funkyhammond

Oh right, well temperament, great point.

A mix of both, I would say. A dash of perfect pitch, with a whole lot of relative pitch. I believe that is one of the techniques for learning perfect pitch, but it's really mostly learning relative pitch. People with greater perfect/absolute pitch ability don't need to use any relative pitch. They can just hear and recall instantly or sing a named note back instantly. That's my understanding.

Yup, those terms occurred to me right after I posted that. And there is a logic to it. But, there is also a logic to the terms that the psychoacoustics researchers use. They call it absolute pitch (AP) because the ability allows individuals to identify or recreate musical notes accurately, and independently of a reference. In contrast, relative pitch implies that a reference is needed. I think most non-musicians would understand the difference between the words "relative" and "absolute" a lot more than they would understand what a musical "interval" is if you were going to call relative pitch "interval memory", like you had suggested in a previous reply. I think relative vs. absolute makes more intuitive sense for most people. That's just my guess. Also, if you noticed in a previous reply I made to someone else, I had mentioned a research paper where they used the extended term "overt absolute pitch memory". So, researchers already have a phrase in mind that also includes "memory" but they use absolute pitch (AP) as the convenient shorter label. And they talk about AP and non-AP subjects. That's the thing. It's semantics. It's convention. So, unless you can challenge why "absolute pitch" is not a good term, then I'm not sure there is much left to say on the subject. Anyway, what matters is actually learning what those terms actually mean rather than what would be a "perfect" label for "perfect pitch".

That reasoning makes sense. But there does seem to be some innate component, too, which is why some people can seem to develop it at much greater skill and more quickly. Of course, developing it involves memory. I guess it's the people that have a strong innate part that people have taken more notice of and that's why the term developed that way. As for the term "pitch memory", I think I might finally understand how that is currently being used. You know that old Simon toy where you had to remember the order of the lit colours (which also had tones)? Well, if you do something like that but only with pitches, no visual cues, that would be pitch memory. In other words, it's how good your short-term memory is at remembering a sequence of pitches. People with better "pitch memory" can remember longer sequences correctly.

I was wondering something similar. I wonder if what is actually going on here is that he is hearing different things in different contexts. That would make more sense. But if we're talking about "perfect pitch" exercises, and the goal is to be able to hear some quality of F# in total isolation (beyond just the memorization of the pitch) so that you can eventually achieve perfect pitch, then I don't really follow.

He was talking about going through the cycle of fifths and the addition of sharps sounding different than the addition of flats. So you are going to have this question about enharmonic notes. I am also confused by the concept.

Woah. I had no idea that some people could do it at that level. And in some later videos he also knows enough music theory to name the chords/polychords and the scales they come from. Impressive. I know that doesn't equate with musical talent but I just wasn't aware that some brains could process crazy dense chords so quickly. I should have guessed from listening to Jacob Collier. I remember watching the video below a few years back. I was in total amazement at the analysis. I mean, what? Shifting tunings from one complex chord to the next in order to get around the limitations of equal temperament. And from other videos, I noticed Collier has some interesting ideas of music harmony that build extensions beyond the 13th, which I assume very much uses microtuning. Although, I have never really found the tone of his voice or the style of his singing all that appealing (personal taste), I have listened to a few of his albums just for the sheer amazing musical ideas.

Like I said, I know were saying that jokingly, in tone. I just wasn't sure exactly what you meant.

Although I know you are saying that jokingly, I am not entirely sure what you mean. I try to be as clear as possible in my writing. I basically was saying that I didn't really have a problem with your chosen terms unless they were already being used to mean something a bit different. As it turns out, "pitch memory" appears to already be used by researchers to mean something more general. That's the thing about labels -- they are very short descriptions and can often be interpreted in different ways. There is already an existing convention for that term. Other than that, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

I guess it might be preferable to name it "pitch interval memory" to clarify that you are talking about sound and not the perception/memory of time intervals, for example. So "pitch memory" and "pitch interval memory". And then I guess "latent pitch memory" to describe the ability that most everyone has of singing Happy Birthday. I guess that's all fine and good unless... the phrase "pitch memory" is already being used and has a slightly different usage. That would just confuse matters for those already using that phrase. I'm definitely not an expert, but I see some scholarly papers that seem to indicate that they are using the term "pitch memory" in a more general sense to talk about memory tasks when studying anyone, musician, non-musicians, people with or without "absolute pitch", people with or without "relative pitch", etc. So, if "pitch memory" is already being used in a much more broad sense to indicate any kind of pitch recollection, then using it to specifically replace "perfect pitch" or "absolute pitch" would serve little purpose other than to create confusion for scientists. And if that's your goal, then job well done!

There is lots of interesting stuff in the wikipedia page: Special populations [...] Absolute pitch ability has higher prevalence among those with Williams syndrome[56] and those with an autism spectrum disorder, with claims estimating that up to 30% of autistic people have absolute pitch.[57][58][59] A non-verbal piano-matching method resulted in a correlation of 97% between[clarification needed] autism and absolute pitch, with a 53% correlation in non-autistic observers[clarification needed].[60] However, the converse is not indicated by research which found no difference between those with absolute pitch and those without on measures of social and communication skills, which are core deficits in autistic spectrum disorders. Additionally, the absolute pitch group's autism-spectrum quotient was "way below clinical thresholds".[61]

I already spoke to this, but I'll re-iterate. Memory is also involved in relative pitch. So again, if the term is the only thing you are interested in, how does calling it pitch memory help to convey any clarity about the difference between perfect/absolute pitch versus relative pitch since both of them involve memory?

Sorry, after re-reading your reply, is the only point you are making (and that you made in your OP) is that A=440 is arbitrary and cultural? Is that it? Sure. I think most people would agree with that. But what does that really have to do with trying to understand what perfect/absolute pitch is and how it differs from relative pitch?

I've seen you say that a number of times now that nothing that you are reading (including the links I provided) disproves the point in your original post. The problem is that your original post made 3 fuzzy points and you're never being clear about which of those points your are referring to and what aspect exactly. It would probably help to understand your argument a lot if, in your replies, you re-iterate which of your original points you are talking about and elaborate on how the particular source of information relates to your points and whatever argument you are making. Vague statements, like, there is "no absolute proof" doesn't mean anything. In science, there is never, strictly speaking, absolute proof of anything. There is just more and more lines of evidence, resulting in higher and higher levels of confidence by scientists specializing in the area.

Further on that from this paper: "The ability to recall the absolute pitch level of familiar music (latent absolute pitch memory) is widespread in adults, in contrast to the rare ability to label single pitches without a reference tone (overt absolute pitch memory)."