that and less time getting excited about identifying Gs in atonal music...
  - jancsika 8y ago
    > When, say, G is a prominent pitch class for a while, and then I hear it come back a few minutes later, that lets me understand the structure of the piece better than if I didn't recognize it. Give me a controlled example where the return of the prominence of pitch class G lets you understand the structure of a section of music. Controlled example would mean: * the orchestration used for the G is different at moment A and moment B, OR the piece is for a solo instrument. Otherwise you could be hearing a timbral connection and confusing it for a pitch class connection. * the G at moment B is in a different octave. Otherwise you could be hearing a pitch connection and confusing it for a pitch class connection. (Esp. if you have perfect pitch.) * the musical texture at moment A is different from moment B. Otherwise you could just be hearing a textural connection (e.g., big orchestral hit, moment where the woodwinds return, etc.) and confusing it for a pitch class connection. * it's not a tonal piece of music. Otherwise you could be hearing the same or similar harmonic progression and confusing it with a pitch class connection. * moment A is melodically dissimilar from moment B. Otherwise you could be hearing a melodic connection and confusing it with a pitch class connection. I can't think of any musical moments that meet those constraints.

stevenking86 8y ago

I agree. I was a music major long ago and at least as far as musical applications go, relative pitch is much more valuable. Hearing intervals and harmony is much more important for the performance of music.