Attempting to acquire absolute pitch

Quick question; have you noticed any emotion rising as you attempt to gain absolute pitch?

Reply to frank Sure: hope, disappointment, confusion, frustration, excitement, triumph, despair, pleasure etc.

Hadn't thought about emotional aspects, though.

Reply to bongo fury I have next to no sense of time. I was blown away when I found out that other people do. When I started trying to teach myself to guage time, like just starting with 10 minutes, I felt an overwhelming aversion to doing it.

I can link that up with other aspects of my personality where I cant handle being pigeon holed or caged in any way. I wonder if personality can influence the skills you have access to.

Reply to bongo fury I had* an absolute pitch as a kid, before any musical training. I don't remember how my first music teacher diagnosed it (since of course I didn't know notes and couldn't yet play any instrument at five), but there must be some standard tests. Pretty soon, once I learned to associate notes to sounds, the notes would just pop into my head when I heard them, sort of like how you recognize letters when you see them on a page.

My sister, who also started learning to play early and, unlike me, went on to train as a professional musician, did not have an absolute pitch. She practiced much more than I did, and she acquired some degree of proficiency in associating notes to sounds, but not to the degree that I had always had. When she was practicing for a college entrance exam, she even had me drill her on identifying notes, intervals and chords. She could recognize notes pretty well, but only after hearing a reference note or chord. She never acquired an absolute pitch.

* I used the past tense here, because as I was approaching middle age my hearing went "out of tune." (This is not uncommon.) This actually makes a difference to how I hear music. It's hard to describe the feeling; it is somewhat disorienting. At some point I realized that my inner pitch became very close to the so-called Baroque pitch, which is almost half a tone lower than the modern pitch. I was listening to a period instrument recording - and suddenly everything fell into place, the notes were ringing out in my head like they used to. Even knowing this, it's not easy for me to gauge the modern pitch. Somehow the shift makes me uncertain about my bearings.

A musical/literary anecdote: The Russian poet (and future Nobel laureate) Boris Pasternak was a gifted musician in his youth. He wanted to be a composer, but he agonized over his lack of a perfect pitch, which he thought was a major handicap. One day he got to meet his idol Scriabin and played some of his compositions for him. Afterwards, while they talked, the famous composer went to the piano and played back some of Pasternak's music from memory... but to the latter's astonishment he played it in the wrong key! It was then, Pasternak later recalled, that he realized that Scriabin didn't possess the vaunted perfect pitch either.

Quoting bongo fury

Exceptionally, that is, such a pattern as Three Blind Mice might be first appreciated as properly obtaining only in a particular key (probably starting at a particular place on a particular instrument), and any transpositions of it counted only and specifically (by both parent and infant) as such: as transpositions of the original pattern.

There are, I think, different types of musical memory. I may accurately recall some music shortly after hearing it, or often a day later, together with its original pitch. But in time I may retain the memory of the melody, while forgetting the original pitch. If then I recall or look up the key or the first note, then I can reconstruct what the original music must have sounded like in my head. This is not unlike hearing someone talk: you may retain the words longer than the way they sounded like when you heard them.

Quoting frank

I have next to no sense of time. I was blown away when I found out that other people do.

They do?? I too was unaware. At the scale of whole minutes, at any rate. I've known someone claim to have "absolute tempo", presumably involving measurement of time intervals of up to a second or two. I always guessed (without as yet researching it) that his level of precision in such a skill couldn't be radically better than most people's, but could only be, merely, even better. An absolute sense of tempo (however imperfect) seems fairly normal.

Such a state of affairs would seem to fit with my (makeshift and hopefully unoriginal) theory of Early Unlearning: we don't lose a nascent sensitivity to absolute tempo, because we aren't encouraged to completely ignore differences between slower and faster renditions of a pattern. (Whereas we are, with rare exceptions, encouraged to completely ignore differences between higher and lower renditions. We wouldn't criticise - nor praise - anyone's performance of a vocal solo on the grounds it was in an unusual key, even if we noticed.)

As for a sense of minutes-long duration, I suppose I would have guessed that at least half of a typical person's estimations of a ten- or twenty-minute interval would be out by at least a quarter, but it might be shown that they could probably train themselves to improve considerably. I'm not sure I can think of any situations at all where thus not needing to consult a clock would pay benefits. What are they? I think my emotional reaction to the training program would be like yours: intense aversion! Are there enthusiasts?

Quoting bongo fury

Are there enthusiasts?

The guy I knew said he learned it from watching TV. Episodes of some show would be exactly 30 minutes long, so he developed a sense for 30 minutes. He said he could stack them up to around 3 hours after which his accuracy would fall off. I wouldn't have believed it, but I witnessed it.

Another oddity about him was that when he watched TV, he was mainly watching the production, like how they staged shots and what the camera was doing. I don't do that. I become immersed in a fake world and my emotions signify that part of me believes in what's happening.

Quoting frank

He said he could stack them up to around 3 hours after which his accuracy would fall off.

Was it about enduring a daily grind? Punctuating the passage of time with commercial breaks, maybe? Or how did he need not to rely on a clock?

Quoting frank

I become immersed in a fake world and my emotions signify that part of me believes in what's happening.

Yeah, I learned that other people see the plot twists coming a mile off. Sometimes you're meant to, as well, but I'm just not watching in that way. D'oh.

Quoting bongo fury

Was it about enduring a daily grind? Punctuating the passage of time with commercial breaks, maybe? Or how did he need not to rely on a clock?

That's a good question. He came from a very poor background and he worked flea markets with his mother as a child. Maybe there just weren't any clocks in that environment? I don't know.

Quoting bongo fury

Yeah, I learned that other people see the plot twists coming a mile off. Sometimes you're meant to, as well, but I'm just not watching in that way. D'oh.

:grin:

Quoting SophistiCat

I had* an absolute pitch as a kid, before any musical training. I don't remember how my first music teacher diagnosed it (since of course I didn't know notes and couldn't yet play any instrument at five), but there must be some standard tests.

I suppose piano teachers, especially, are always aware of the issue when engaging a young child. Because it may be the critical stage of development. But also because a keyboard is discussed as a diagram of the pitch dimension?

Quoting SophistiCat

When she was practicing for a college entrance exam, she even had me drill her on identifying notes, intervals and chords. She could recognize notes pretty well, but only after hearing a reference note or chord. She never acquired an absolute pitch.

Haha well here's where my admiration for absolute-pitchers gets distinctly tainted: by envy or musical insight, possibly both...

Quoting SophistiCat

identifying notes, intervals and chords.

Why intervals? Just to help find the notes? Or is it the other way round?

Is music about notes or about the intervals between them? ... is obviously a silly question, I appreciate that. But in that case, why the "only" in,

Quoting SophistiCat

She could recognize notes pretty well, but only after hearing a reference note or chord.

Funny how "absolute" still doggedly associates with "perfect", as in,

Quoting SophistiCat

She never acquired an absolute pitch.

... as though that was the ultimate aim?

Ok, maybe the plain fact is that note recognition facilitates interval recognition more efficiently than vice versa. Perhaps I will soon find out. :grin:

Quoting SophistiCat

But in time I may retain the memory of the melody, while forgetting the original pitch.

Ah! The relative-pitcher feels distinctly less envious at hearing this, an apparent admission of inertia in grasping the interval information. :wink:

Fascinating observations, thanks :smile:

Quoting bongo fury

I suppose piano teachers, especially, are always aware of the issue when engaging a young child. Because it may be the critical stage of development. But also because a keyboard is discussed as a diagram of the pitch dimension?

It was violin in my case.

Quoting bongo fury

Why intervals? Just to help find the notes? Or is it the other way round?

Intervals have a distinctive sound to them that has to do with the size of the interval rather than the pitch (that is with modern equal temperament). Once you learn what each interval is called (minor third, perfect fifth, etc.), you can learn to identify them by hearing, regardless of the pitch. Same with standard three-note chords. Such basic music theory and ear training are part of a classical musician's training.

I wouldn't overstate the importance of pitch recognition. I don't know if it's much more than a minor convenience for a musician or a party trick. There are any number of very fine musicians who didn't have a perfect pitch as an innate ability. Also, identifying the pitch of a note is not the only and not the most important ear skill. For example, while I can (could) easily identify individual notes or melodic lines, I am not that good at harmony - most professional musicians are probably much better at it than me. Another sort of discrimination is the purity of the tone: I may be able to identify a tone that is "close enough" to a standard pitch, but a more sensitive ear can pick up finer differences. An experienced conductor can instantly spot a slightly off-key note somewhere in a hundred-strong orchestra or choir.

Quoting SophistiCat

Intervals have a distinctive sound to them that has to do with the size of the interval rather than the pitch

Amen to that. And they, not the absolute pitches, define the patterns. At least for most people, notably young children learning to identify musical patterns.

Quoting SophistiCat

(that is with modern equal temperament).

But not without? Perhaps you just mean: a relatively unbewildering range of distinct intervals (with equal temperament)?

Quoting SophistiCat

Once you learn what each interval is called (minor third, perfect fifth, etc.), you can learn to identify them by hearing, regardless of the pitch.

Yes, although very much not regardless of the context if you are a relative-pitcher. In other words some combinations of intervals are much more easily navigable than others. Whether this is true also for absolute-pitchers I don't recall. Although I vaguely recall the question having been asked.

And by learning to identify intervals, you learn to identify musical patterns at different pitches as the same pattern. (If they are the same pattern of intervals.)

(And perhaps, by learning to identify musical patterns at different pitches as the same pattern, you learn to identify intervals.)

Quoting SophistiCat

Such basic music theory and ear training are part of a classical musician's training.

Indeed, and the question arises, whether the aim is to develop the ability, ideally like Scriabin's, to play by ear based on recognition of intervals, or whether progress is generally to be measured rather against the standard of absolute pitch, ideally like Mozart's:

Quoting SophistiCat

She could recognize notes pretty well, but only after hearing a reference note or chord. She never acquired an absolute pitch.

Quoting SophistiCat

I wouldn't overstate the importance of pitch recognition. I don't know if it's much more than a minor convenience for a musician or a party trick.

But you wouldn't want to understate the importance (for composing and improvising, at least) of developing the ability to play by ear, would you? Isn't that what the ear training is for?

:up:

Quoting bongo fury

I am embarked on a mission to try and acquire the musical version of the enhancement. Anyone with an interest in such attempts, active or theoretical, current or lapsed, is welcome to share their observations here.

I would think that perfect pitch could be acquired by exercising the extremes of your vocal range. Once you determine what the note is at the very limit of your vocal range, either high or low, you can repeat that note, as the limit to your capacity, and know that it is the note which you have determine is your limit. Mine seems to be around D, both high and low. Though I haven't worked on it to the extent required to acquire perfect pitch, I have an affinity for songs in a key of D, and can often recognize them as playing at the extent of my vocal range. Once you can produce a specific note on demand, the rest is a matter of learning the intervals, musical training.

Quoting bongo fury

But you wouldn't want to understate the importance (for composing and improvising, at least) of developing the ability to play by ear, would you? Isn't that what the ear training is for?

Playing by ear does not really require perfect pitch because the same tune can be payed by ear in any pitch. The problem though, is that if you sing a song, and start on a note which is inappropriate for your vocal range, you'll find that the song might go outside your range, and by then you are in the middle of singing the song. This is where perfect pitch and knowing your vocal range, is very helpful. to make the quick decision required of what pitch to start the song on. It's convenient for Christmas carolers to have someone with perfect pitch for the lead in.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I would think that perfect pitch could be acquired by exercising the extremes of your vocal range

Yes! This was an option I early considered, because a stimulus for the mission was being asked my vocal range by the leader of a choir I was enquiring about joining, and this reminding me that I had no idea, and this suggesting the possible connection that you mention. But then I realised that the extremes of my physical range are not only very fuzzy points on the line - which by itself not at all disqualifies them as an improvement on my even fuzzier mental notions - but would likely also quickly shift outwards by dint of the exercise itself. Maybe if and when I have absolute pitch and choirs are allowed to sing again, and I thereby get a more reliable gauge of my range, I might usefully connect the two.

Meantime, I'll try to describe my method (such as it is, outlined broadly above) in more detail, soon. Still, interested to hear of any attempts at this method that you mention.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I have an affinity for songs in a key of D, and can often recognize them as playing at the extent of my vocal range.

Ah but this very common claim of singers has always bemused me. Is there an assumption that melodies are generally bounded above and below by a key (or "home") note? (E.g. that the lowest and highest notes of a melody in D are probably a D and a higher D?) Or by some other particular step in the scale, a certain distance from home? Otherwise, how on earth is the choice of key supposed to determine how comfortably your range will contain both of the (and any) melody's bounds? :chin:

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Once you can produce a specific note on demand, the rest is a matter of learning the intervals, musical training.

Yep. My working hypothesis is that early and continued learning of the second skill usually trashes any early learning of the first. If I can, in my own case, rekindle the first, it'll be interesting to try and assess the degree and kinds of mutual support or interference between the two.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Playing by ear does not really require perfect pitch because the same tune can be played by ear in any pitch.

Absolutely, hence @SophistiCat's example of Scriabin, and my chiding him for looking past that model to Mozart's, when it comes to ear training.



Super contributions, thanks all :cool:

Quoting bongo fury

Ah but this very common claim of singers has always bemused me. Is there an assumption that melodies are generally bounded above and below by a key (or "home") note? (E.g. that the lowest and highest notes of a melody in D are probably a D and a higher D?) Or by some other particular step in the scale, a certain distance from home? Otherwise, how on earth is the choice of key supposed to determine how comfortably your range will contain both of the (and any) melody's bounds?

Since I could somewhat accurately hit a high D, I attempted a low D, to get two full octaves of range. The low D is a bit difficult, and I might have done better to try for the higher E to get my two octave range, but I didn't. In any case, D is the only key that I can get two full octaves, and this is why I like it.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

In any case, D is the only key that I can get two full octaves, and this is why I like it.

I can't agree there. Your two-octave vocal range is between one D and another D, yes. (Let's suppose.) But a melody spanning all or most of this range is no more likely to be in the key of D than in any other one of the 12 available keys. It might be, for example, Danny Boy, which (if I recall it accurately) you could sing only in G (starting on your low D) or in Ab or A or Bb. But not D. So your vocal range can't determine a preferred key or keys, without reference to a particular melody. You can't say, in general, "the key of D is best suited to my range".

But yes, this song would (because its span is approaching two octaves) be a particularly good example of a melody that you must be careful to begin at a suitable pitch. I remember a David Stafford piece wittily referring to the later highest note as "your money note". If you tried the song in D, you would need to start on an A and later on lurch from the A above it, all the way up to the F# just outside your range.

In fact, later trouble can arise from an unsuitable starting note whatever the span of the melody, so this,

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

This is where perfect pitch and knowing your vocal range, is very helpful. to make the quick decision required of what pitch to start the song on. It's convenient for Christmas carolers to have someone with perfect pitch for the lead in.

is always true.

:ok:

Quoting bongo fury

I can't agree there. Your two-octave vocal range is between one D and another D, yes. (Let's suppose.) But a melody spanning all or most of this range is no more likely to be in the key of D than in any other one of the 12 available keys. It might be, for example, Danny Boy, which (if I recall it accurately) you could sing only in G (starting on your low D) or in Ab or A or Bb. But not D. So your vocal range can't determine a preferred key or keys, without reference to a particular melody. You can't say, in general, "the key of D is best suited to my range".

I don't think it's an issue of spanning the range, it's an issue of how the tones within that range are employed. The key note, the tonic, is the note which provides resolution to a musical phrase. When there are two full octaves there are three distinct tonic notes, just like there are two tonic notes in one octave. This provides the composer with more opportunity for the approach to the resolving note. So for example, if a song was composed in the key of F, but was limited in availability of notes, to two octaves of D, then the composer could not approach the high F because it's out of range of available notes. Although the composer would be able to go below the lower F, down to the lower D and come back up to that F, the fact of having no access to the third (high) F would limited the composer's possibilities in a much more serious way by having a whole bunch of notes above the second F with no point of resolution up top.

By the way, I didn't say that the key of D is best suited to my range, I said that I tend to like songs in the key of D. This is probably because composers will tend to utilize that extra D note more often when composing in the key of D than when composing in some other key. When composing in another key, they might be heavily utilizing a note which is out of my range.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

When there are two full octaves there are three distinct tonic notes, just like there are two tonic notes in one octave. This provides the composer with more opportunity for the approach to the resolving note.

Interesting theory.

Reply to bongo fury
If you compose, you will see that the possibilities for composition are significantly influenced by the relationship between the key chosen, and the physical constraints of the instrument (or instruments) employed. In this case the instrument is the human vocal cords.

Quoting bongo fury

I imagine I am standing in a circular dancehall, drapes around the walls obscuring the whereabouts of doors and other markers; I then direct people (my imaginary friends) to line up with me and dance, facing a particular way; then I judge my degree of satisfaction that I am facing North, maybe adjust my orientation accordingly, dance a little more, etc.... then I consult a pocket compass to evaluate my various adjustments. Progress uncertain... shall update here. Hope others will too.

I'm pretty sure I can report progress, albeit entirely devoid of scientific significance. I really ought to have done some prior testing to see where we were starting from. I always tended to assume the distribution of my errors was flat over at least an octave: that I was as lacking in absolute pitch sensitivity as possible. But also I never regarded the skill as musically important so never bothered checking how nearly this was actually the case.

Still, if I can acquire the skill reliably, say to the nearest quarter-tone, then my unreliable memoir of the process might conceivably be worthwhile. Now that I'm hitting in that window as often as not, but with enough fuss and bother (going into a bit of a trance - certainly no hope without silence) that an observer might well judge it hopeless, I'll begin reporting on all of the (usually) handful of trials each day. Data!

But please feel free to interject with any thoughts at all...

Day one, Friday 20th Nov: 23.20 (approx 5 weeks in)

Last of maybe 5 trials today. I think a couple of the others were out by at least a semitone. A couple of hours since the previous one. Plenty of "noise" (earworms etc.) in my head. However, the imaginative process is becoming easier, in ways that I'll try to describe, though probably gradually. It still takes at least half a minute of concentrating, often several. The actual "pocket compass" I'm using is youtube on my phone, specifically G4 as announced in the first chord here: https://youtu.be/PuFwt66Vr6U.

On this occasion, dead on. :smile: However, on visiting again after 10 mins of texting here, to get the link address, I was down a semitone :yikes: Because concentrating less, maybe. On the mistaken assumption or hope that less concentration would be needed after only 10 mins. Will try to describe the concentration, when time allows.

Day 2, Saturday 21st

9.40: slightly flat. Half or quarter of a semitone. Variability of this order is probably good enough to count as absolute pitch if translated into the ability to correctly identify notes played.

(Assuming, that is, that tunings of pianos etc. are concentrated, e.g. as a normal curve, around a stable point, which is the case (A4 = 440Hz), but increasingly compromised by the fashion for authentic performance, with the troublesome consequence mentioned by @SophistiCat.)

Arriving here from the position of being frequently unsurprised to mistake pitches as much as an octave apart, this degree of precision - falling short as it does of being likely to have an opinion on whether a tuned piano is sharp or flat of some standard - would impress me as a step change from relative to absolute. The analogue, say, of being able to recognise red, though not reliably identify its shades.

Whatever degree of precision should indeed transpire in this report over the coming days, it'll be another matter to translate it into an ability to identify notes played, especially in a musical context, where I would expect the usual relative pitch skills to interfere too much. But we shall see.


11.05: Dang, I just spoilt the opportunity for another trial by checking the above link, upon which it played. Still, this raises the question for how long I will feel the absolute sense of the G, and whether the sense if still present is illusory. While writing these words I have lost the (feeling that I have maintained the) sense and then recovered it. So it's moot which of the two questions this will address, but, here goes: yes, dead on, but 10 minutes after accidental exposure to the target.

13.08: Aware of a clear image of the music lingering mentally from earlier, whilst chasing trains and not thinking to start other images. (If the discussion turns philosophical, I will have to put some of those words in quotes!)

(I ought to have clarified by now that the youtube clip I use for feedback is also the "line dance" that I imagine performing (hearing), and then assess for feelings of correctness (of absolute pitch)).

Often, such an immediately present image has tempted me to feel correctness but proved unreliable (e.g. even recently out by a tone or more). However, even though a "reveal" always terminates an opportunity to test a concentration effort, one wants to know if practice has begun to make the less effortful images more reliable. The evidence for that is uncompelling in a case like this one, where the image may be intact from earlier on. Anyway, I succumbed to temptation and the result was dead on.

15.00: Back of the mind full of different music for a while, then called my attention as it landed on the target music in (probably as a result of the music currently playing) what seemed like a too-high key. This isn't a feeling I can remember having (or hardly ever) before a week ago. Still, it is the feeling I've been trying to find and train. This time I found the too-high feeling quite pronounced, but starting the image a third below was, I wouldn't say definitely too low, but kind of disorienting, and since I got the same (lack of) feeling at only a tone below, I went for a semitone below, "played" it, wasn't sure, but went for that, and it was dead on, or very close.

I'm not sure the reason but, this morning, I found myself daring myself to "play" extended "images" of the Ravel in wrong keys, but declined, for fear of trashing the ability gained thus far. That could be a later experiment, no doubt.

22.12: Pleased to say that after an initial judgement (on an initial image) that I was too high, and then the same vague dissatisfaction as earlier upon going down one semitone, I managed to imagine something in between the two, and it came out true :)

Now my worry is that this will read like the potentially alienating account of an absolute pitcher. If that's what I've nearly become, then I will be sorry for not getting started earlier with the careful reporting. On the other hand, there is more I can explain about the "concentration" process, albeit perhaps in retrospect. Also, I seem to remember that absolute pitch that depends on a particular instrument or recorded sound is recognised as a relatively poor relation that might well stay poor. So there's grounds for pessimism, if needed ;)

00.35: Roughly a semitone too high.

Day 3, 08.50: Two semitones too high :yikes:

11.05: Mind alighting onto image, let's test straightaway for the hell of it. Most of a semitone too high.

11.30: Insufficient intermediate noise, but after some proper concentration... i.e. "playing" an image at different points in a zone, trying to move based on vague intimations of possible too-high-ness or too-low-ness, got a possible intimation of just-right-ness, testing positive. :up:

11.55: Now, testing an image lingering on... feels a bit low if anything... Ok, half a semitone down, hmm. Drift, maybe? Will Google later on in the process, but any knowledge welcome.

18.37: ouch, a tone up. Thought I felt the just-right-ness. So much for that.

21.55: Just noticeably sharp. Played a few candidate locations in the zone, without much preference emerging. Tried a "reality kick", if I can put it like that. Recalling, that is, and trying to anticipate and produce, that feeling of "reveal" which mocks all different predictions. And allowing that anticipation to determine the pitch of the next play of the image. Letting the image start where it (hopefully is beginning to know where it) wants. Repeatedly restarting the image is a feature of the method (as it stands currently) and probably benefits from the target music starting with the target pitch and on a main beat. That could be why I chose the clip, not at all sure.

Day 4, 16.05: Phew! Lot of struggling, not sure I wasn't blind-guessing the intimations of up or down. But made several relatively fine adjustments, and was dead on.

21.40: Similar session. Restarting the image less than a semitone higher or lower is harder than moving it up or down by all of the step. For reasons that relative and absolute pitchers can probably agree. Reasons of the target being a large pattern of related tones rather than a single tone. Glad the effort paid off both times today. Mustn't assume...

Quoting bongo fury

Roughly a semitone too high.

Quoting bongo fury

Two semitones too high

If you set your target note at the upper limit of your range you wouldn't be having this problem.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

:smile: Test and report :up:



Day 5, 08.30: Just noticeably flat.

12.50: Dang, at least a semitone sharp. Sad to relate, I was allowing myself to think that the images I was starting were interestingly non-specific pending a seconds-later specification of pitch. That reminds me, a potential flaw in the whole method is that all of the too-high and too-low feelings are illusory, and all the just-right trials are resulting purely from some overall matching of image to reality, potentially insensitive to the transposition in pitch.

14.55: Quick one... bad idea, semitone down.

16.20: Fairly quick. Case of, is this good enough? Or, this, up a semitone? Half way between... dead on.

20.30: Same.

20.40: Attempted similar after random intermediate YouTube tracks... down 2 semitones :yikes:

Reply to bongo fury
And if you were producing the highest note your body was capable of, you wouldn't be coming up flat either.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover

:smile: Test and report your progress. :up:

Reply to bongo fury
Truth be told, I have no interest in developing perfect pitch. It would require substantial work and would serve very little purpose to me. I would never substitute the autotuner. Maybe it might impress some (a small class of people) as a party trick, but that's not my MO. Nevertheless, I am interested in your own tales of success and failure; hopefully the former, for your sake.

But what happens if it turns into one of those things, where you invest substantial time and effort, and still find that your "absolute" is not quite perfect. After all that time and effort, quitting wouldn't seem right, especially since you're making progress. So of course, more time and effort will better your skill. But then it's still not perfect, so you're inclined to invest more time and effort. At what point do you say "my absolute best is never going to be perfect, so I ought to quit wasting my time"?

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Haha, too right :up:


Day 6, 11.05: Most of a semitone sharp.

14.50: Ouch, semitone down. Quick one, too confident.

17.20: Just noticeably sharp.

18.30: More like it.

Reply to bongo fury
I guess it's just what playing music is like in general. You work long hard hours to learn a piece, practise, practise, pracitse. Still, you'll make mistakes, so you need to practise more. You never reach perfection so you always need to practise more. But at some point you say good enough, and quit practising.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover Hopefully exactly like that :smile:


Day 7, 08.50: Nice one. Was tempted to test whether the vividness of a current earworm, whose proper location I happened to recall, indicated that it was in that proper location. But a quick test of the target image pitched according to that hypothesis delivered a too-low feel. So I went up a semitone then down very slightly, the feels subsequently vindicated.

21.05: Cool.

22.55: Most of a semitone too high.

Day 8, 10.35: Difficult - to get intimations of too-low and -high - but got there, and pretty dead on.

15.45: Nearly a semitone too sharp.

17.20: Cool.

19.05: Cool, tested first image, too. Not sure any interference since 17.20, though.

19.25: D'oh, tried same, semitone down.

20.30: Tried imaging a sustained (e.g. synth) note instead of several restarts of the piano tone with its definite focus on one momentary event. Wondering if this might be more conducive to microtonal repositionings. At the expense of reference to specifically the target image, probably. With its musical context. Various issues getting confused here quite probably. Anyway, just noticeably flat.

23.15: Semitone flat. A bit hurried.

Day 9, 09.50: Was worried it might be too hurried, but hoping the play-feel-move-play cycle is speeding up. True or lucky.

15.20: Took more trouble... effective or lucky.

16.35: Thought I was reaching certainty, then found myself "playing" up about a semitone and preferring that, rather refuting the feels just felt to be certain. Anyway the repositioning turned out valid.

17.11: Couldn't get sure. Just noticeably flat.

19.55: Probably fanciful, but... maybe the increasingly fluent repositionings are delivering a sense of the recent past, in that way you get when you notice a generally present but hitherto unnoticed smell? Ew. Anyway, on target.

22.55: A tad sharp.

Day 10, 10.00: Half a semitone sharp.

12.40: Whole semitone sharp. Resolution: no more reprospective accounts.

16.05: First image very vivid, so test... Yeah good.

17.15: Barely noticeably sharp.

20.35 No idea. Let's try this one... Good.

21.35: Quick one, was whole tone sharp.

Day 11, 11.15: Noticeably flat.

15.35: Typical uncertainty after possibly completely spurious adjustments within a semitone. Let's see... Phew! Not necessarily spurious.

19.35: True.

Day 12, 07.05: Good.

13.15: Good.

16.15: Semitone sharp.

18.00: Good.

22.05: More than a semitone flat.



Day 13, 10.55: Most of a semitone flat.

15.15: Just noticeably sharp.

16.00: Good.

19.00: Good.

21.00: Goodish, maybe sharp.



Day 14, 07.50: Good.

12.40: Semitone flat.

16.05: Good.

17.30: Good.

22.20: Maybe sharp.

Sorely tempted to detect that a quickening vividness of the piano g4 is correlating with an unexpected vividness of tactile imagery of fingering the piano note. It's not that the tactile imagery were ever difficult to produce, although it's a couple of years since I touched a keyboard. More that the connections to 'neighbouring' images (e.g. of the neighbouring F# or A) seem to promise absolute rather than relative information. So possibly an intimation of a forthcoming expansion and consolidation of the skill out and about from g4. Haha. Obviously it's much more likely to be just embellishment of an already dubious inference.



Day 15, 12.45: Most of a semitone flat.

19.20: Good.

20.05:Good.

21.55: Good.



Day 16, oops, 23.05: Lot of doubt... but good.



Day 17, 09.55: Good.

14.45: Good.

18.10: Sharp.

19.50: Tiny sharp.

22.35: Good.



Day 18, 10.20: Tiny sharp.

16.05: Good.

22.50: Semitone flat.

So, perfection?
Maybe it's one of those things, like learning a language, easy when you're a child, but difficult when you're older.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

So, perfection?

Hopefully completing stage one. Have started to try and produce a (piano) g4 image in the midst of other music. With the obvious difficulties caused by having cultivated that image with a full musical context (the Ravel).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Maybe it's one of those things, like learning a language, easy when you're a child, but difficult when you're older.

Oh, undoubtedly, that is well established. I gather there is plenty of research into the nature and location of a developmental window. As previously mentioned, I am deferring a proper review of that myself, but any discussion is welcome.



Day 19, 08.10: Slightly flat after last-second flattening.

16.00: Semitone flat.

20.50: Good.

Quoting bongo fury

Hopefully completing stage one. Have started to try and produce a (piano) g4 image in the midst of other music.

I haven't completely grasped your use of "image" in this thread. Surely you are talking about an aural image rather than a visual image, but what method would you use to distinguish one pitch from another, within the image? Is it just a matter of trying to perfectly remember and repeat the exact sound, or is there a technique you could employ to distinguish one pitch from another by features inherent within the sound?

It seems like you've been trying to locate your image by relating it to other tones. But this would be like ungrounded logic, you could have a complete scale in your mind, with nothing to connect it to reality. perhaps you could relate it to an image from another sense, like a visual image for example, so that when you produce the designated visual image it would automatically recall the correct pitch through association. You might even cheat, and use a real sensible object to create the association. A hit of smelling salts, quickly followed by g4 on the piano, for instance. Repeat a few hundred or thousand times, and according to Pavlov, a hit of smelling salts, followed by g4 in the mind without the need for the piano.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

but what method would you use to distinguish one pitch from another, within the image?

I don't quite understand. If you mean relative pitch comparisons within an image then, as you say,

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

Once you can produce a specific note on demand, the rest is a matter of learning the intervals, musical training.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

But this would be like ungrounded logic, you could have a complete scale in your mind, with nothing to connect it to reality.

You get that the grounding is through feedback against a target specimen?

Quoting bongo fury

The actual "pocket compass" I'm using is youtube on my phone, specifically G4 as announced in the first chord here: https://youtu.be/PuFwt66Vr6U.

Quoting bongo fury

You get that the grounding is through feedback against a target specimen?

But the goal is to produce the pitch without the specimen or feedback. Do you have a strategy toward this end?

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

But the goal is to produce the pitch without the specimen or feedback. Do you have a strategy toward this end?

The obvious answer would be "training". But that would depend on your question being a bit silly. I've probably misunderstood.

Reply to bongo fury
Say you read the same paragraph over and over again. Reading it won't necessarily cause you to remember it. You need a strategy and put effort into adhering to the strategy.

"Training" implies a method. If you repeat the same thing over and over again, and you always have an error which you must adjust for, then you cannot just continue forever adjusting for the error, you need to change your method if your desire is to prevent the error.

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover I wonder if this has to do with the perfect/absolute misnomering.

Plenty of truth (overdue for discussion) in the cross-modal association speculation. Will return to that soon.



Day 20, 08.35: Semitone flat.

11.40: Noticeably flat.

12.10: Maybe sharp.

15.15: Good.

21.35: Noticeably sharp.



Day 21: 07.15: Interesting to see whether this clear and convincing first choice image is caused by @Banno's "pain and pleasure" or is determining the pitch at which the latter is crashing the Cartesian concert hall... Turns out the image is half a semitone sharp of the target (the Ravel). But likewise also midway between semitone scale steps (I failed to register which steps i.e. whether the pattern had drifted far) of the other. So, more likely the second alternative.

17.25: Tempted again to test a first image on account of its vividness, but also aware it felt too low. Compared a semitone up, compromised, tested, was good.

20.20: Couldn't get sure at all. Over a semitone flat.

21.35: Good.

I read quite a lot about this topic recently but I have a poor memory and don't remember much of what I read. This is interesting though:

Quoting Don Monroe

A new study concludes that young musicians who speak Mandarin Chinese can learn to identify isolated musical notes much better than English speakers can. Fewer than one American in 10,000 has absolute pitch, which means they can identify or produce a note without reference to any other note. Also called perfect pitch, this skill requires distinguishing sounds that differ by just 6 percent in frequency.

Five years ago researchers led by Diana Deutsch of the University of California at San Diego found that native speakers of Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese frequently match this level of precision during ordinary speech. In these so-called tonal languages, changing pitch can completely alter the meaning of words. For example, the Mandarin word "ma" means "mother" when the vowel is a constant high pitch, but means "hemp" when pronounced with a rising pitch. Until now, it was not known whether this precision in linguistic pitch transferred to musical tones.

I play jazz on sax and piano, and Irish traditional music on the fiddle. I play sax completely by ear, I don't know the names of the notes. I use chord charts when I play piano, but melodies I do by ear.

I think I'm gradually developing absolute pitch, only because when I think of a recording and then listen to it I often get the key right. I haven't done any testing and I don't think I will. Absolute pitch is no use to me anyway. Being able to identify and immediately play intervals is what I need. I knew a musician with perfect pitch who said it is a bit of a curse, a lot of music sounds out of tune. He said the piano with its tempered tuning irritates him.

I think if I did want to improve my absolute pitch, I would use recordings of tunes or songs.

Quoting Daemon

He said the piano with its tempered tuning irritates him.

Nice going, crack open a whole new can of worms. Do you think it would be easier for a person to develop absolute pitch if the person was trained in tones of just intonation?

Reply to Metaphysician Undercover No, I don't think so. The evidence with the tone languages suggests that it's the use of pitch per se that encourages the development of absolute pitch

Reply to Daemon Yes, I think discussion of this or a similar report a couple of years ago helped kindle my current intrigue.

60 per cent is high, but I was surprised by 14 for the westerners, too. But my surprise is irrelevant. I should go to Wikipedia. Soon...

Another curiosity: their example of,

Quoting Don Monroe

means "mother" when the vowel is a constant high pitch, but means "hemp" when pronounced with a rising pitch.

hardly implies an absolute rather than relative sensitivity. (Except in respect of a very broad and fuzzy division into high-class and low-class, which is not to be discounted altogether). Which I would assume was crucial. Unless...

Quoting Daemon

it's the use of pitch per se

So relative as well as absolute? Maybe not what you meant.

I don't know anything (or like you I've forgotten) about tonal languages but I would assume until corrected that their chief distinction from other languages like ours were in their marshalling of pitch intonation towards lexical as well as (as also for us) pragmatic distinctions (e.g. question vs statement). And then some of them would marshall absolute pitch and some of them (as do we for our merely pragmatic distinctions) only relative pitch. And I would have expected that a tonal language implicated in the acquisition of absolute pitch would be of the absolute rather than relative kind. Hence my curiosity about their example and your comment.

Quoting Daemon

I think I'm gradually developing absolute pitch, only because when I think of a recording and then listen to it I often get the key right.

So to the extent that you are bothering to compare the two absolute pitches (of the thinking of and the listening to) rather than looking straight past that, to the matching of step 1 to step 1, step 2 to step 2 etc., i.e. to the matching according to relative pitch, you are indeed striving to acquire. To the extent that you proceed as a proud relative pitcher, ignoring absolute in favour of relative, your progress refutes my hypothesis (OP) that the one (relative) is at the expense of the other (absolute).

Quoting Daemon

Absolute pitch is no use to me anyway. Being able to identify and immediately play intervals is what I need.

Was always my view too. The can't beat them so might as well join them comes partly from knowing (or failing to remedy) my limitations. Which are, mainly, losing track around modulations, some more than others obviously.

Quoting Daemon

I knew a musician with perfect pitch who said it is a bit of a curse, a lot of music sounds out of tune. He said the piano with its tempered tuning irritates him.

Sure, and then some that are happy with tempered are unsettled by the historical drift in standard, as related by @SophistiCat.

Quoting Daemon

I think if I did want to improve my absolute pitch, I would use recordings of tunes or songs.

Yes. Fingers crossed.

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

a whole new can of worms.

Haha, no kidding.

I think that person is probably hearing music in fewer different keys, at least if a keyboard is involved. That could reduce the amount of equating of transpositions. And that could aid acquisition according to my hypothesis (OP).

I tested my Perfect Pitch just now. https://audiomack.com/lune-en-papier/song/perfect-pitch

Reply to Daemon Cool stuff :smile:



Day 22, 10.50: Good. ... D'oh! Of course, turns out you were in G for yours. Although not for the subsequent jam. Although I replayed the test. And then some more jam. (Before my own test.) No telling, of course. (Whether there was influence.)

13.15: Good.

15.15: Just noticed at the last moment that my choice of pitch was undeniably influenced by the tone (an octave or two down) of the washing machine, which I didn't register as a potential musical context, but which immediately showed its influence when I tried to bring the image a semitone or two flatter. Which was doable, but very hard to get "feels" (of too high or too low) for. Lost track now, but I'll try my best against the backdrop... Haha, tried roughly a semitone down, but the washing machine had it after all.

21.35: Good

24.00: Semitone flat.

Can I ask you to explain straightforwardly what your procedure is?

Sure. Pretty much as you did there. Just never thought of whistling. So it's generally an internal "image", which I then check against the target here: Quoting bongo fury

https://youtu.be/PuFwt66Vr6U.

(Sorry that important point was burried several posts in.)

I've found myself humming, but noticed that that may or may not be massively distracting, since I'm an octave down from the piano tone targeted. Another can of worms!

Reply to bongo fury Not to brag, but while you were pissing around trying to obtain the perfect pitch, I obtained the perfect smell. It was a cross between unicorn, marshmallow, and sweaty sex, with just a hint of keylime pie.

Day 23, 11.05: Silly amount of time waiting for high-low feels in (as it were) "response" to "images". But eventually reasonably sure, and tested positive.

13.40: Good.

17.20: Good.

20.26: Good.

00.05: Good.

Reply to Hanover
Now I think you need to employ that perfect smell to trigger the image of the perfect pitch, as I described here:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

It seems like you've been trying to locate your image by relating it to other tones. But this would be like ungrounded logic, you could have a complete scale in your mind, with nothing to connect it to reality. perhaps you could relate it to an image from another sense, like a visual image for example, so that when you produce the designated visual image it would automatically recall the correct pitch through association. You might even cheat, and use a real sensible object to create the association. A hit of smelling salts, quickly followed by g4 on the piano, for instance. Repeat a few hundred or thousand times, and according to Pavlov, a hit of smelling salts, followed by g4 in the mind without the need for the piano.

Day 23, 10.35: Slightly sharp.

14.45: Good.

16.40: Good.

18.55: Semitone sharp.

20.30: Good.

Quoting bongo fury

Day 23, 10.35: Slightly sharp.

Be one with the flatness

Reply to frank Haha, it's almost that mystical. Still. Need to speed it up. But wrong when I do.

Reply to bongo fury
You can't speed up mysticism.

Day 24, 13.50: Slightly flat.

Yikes, 22.05: Good.



Day 25, 07.45: Slightly flat.

13.05: Semitone sharp.

21.00: Good.



Day 26, 08.30: Good.

11.25: Good.

18.35: Sharp, about half a semitone. Hurried.

20.55: Flat this time. Too hurried again. (Plausibly.)



Day 27, 07.05: Good.

12.50: Good.

15.20: Good.

20.20: Sharp.

21.35: Good.



Day 28, 09.50: Good, maybe slightly sharp, was aware it might be; couldn't (gave up on it) get the image a fraction (rather than the whole) of a semitone flatter. Which happens sometimes. Probably never achieve anything more precise than a flattening or sharpening by some entirely uncertain fraction.

14.40: Same again.

17.20: Slightly flat. (Hurried.)

20.15: Good.



Day 29, 08.05: Good.

12.10: Good.

14.10: Semitone sharp.

15.30: Tad sharp.

22.00: Good.



Day 30, 08.35: Semitone sharp.

11.05: Good.

17.20: Bit flat.

21.55: Good.



Day 31, 15.15: Good.

17.45: Bit sharp.

23.45: Good.



Day 32, 11.25: Good.

17.45: Bit flat.

19.00: Semitone flat.

20.45: Slightly flat.

00.27: Slightly flat.



Day 33, 08.55: Good.

22.10: Semitone flat.



Xmas Eve, 16.20: Half a semitone sharp.

21.30: Good.



Xmas Day, 12.30: Slightly sharp.

15.40: Good.

19.25: Good.

22.35: Good.

00.20: Good.

Synesthesia
Of the five senses no two people are exactly the same.
Overlapping of senses and sensory training is bizarre
Oliver Sacks (the author) makes some sense of it

Reply to Rxspence

:up: Ordering that book today. Despite...

Quoting bongo fury

Where fans of synaesthesia allege "cross-talk" between folds of cortex (so what?) I prefer this kind of talk:

How our lookings at pictures and our listenings to music inform what we encounter later and elsewhere is integral to them as cognitive. Music can inform perception not only of other sounds but also of the rhythms and patterns of what we see. Such cross-transference of structural properties seems to me a basic and important aspect of learning, not merely a matter for novel experimentation by composers, dancers, and painters.
— Goodman: Languages of Art

(My emphasis.)

Boxing Day, 10.25: Just noticeably sharp.

13.10: Semitone sharp.

16.25: Good.

17.40: Good.

20.20: Good. Maybe sharp.

23.25: Bit sharp.



Day 36, 11.10: Good.

12.40: Good.

14.40: More than just noticeably sharp.

17.45: Good.

21.15: Slightly flat. (But quick.)



Day 37, 15.45: Semitone sharp.

18.55: Good.

22.20: Most of a semitone flat.



Day 38: 16.35: Good. And Quick.

20.25: Slightly flat.

21.15: Good.



Day 39: 10.05: Good. and Quick.

13.00: Good.

18.15: Slightly sharp.

21.30 Good.



Day 40, 10.15: Slightly sharp.

16.45: Good.

18.45: Semitone sharp.

21.35: Good.



Day 41, 10.35: Good.

12.50: Good.

16.05: Good.

18.55: Good.

20.55: Good.

23.05: Good.



Day 42, 10.05: Good.

11.40: Good.

15.30: Well flat.

16.50: Good.

21.20: Good.



Day 43, 08.40: Good.

15.50: Good.

19.00: Semitone sharp.

20.00: Sharp again.

22.50: Good.



Day 44, 12.55: Semitone flat.

19.35: Good.



Day 45, 08.20: Good.

17.45: Good.

20.40: Slightly sharp.

20.55: Good.



..day 46, 07.50: Good.

11.30: Good.

13.05: Good.

16.20: Good.

17.15: Most of a semitone sharp.

19.20: Good.



Day 47, 12.30: Good.

16.05: Good.

18.50: Good.

20.55: Semitone sharp. Ish.

22.40: Good.



Day 48, 12.55: Good.

16.05: A tad sharp.

22.00: Good.

23.40: Good.



Day 49, 10.30: Good.

12.25: Slightly flat.

13.00: Good.

16.25: Good.

18.40: Good.

21.40: Good.



Day 50, 10.10: Good.

12.10: Good.

16.05: Good.

19.35: Good.

20.43: Good.



Day 51, 17.35: Good.

23.00: Good.



Day 52, 17.40: Good.

22.10: Good.



.Day 53, 10.50: Good.

17.50: Good.

18.45: Good.

21.10: Good.

23.20: Good.



Day 54, 08.30: Slightly sharp.

14.15: Ditto. (Both hurried.)

18.00: Good. (And hurried.)

24.00: Good.



Day 55, 13.20: Good.

16.10: Good.

19.50: Good.

21.35: Good.



Day 56, 09.50: Good.

14.15: Good.

16.20: Good.

23.50: Semitone sharp.



Day 57, 09.45: Good.

14.25: Good.

20.05: Good.



Day 58, 14.05: Good.

15.45: Good.

17.45: Good.

00.15: Can't get YouTube but pretty sure it's good. In at least 20 per cent of trials I now have this feeling straight away, generally confirmed. Still have to wait a while usually.



Day 59, 09.50: Haha, forgot to hang on and check last night's dubious claim. Anyway, good right now, but only after a couple of minutes' struggle to obtain an "image" having the required feeling of certainty.

17.10: Good.

00.35: Good.



Day 60, 15.05: Good.

16.30: Good.

18.45: Slightly sharp.

21.00: Good.



Day 61, 08.30: Good.

15.00: Good.

21.20: Ouch, can't hurry yet. Semitone sharp.

23.00: Good.



Day 62, 10.00: Good.

19.45: A bit flat.

20.35: Good.

22.10: Good.



Day 63, 10.55: Slightly flat.

14.35: Good.

17.20: Good.

00.55: Good.



Day 64, 09.25: Good.

15.50: Good.

17.20: Good.

20.00: Good.

21.30: Good.



Day 65, 16.40: Good.

19.40: Sharp.



Day 66, 10.05: Good.

17.40: Good.

22.20: Semitone flat.



Day 67, 12.20: Slightly flat.

17.55: Good.

23.45: Good.



Day 68, 19.05: Good.

00.30: Good.



Day 69, 14.55: Good.

16.50: Good.

21.10: Good.

00.50: Slightly flat.



Day 70, 10.45: Slightly flat.

15.00: Slightly sharp.

17.45: Good.

21.00: Good.

00.45: Slightly flat.



Day 71, 09.45: Good.

12.05: Good.

18.55: Good.

20.30: Good.



Day 72, 19.50: Good.

21.35: Slightly sharp.



Day 73, 10.15: Slightly flat.

12.20: Good.

17.00: Good.

21.20: Good.

23.50: Sharp.



Day 74, 10.55: Slightly flat.

18.30: Good.

21.00: Aargh, semitone sharp. Still can't hurry.



Day 75, 14.30: Flat.

17.35: Good.

19.25: Good.

00.00: Good.



Day 76,10.30: Good.

15.15: Good.

18.40: Flat.

20.35: Good.

23.00: Good.



Day 77, 13.00: Good.

17.15: Good.

20.15: Flat.



Day 78, 11.45: Good.

14.40: Flat.

16.20: Good.

21.10: Good.



Day 79, 11.35: Good.

19.10: Good.

22.00: Slightly flat.



Day 80, 09.10: Good.

18.00: Good.

21.35: Good.

23.05: Good.



Day 81, 13.10: Good.

17.25: Good.

19.00: Good.

22.25: Good.



Day 82, 13.20: Good.

16.35: Good.

19.00: Slightly sharp.

20.50: Good.



Day 83, 09.00: Good.

11.55: Good.

15.55: Good.

18.15: Good.

20.30: Good.



Day 84, 08.35: Good.

13.50: Good.

18.05: Flat.

20.00: Good.

23.20: Good.



Day 85, 11.00: Good.

13.20: Good.

16.30: Good.

19.10: Slightly flat.

22.25: Good.

A week or two ago I thought it might be time to conclude almost complete failure. Except where allowed a minute's (or more) silence. Thereby excluding any prospect of being able, which I would very much like to be able, to confirm a hypothesis about a pitch relation (such as a modulation) on the basis of a judgment of a subsequent pitch, and not be restricted to the converse justification, deducing a later pitch from knowledge of earlier pitches and judgements of intermediate relations (intervals and modulations). Having (on the contrary) to go into a trance stops it from being, regardless of accuracy, even a party trick, let alone useful.

But I now kick myself for not questioning the reliance on the single "target stimulus" (the Ravel). I suppose the restriction resulted from the complete novelty and possible hopelessness of the task: of trying to consistently disqualify 99 per cent of pitch-wise perfectly good transpositions of the music as true instances of the music.

Anyhow, I have belatedly noticed that certain other frequently invoked intro sounds on youtube (namely those of Honky-tonk Women and the music from Would I Lie To You) were manifesting as "images" with a vividness that I have been learning, slowly, to trust as an indication of pitch-truth. (Slowly because I was fairly expert in producing vivid images of the music that were true only relatively i.e. relationally. Hence the vividness is of a particular and new kind. Though not a Mary's Room level of new (see OP) as yet. :grin:)

Conveniently, both of these stimuli were in more or less the same key as the Ravel, making it feasible to collage their images swiftly. A lot more easily, for example, than collaging alternative pitchings of any one of them. Judging the absolute (as opposed to relational) pitch-truth of the whole collage caused a surprising and promising feeling of confirmation, as though triangulating from information at relatively distant points in the cortex. (As though.)

Which makes the prospect of judging an image in the midst of a sounding context (without recourse to an undisturbed silent trance) slightly less daunting. And I feel I'm starting to be able to resist automatically parsing musical pitches relationally, or at least to begin to expect to discern their absolute aspect. Haha, we shall see.

Day 86, 13.50: Good.

16.30: Good.

19.05: Flat.

22.41: Flat.



Day 87, 11.35: Flat.

13.55: Good.

18.08: Good.

21.05: Good.

23.05: Good.



Day 88, 14.00: Flat.

14.50: Sharp.

15.50: Good.

17.20: Good.

21.15: Good.

23.40: Good.



Day 89, 09.55: Astounding inertia in acting on the foregoing insight, belated as it was, and bothering to check against a different clip: the Stones HTW. Good, anyway.

14.40: Good. (Ravel)

18.30: Yikes, 2 semitones sharp, wtf?

23.10: Again!! (Both the Ravel)

00.45: Good.



Day 90, 14.30: Slightly flat.

22.30: Definitely flat.

Both of the mooted new test clips cause a small opening in the can of worms that is (so called and alleged) octave equivalence. Also they draw attention to the elephants in the room that are: the differential sensitivity to absolute pitches (to some more than others), and the differential sensitivity to a particular absolute pitch in different musical contexts. Second elephant first:

E.g. I just noticed that a first image of HTW seemed vivid enough to warrant testing, to see if the vividness happened to be on target. But a mere image of the Ravel at the same pitch was enough to conclude that the HTW image was roughly half an octave out. This fits with the assumption (see OP) that vividness had been previously unfettered by choice of pitch, and only now (through training) correlates with accuracy (absolute, non-relational), and perhaps (why not) only or mostly in the case of images of the test clip. That the skill would be strongest with the examples used for training. So, strong with the Ravel intro but not the HTW intro, no matter (because the vividness generally unfettered) how often one had recently played the latter.

Day 91, 13.15: Good.

17.55: Good.

20.50: Decided to find a fourth stimulus to try and perceive non-relationally. Well, another Stones clip that the algorithms had lately found me receptive of is Gimme Shelter. I must have been exposed to it upwards of 10 recent times and, as with HTW, I wondered whether the vividness of an image of it, that had now launched (or rather, landed - see below) immediately upon consideration of the tune as an option, might be a sign of its veracity pitch-wise... perhaps disconfirming yesterday's no doubt rash conclusion that the number of exposures is "no matter". This time I didn't attempt an estimation straight away but planted the Ravel opening into the midst of it and found it (the putative g4) a comfortable fit on step 5 of the Stones' key. I don't mean I tried alternative placings of it for comfort; rather, it seemed to land there. (A third elephant. Or second can of worms.)

So, turns out the GS image was precisely a semitone flat. But then, no wonder the Ravel fit so nicely. Placing it on step flattened-fifth would surely have been awkward. I even wonder whether the Ravel image (true, as it turned out) could have dragged down the GS image. It probably kicked up enough dust upon "landing" to obscure the shift. (Had the original GS image been also true.)

23.50: Good.



Day 92, 13.35: Good. Tried to overlay a GS on a Ravel; not quite sure what happened (too much dust), but then bringing the Ravel up a semitone seemed to allow the GS to land in what I'm now aware is the right place relative to the semitone-sharp-Ravel, i.e. a fourth up from it. And the Ravel turned out to be where it ought, i.e. truly a semitone up.

16.25: GS rather immediate and vivid. And true.

Elephant 3: the "landing" of images... implying a flight, from a launch. But the launch and the flight are invisible (inaudible). It used to be (and still is in the main) that the image landed (and played out) without delay, at an arbitrary pitch. Now (for the 3 or 4 test clips) there is a delay while waiting for the system as a whole to find the right place. I suppose the sense of flight and of landing results from the time-limit imposed by such props as: imagining reaching to push with a finger on the g4 of a keyboard. In order to aid recall. And from the frequency of erroneous results. One isn't (yet) prepared to wait indefinitely for an image on the expectation of it being true when it arrives. One assumes that the image will need weighing up and then adjusting. And one feels that only a time limit will (as yet) stimulate the unconscious background search that would make the first image any more reliable than chance.

I'm constantly struck by the comparison between this process (if it isn't a completely empty fantasy) and a more familiar effort of recall: that of finding the right word. (wts)

19.35: Good, or just noticeably flat. But again, based on a first image of GS, whose vividness again presses the question whether some sound fragments are perceived non-relationally more easily than others. With GS (the intro) we are talking about a decorative display of glides and glissandos as much as clearly defined pitches, and I wonder if such a pattern, being relatively poorly captured in notation, is more easily perceived non-relationally than, say, a piano pattern? (There could well be research on that. See previous excuses for ignorance.)

22.40: Almost surprised to find the first GS image not confirmed upon pitching a Ravel image a tri-tone down. The Ravel protested and wanted to be two semitones higher: subsequently verified. I was thinking the foregoing theory must be true and I'd missed an obvious trick. But maybe not. Or the test was flawed. Try again tomorrow.

Day 93, 11.25: Not impressed with a particularly vivid GS image immediately upon its consideration. So tried to launch a search, by way of passive waiting. Next image vivid enough to urge testing. Verified. I suppose that passivity required losing track of the relation to the first image. So that relation unknown. But nvm.

15.15: I think the sequence here was: first GS fairly vivid; implied Ravel image far too low (2 semitones); "waited" for second GS image, hopefully uninfluenced by Ravel judgement; result good.

17.00: Waited (a second or two) and was pleased enough with the first image (GS); and my pleasure (with the vividness) was validated as an indication of truth.

19.35: Noticed a GS image already playing as ear-worm. Seemed authentic enough, but the corresponding Ravel image seemed badly flat, by a fourth, in fact (duly verified). So this trial (if significant at all and probably not) then a point against the hypothesis of notatability (of a musical stimulus) varying inversely with non-relational pitch sensitivity.

21.35: As per 11.25.



Day 94, 10.10: As per yesterday at 15.15.

12.45: As per 11.25 yesterday, but result a semitone sharp.

16.00: Good. As per 17.00.

21.40: And again.



Day 95, 13.05: As per day 93 at 15.15.

Time to choose target stimulus no. 5. WILTY the panel show reminds me of the Charles and Eddie... will try that. The Ravel fits nicely... truly it turns out.

What we expect is that the normal propensity to produce images at an arbitrary pitch, which may or may not be a result of skill in relative pitch, will reduce, as the ability to produce them at the correct absolute pitch increases. Will that be a shame?! Do we expect it, actually?

16.05: Reasonably vivid. The Ravel found the image to be a semitone too high, though. Which was indeed the case.

Pasting the Ravel into other mental images is proving fairly easy. Must try more often to paste it into sounding ones.

18.30: Fairly vivid Ravel/C&E mashup: not sure which appeared first; anyway, verified.

20.45: Hmm... mashups not rushable: semitone sharp.

Day 96, 11.05: Borderline (Madonna) after calibrating last night... Just checked the image that happened to be present as ear worm... didn't gel well with the Ravel, and turned out a semitone flat. Good that the Ravel is proving reliable (ish) for calibrating other images.

13.20: Trying to launch several at once, with equal influence. This one probably unequal in favour of the Ravel. Anyway, good.

15.10: The several being, GS, the Ravel and Borderline, in that order of priority and influence. Good. GS was convincing straight off.

22.00: Good. I think first to land was Madonna.



Day 97, 13.30: Madonna present as ear worm, but a semitone flat according to the Ravel, which checked out.

15.25: Delighted (if not deluded) to sense the GS image conflicting with the others (being in a distant key) even before landing. Anyway, confirmed thereafter by the Ravel, which then checked out.

18.40: Starting with GS, I think. Anyway, good. Oh yes, I was thinking of trying Claire de lune as company for GS.

22.05: CDL not hugely anchoring... Relied on GS. But good.



Day 98, 12.30: See last.

15.15: Considerable want of anchorage from the Ravel. Had to relaunch it. Which has become a rare necessity. Especially, I speculate, since collaging it with others.

19.55: Madonna present as ear worm, again. True this time.

00.10: Good.

Quoting frank

I have next to no sense of time. I was blown away when I found out that other people do.

Do you cook? I discovered that cooking turned out to be a very good practice for gauging time.
Although mostly in a practical sense, not in terms of testing myself with a timer.

For example, when I make pancakes or crepes, it's not necessary to stand by the stove all the time, so I often do small chores, such as fold laundry. I developed a sense of whether I have enough time to fold another shirt or other item before needing to flip the pancake or crepe.
And then, of course, cooking a multicourse meal and serving it at the exact time. This is primarily about good organization, even more so when cooking dishes that must be served within some 10 minutes or less after being cooked.

I think it must be really hard to teach oneself to gauge time just sitting there and trying to gauge how much time has passed.

When I started trying to teach myself to guage time, like just starting with 10 minutes, I felt an overwhelming aversion to doing it.

I can link that up with other aspects of my personality where I cant handle being pigeon holed or caged in any way. I wonder if personality can influence the skills you have access to.

A love of learning is something to be learned. :)

Quoting baker

Do you cook?

Most of my kitchen gadgets are self timing. When I say no sense of time, its pretty close to that.

Day 99, 09.25: Surprised to find a crystal clear Madonna ear worm to be a fourth flat, upon fitting the Ravel.

Very tempted to regret wasting several weeks not thinking to triangulate. Although, that notion not supported by the peculiarity of the reliability of the Ravel. However, the (as it were) conspiracy of the several targets does at least appear to keep the options confined to steps on the modern (A-440) scale.

17.20: Good. I'd better make sure I have a couple of weeks without upset before regarding the Ravel on a par with an actual check.

18.50: Good.

21.25: Well, didn't take long... Tried to use the Ravel to get bearings in Bowie's Pretty Things: wasn't sure, but went with what turned out to be a semitone flat, probably through an ill-advised effort to get a comfortable fit key-wise.

What I forgot in my disappointment, however, is that this was a (nearly) first try at superimposing the Ravel image onto an actual, sounding image. So, not such a bad.

Quoting frank

Most of my kitchen gadgets are self timing. When I say no sense of time, its pretty close to that.

:( The perils of technology.

Reply to baker I've burned a lot of food and destroyed one copper bottom heirloom pot, so, I like the timers.

Reply to frank Just more reasons to learn to cook. Without a timer. :p

Day 101, ...Trust restored (above) in the Ravel/GS-centred repertoire as a reliable test of other mental images if not sounding ones, I reneged on the intention to keep testing that repertoire. Day 100 spent instead trying to parse the Bowie, from the chorus out. The key changes are typical of the kind I lose track of, and would hope eventually to trace efficiently by means of non-relational sensitivity. Too ambitious in this case, partly (possibly) because not heavily exposed to the track. Still working on it.

Day 112. Ok so I guess I have entry level absolute pitch: I can now calibrate musical 'calculations' with respect to a core of mental images (mainly, the Ravel and Gimme Shelter), without feeling obliged to refer to a higher authority i.e. a physical image; and while it's a long way (see day 99) from battle-ready for parsing actual music, I can begin to theorise, albeit introspectively, about the nature and behaviour of the imagery.

I.e... theorise about the nature and behaviour of the introspection, which is soaked in folk-psychological theory about imagery and introspection.

What I gradually embraced and reinforced (if grudgingly, and assuming a growing debt of needed clarification) was talk of an image as an internal mental event, of the kind typically conceived as coinciding with a neural event conceived, in turn, as a physical trace or recording or representation of some external music not actually present. More specifically, I associated pitch-wise veracity of an image, increasingly closely, with an intuition of the vividness or clarity or realism or authenticity or solidity or immediacy or effortlessness of the image. Immediacy in the sense of directness of acquaintance, or absence of noise: not in the sense of rapidity of formation; on the contrary I got in the habit (see day 92) of either waiting patiently for an arrival or being prepared to "launch" a large number of (individually quicker) "flights".

An empirical question, I expect, is whether this kind of association, of perceived clarity with pitch-wise veracity, is well-founded. This might be the case if clarity resulted specifically from a forensic, causal connection between stimulus and image, as with (according to naive folk-semiotics at least) the clarity of a photograph or a sound recording. And if so, we might ask whether either or both of the clarity and the veracity are available with respect to relative (relational) as well as absolute (non-relational) pitch sensitivity; and which available kinds of clarity and veracity are associated. How, further, the abilities and their associations may vary among differently (from most to very least) gifted or trained musicians.

For example, my hypothesis of a conflict between development of absolute and relative sensitivity: perhaps clarity is more pertinent to the first. Perhaps clarity of an image is a requirement for correct recall of a pattern by untrained listeners. And perhaps an image of Gimme Shelter (intro) is clearest when truest because of its exhibiting of non-notate-able (and hence less readily transposed) patterns.

Whatever the empirical or theoretical merits of such a view, I've indulged it, and acquired a degree of skill in facilitating spasms of neural activity as though... well, partly as though recalling a stored image to a viewing area, and checking it for authenticity... but partly also as though conjuring or manufacturing such an image in situ (on stage in the viewing area), by the authority of one possessed of absolute pitch, and then subjecting it to a similar evaluation. The "as though" is effected by a rather thorough visual running commentary (of the recalling or the manufacturing) which matches the sound images to visual ones from e.g. the relevant youtube visuals, or my finger approaching the g4 on a piano etc. I.e., a folk-psychological narrative of phenomenal sound events is maintained by a (narrative of a) visual narrative.

Either way (imagined as recall or manufacture), clarity of an image upon "viewing" (or rather, "auditing") has become sought after as an indication of its veracity with respect to absolute pitch. This has created a variety of distinct navigational predicaments:

(A) Stage empty: thoughts have turned to music, but no ear worms are present. Free and able to call up any image, probably the Ravel, and to reject and re-order if not completely satisfied. The re-ordering may express a preference up or down, or it may not. I thought I noticed a drift (with increasing skill) towards not; but possibly that aspect of the successive improvement had merely become quicker and less conscious. While unsatisfied, also free to,

(B) call up an image of different music, but must then expect that the process (whether of manufacture or selection from pre-pitched alternatives) is influenced by the pitch of at least the last image from (A or C) however unreliable that pitch. (B) repeatable like (A). Satisfaction during (A) or (B) may lead to,

(C) consolidation-cum-testing: try an image of different music (possibly returning to that of A or D, if here from B). If tending to the view that the image is recalled whole from storage, one might hope to allow it to land according to its own 'gravity'. The landing place not being as expected relative to the previous image would in that case mean dropping or re-launching (C again) one of the two, probably the first. But on the contrary view i.e. assuming the image's manufacture in situ to be guided by the growing skill in absolute pitch, one must assume that its correctness depends on that of the previous image. (The skill in pitching the current image can hardly be uninfluenced by the approval of the previous one.) So the current and previous images can't be evaluated for reliability independently of each other. On the other hand, neither are they acting entirely in concert. One of them may present an unclarity or instability that undermines the other. ...Badly, and go to (B). Apparent fit, on either view, and repeat (C). The weight of influence of a (possibly wrong) consensus then increases.

(D) Thoughts have turned to music, and found an ear worm active. Increasingly often, tempted to evaluate it for veracity, or even for the indication of it in vividness. (If not tempted, discard and go to B). The latter is an option at least if the ear worm happens to be one of the core. (Occasionally, an ear worm is actually a rapid sequence-of-Ravel-starts-as-calibration-attempt, haha. Not sure if that's a good or bad.) If not core, the image might yet be suspected of being significantly vivid, if it is music likely heard only in one key. As with (A), go to (B or C) depending on satisfaction.

(E) Reminded of (e.g. from reading about) a piece of music. Lately (never previously) construction of the image may well be interrupted and restarted in an effort to position it right.

(F) ... Sub-species of (C), impressed by the vividness of the images of more than one core fragment, but aware of the possibility of deepening error: or rather, the possibility of deepening trust entrenching the same error, such that the vividness might be caused by the pitching being relative to each previous image as much as by veracity of the present one. (The "wrong consensus", above.) Have been on occasion inclined by this awareness to interrogate one or more of the images for signs of deviance, but gratified instead by a spontaneous correction: presentation of an image differently pitched and apparently uninfluenced by the prevailing consensus.

Reply to bongo fury

This inspires me to see what frequencies I imagine when I sing Give Me Shelter in my mind. I found I had to practice to even duplicate it with my voice, but I do seem to come back to the same starting frequency.

I think according to the Private language argument, u shouldn't be able to do this. Do you know what I mean?

Quoting frank

I found I had to practice to even duplicate it with my voice,

Well this inspires me to actually getting around to browsing empirical research, rather than simply saying, in this case: doesn't everyone experience musical "ear worms"?

...

Ok, the wiki page says yes, everyone (98%) does. So the next question is, do we have, in your case, a syndrome as rare and curious as that of aphantasia, or a simpler misunderstanding? Or, not simpler, but par for the course in phenomenological discussion! ... E.g. I wonder what degree of clarity (reality? hallucination?) of imagery you are supposing is involved in "duplication"?

Quoting frank

I do seem to come back to the same starting frequency.

Ok. You checked against a recording? A few times, not too close together? I'm tempted (as already mentioned) to trawl the research for reference to the obvious question of the variance of most people's ear worms (or spontaneous performances) from the usual pitch (e.g. the pitch of a recording where relevant). But there was no mention of this on the ear worms wiki page.

Btw @Metaphysician Undercover would be interested in your involving vocalising in the aiming for the pitch.

Or do you just mean you maintain whatever random starting pitch for the duration of the performance? (Which is a thing, that by no means always happens.)

Quoting frank

I think according to the Private language argument, u shouldn't be able to do this. Do you know what I mean?

Haha, is it about ear beetles? ... Not sure. Good question.

Far as I can tell, no... or, not so as the ear beetles would matter, or cause an unacceptable philosophical scene, by refusing to 'drop out of the equation', at least in principle, and give way to corresponding external stimulus types.

To be fair, the creatures haven't exactly been (as Witty's figure has it) 'cancelled out' from my 'arithmetic', here. I'm certainly talking the talk of internal sensations (phenomenal qualia, mental images). I guess this is largely because I'm talking about non-perceptual imagery. But Witty doesn't seem to regard either the presence or absence of an external stimulus as characteristic of the problematic scenario critiqued as "private language". The problem inherent in that scenario is (I think I gather) the lack of criteria for identifying and classifying the internal entities, should these be (as folk-psychology often leads them to be) conceived as the sole and sufficient basis for their own classification. Where such criteria are available, because the entities are conceived instead as part of a larger, pre-existing game (e.g. there is meaningful comparison with blood pressure, or actual train times), no immediate critique is offered.

So I don't think that your returning

Quoting frank

back to the same starting frequency.

is a problem for Witty, because you are judging the pitch-identity (vs. difference) of the earlier and later 'internals' according to a pre-existing system that (if it recognises them as internal) maps them to externals that are identified or distinguished according to (an ordering correlating roughly with) frequency. So he wouldn't see that judgement as a problem. He would doubt that the imagery-talk is true literally, but he wouldn't be sceptical about the viability of pitch comparisons among internal images...

Quoting frank

I found I had to practice to even duplicate it with my voice,

...nor between images and actual sounds. And neither would I. So I'm still curious as to the nature of the difficulty you describe.

@frank's thread.

Predicament (G): The spontaneous correction reported in (F) has, pleasingly, become voluntary; or has, at least, coincided with a marked improvement in the efficacy of (B), so that I can expect to recalibrate and regain certainty about my location sometimes as readily as by tooting or plucking on a nearby instrument... but more usually demonstrating the continued necessity of "going into a bit of a trance". Anyway, generally, a much quicker trance.

(H) Another pleasant surprise: although the trance still requires silence in order that the image should land without being thrown off course, landing in occupied territory is easier than expected. Quite probably off target, but with the feasibility of assessing the matter. Off target probably as a result of achieving a musical fit of the core/standard image (usually the Ravel) with the occupied territory. Identifying the g4 itself to a diatonic step in the occupied territory (the sounding music), for example. Probably also not just any diatonic step, but one that allows further agreement between other steps. But, as I say, the degree (or at least the fact) of deviation from the correct target feels (and seems upon verifying to be) discernible, despite all the noise. So I'm able to have a go at guessing the key of music on the radio, say. I should report on this more systematically, or more often, now that I'm not filing reports on (because rarely verifying) the acts of silent calibration.

(I) The faintest glimmer of hope of being able (in silent mode) to recalibrate (i.e. B) without losing entirely the previous image: being able therefore to re-land that previous image (at the same pitch) in the recalibrated context so that I can see what pitch it really (according to the new context) was. Then I may be able to monitor the (non-relative kind of) accuracy of random earworms (D).