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What is perfect pitch?To be able to recognize or recreate a musical note at will, you must possess perfect pitch, also called absolute pitch. Some musicians are particularly good at singing any pitch at will, others are great at transcribing anything they hear or tuning an instrument to concert pitch using perfect pitch. Although the ability is quite rare (about 1 in 10,000), many musicians who have it are adept at both identifying and recreating notes. Whether it is possible to learn it is another question. Can you really undergo perfect pitch training.
Theory of Perfect Pitch According Recent Experiment
The answer to the question is not a matter of “what?” but more a question of “how?”. How is it that a small proportion of people are able to notice a supposed elusive “quality” of each note, which most of us cannot? How does perfect pitch actually work and what are these qualities? Some of the world’s most accomplished musicians do not have perfect pitch, however, most of us exhibit amazing skills of aural recognition every day. For example, we can easily recognize our mother’s voice amongst hundreds of other voices and sounds. So, how is it that we cannot all hear these note differences?
We need to be aware of some of the basics of acoustics before we can answer these questions. Firstly, every tonal sound from an instrument, voice, or any other source contains a fundamental frequency and several harmonics. Another name for harmonics are overtones. These are always in all tonal sound. Even the simplest sound wave will generate harmonics. This is because of the physical nature of waves to create other waves. The harmonics of a tone are multiples of the fundamental frequency. For example, when you hear the note, A440, you are hearing 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, 1760 Hz, 2200 Hz, and so on. The energy of the fundamental (440 Hz) is often the highest and the energy of each increasing harmonic decreases, as a general rule, but not with all instruments. The “first overtone” is the same as the second harmonic.. To avoid the confusion about this, I will use the harmonic terminology only. See more detail at: learn perfect pitch.
The harmonic spectrum for each instrument is different. For example, a clarinet has a strong fundamental with stronger odd harmonics than the even ones. The guitar, on the other hand, has a higher second, sixth, and seventh harmonic.
Of course the spectra of different instruments differs. The instruments do not sound alike at all. The harmonic spectrum of a tonal sound is what gives it its own timbre, as well as noise components. The reason we can easily distinguish between instruments is that they have varying harmonic spectra.
In summary, the unique “quality” or timbre of a tonal sound is always determined by its harmonic levels.
Returning to the topic of perfect pitch, we already know that those with perfect pitch distinguish the notes by their own “quality” or timbre. We know that composers with perfect pitch may choose a certain key for its characteristics, depending on the mood of the piece. However, we know that the instrument determines the harmonic spectra of the notes so how does this fit in with perfect pitch? Well, the shocking, but obvious truth is that there is no physical difference in “quality” between the different notes. It only takes a moments’ thought to realize that any actual difference would have been measured a long time ago and the mystery of perfect pitch would be no more. The perceived difference between the notes is due to the frequency response and resonant frequencies of the human ear.
Just like a microphone, the ear is better at hearing some frequencies than others and has moving parts, which have resonances. Any tonal sound entering the ear involves a wide range of harmonic frequencies, which set the whole machine in motion. We hear some frequency components as louder than others when they actually have the same loudness.
The response does not differ much between people and can be seen on a common Equal Loudness curve. A sound of 30 Hz needs to have nearly one million times as much physical power to be perceived the same as a sound of 4000 Hz.
A series of resonating components make for resonances in the ear. For example, the auditory canal has a resonance at about 3 kHz. Other considerations are the vibration of the eardrum, the bones in the middle ear, and the complex behavior of the cochlea.
Of course, the equal loudness response of the ear is only part of the story of human hearing. There are many other phenomena going on when the ear is subjected to multiple frequencies, which is just about all the time. For example, the extent to which one frequency is masked by another depends greatly on the pitch of these frequencies.
So What is Perfect Pitch?
To conclude, perfect pitch is all about the perception of the harmonic spectra of different notes on the scale. First, there exists the actual harmonic levels of the sound. On the other, there is an internal spectrum from the response of the ear. The brain is an extremely complex machine and those who have perfect pitch are simply able to tune in to the spectrum of the sound resulting from the resonances of the ear and can distinguish this from the physical spectrum created by the instrument. The main reason that perfect pitch is so rare is that we tend to fixate on the fundamental pitch of the notes and, as musicians, the harmonics are not regarded with as much importance. Learning the skill of perfect pitch is about learning to listen to the harmonics of tonal sounds, which is certainly achievable. To learn to play piano, visit pianoforall
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