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Do you recommend any routine to help a young child learn absolute pitch? I’m talking under 3 years of age.

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

Tor3 4y ago
Rick Beato made a video or two about that. His son Dylan has perfect pitch. What he did when the boy was very little was to let him listen to various types of jazz music - he can't be certain, but his theory is that if the music is "interesting" in the sense that it's not always predictable then the brain automatically zooms in on that and gets interested - and that's what gave the boy perfect pitch (I believe this theory relies on an underlying theory - a quite common one - which is that babies are actually born with perfect pitch but lose it relatively early, just as all babies are born with the ability to hear every sound in every language, and that also gets filtered off as they get older. This last one is pretty certain, the other one is still debated).
bjoli 4y ago
I would have found it useful in school. At work it got in the way. Unless your kid is going to.play one of those perpetually out of tune instruments like the piano I wouldn't recommend it. I had a horn colleague that had the crazy kind of perfect pitch (he still has, but he is retired) and perfect metronome tempo and all that. He called it a curse.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Interesting perspective. I'm an amateur musician and always thought that absolute pitch would have made me a better musician. I wanted to make sure that my kid gets the opportunity to acquire perfect pitch, even if he doesn't decide to take up music in the future
  - bjoli 4y ago
    I find that being able to hear the note you are about to play before you play it is great, but having that note absolutely anchored into something that might not be in tune with what is around you is really just a hindrance. There are certainly people that like their perfect pitch, but I did not. There is a reason they teach in in many asian countries between the ages 2 and 5. A girl I studied with told me they never told you the note they started on when they did melody dictation. You were just supposed to know.

Do you recommend any routine to help a young child learn absolute pitch? I’m talking under 3 years of age.

Tor3 4y ago

Rick Beato made a video or two about that. His son Dylan has perfect pitch. What he did when the boy was very little was to let him listen to various types of jazz music - he can't be certain, but his theory is that if the music is "interesting" in the sense that it's not always predictable then the brain automatically zooms in on that and gets interested - and that's what gave the boy perfect pitch (I believe this theory relies on an underlying theory - a quite common one - which is that babies are actually born with perfect pitch but lose it relatively early, just as all babies are born with the ability to hear every sound in every language, and that also gets filtered off as they get older. This last one is pretty certain, the other one is still debated).

bjoli 4y ago

I would have found it useful in school. At work it got in the way. Unless your kid is going to.play one of those perpetually out of tune instruments like the piano I wouldn't recommend it. I had a horn colleague that had the crazy kind of perfect pitch (he still has, but he is retired) and perfect metronome tempo and all that. He called it a curse.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Interesting perspective. I'm an amateur musician and always thought that absolute pitch would have made me a better musician. I wanted to make sure that my kid gets the opportunity to acquire perfect pitch, even if he doesn't decide to take up music in the future
- bjoli 4y ago
  I find that being able to hear the note you are about to play before you play it is great, but having that note absolutely anchored into something that might not be in tune with what is around you is really just a hindrance. There are certainly people that like their perfect pitch, but I did not. There is a reason they teach in in many asian countries between the ages 2 and 5. A girl I studied with told me they never told you the note they started on when they did melody dictation. You were just supposed to know.