(17) Absolute & Relative Pitch

Relative pitch (RP) is the ability to identify a note, given a reference note. Absolute pitch (AP), is the ability to identify a note without a reference. AP and Perfect Pitch (PP) are synonymous, but AP is used here to avoid confusion with pianissimo, and is more scientifically accurate. A person with AP automatically has RP. The test for AP uses 2 pianos; the tester sits at one and the student at the other, and the student tries to repeat the note played by the tester. If there is only one piano, the student names the note played by the tester (do, re, mi . . . . or C, D, E, . . . .).

Nobody is born with AP ; it is a learned skill, because the chromatic scale is a human invention - there is no physical relationship between the pitches of the chromatic scale and nature, and no natural law that says middle A should be 440 Hz; most orchestras tune to 442 Hz, and before it was standardized, there was a larger range of frequencies for A. Because of the logarithmic nature of the chromatic scale and the human auditory system, everybody can learn RP effortlessly [ (76) Chromatic Scale ].

The human ear is not calibrated to an absolute scale. By contrast, the eye responds to color on an absolute scale (everyone sees red as red from birth without any training, and this perception never changes with age). Color detection is achieved using quantum mechanical reactions that respond to specific quanta (wavelengths) of light. Some people who can identify certain pitches with specific colors can acquire AP by the color that the sound evokes. They are calibrating the ear to an absolute reference.

Babies can hear at birth and are routinely tested for hearing at most maternity wards. AP and RP are best learned in early youth, before the age of five; the earlier, the better. The best way for children to acquire AP is to be exposed almost daily to well tuned pianos from birth. Therefore, every parent who has a piano should keep it tuned and play it with the baby nearby. Don't worry about awakening babies; they will sleep soundly while you flail away at a Beethoven Sonata. Then parents should test the child from time to time for AP. This test can be performed by playing a note (when the child is not looking) and then asking him to find that note on the piano. If you want the child to name the note, you have to teach the child the piano scale. If the child can find it after several tries, he has RP; if he can find it the first time every time, he has AP. We don't know how quickly babies learn AP, but, unlike adults, it is effortless and automatic, and very fast; we don't know how fast, but it could be days. Parents should test toddlers as soon as possible; the earliest age for testing may be one to two years.

The particular temperament to which the piano is tuned [ (77) Circle of Fifths, Temperaments ] is not important; in fact many people with AP know nothing about temperaments and when notes on pianos tuned to different temperaments are played, they have no difficulty in identifying the notes because different temperaments change most frequencies by less than 5%, and no one has AP with that kind of accuracy.

AP can be acquired later in life but becomes more difficult after age 30. In fact, even those with AP will slowly lose it starting around age 20, if it is not maintained. Many piano schools routinely teach AP to all their students, some with over 90% success. If a child is found to have AP below the age of six, he must be trained in AP to further develop it, as described below; otherwise, they can lose it quickly, within a few years.

The importance of learning AP for musicians cannot be over emphasized; this was not adequately recognized in the past because of the widespread wrong belief that AP is an inborn talent, and therefore can not be learned.

Having AP is clearly an advantage. It is a great help for memorizing, mental play [ (15) Mental Play (MP) ], sight reading, recovering from blackouts, "play by ear" and composing/improvising. AP helps with MP because it helps in so many ways such as in keyboard memory and photographic memory because you know the exact notes. You can be the pitch pipe for your choir, and easily tune string or wind instruments without a tuning fork. It is a lot of fun because you can tell how fast a car is going by listening to the tires whine, you can tell the differences between car horns and locomotive whistles, especially by noting whether they use thirds or fifths. You can remember telephone numbers by their tones. Most importantly, AP gives you the confidence that you are a complete musician, and recognition from others, especially fellow musicians.

There are a few disadvantages of having AP. The biggest disadvantage is the "moveable do" problem ( do as in doremi ). Nobody has problems with the C major scale. Those with AP have no problems with any other scale. However, people without AP has no idea where C is. Since relative pitch is easy for everybody, those without AP make the tonic (first note of a scale) of any scale a do and, in this way, learn to sing any major scale from any note by calling the tonic a do. This "moveable do" system is actually taught in many, perhaps a majority, of schools because most students (and teachers!) do not have AP today. For example, C major is do-re-mi-etc.. With moveable do, G major is also do-re-mi-etc.. However, for those with AP, G major is so-la-si-etc.. Therefore, when starting at an arbitrary tonic, those with AP must immediately transpose while those without AP are happily singing do-re-mi. Thus a person with AP singing with a group singing moveable do can become totally disoriented because what the group is singing is wrong. The root cause of the problem is the teaching of moveable do. This is why solfege is important for all music students and why learning AP is necessary. In principle, moveable do should never be taught; however, those who never took music lessons, or learned AP, naturally develop moveable do, so that it can not be eliminated. This problem will persist as long as those with AP are a minority among musicians.

Another problem is that, for those with AP, any note between the notes of the chromatic scale tuned to A(440) does not exist in music; this is why music played off tune can be annoying. If a lot of music is played off tune, this can present quite a problem. The person can sometimes react adversely to such music; physical reactions such as teary eyes or clammy skin can occur and out-of-tune pianos will be difficult to play. Transposed music is fine because every note is in tune. Listening to off-tune music can cause you to lose AP.

The advantages of learning AP far outweigh the disadvantages because AP is a necessity whereas the disadvantages are just nuisances.

Learning AP is not as difficult as many people believe. We saw that the objective of memorizing is to be able to MP. By paying attention to RP and AP while practicing MP, you can acquire AP! MP should be conducted in AP because, without playing at the correct pitch, you lose so many of the benefits of MP, such as the ability to write the notes down or immediately play it out on the piano even if you had never practiced that music before.

Procedure for learning RP and AP:

(1) Learn to MP the C major scale from C4 to C5, using doremi instead of the CDE notation because CDE has too many other uses, while doremi is strictly for music:

Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-si-do

Play C4 on the piano and MP the scale to C5 at correct pitch and check your C5 against the piano, several times every day. When the C5 is good, check all the intermediate notes. This will teach you RP.

(2) Once the RP is satisfactory, start memorizing C4 in AP by testing your C4 against the piano as often as possible. Everyone has a maximum and minimum note he can hum. For memorizing C4, hum from C4 (referenced to the piano) to the lowest note you can hum. This may be F3. Now, every time you guess C4, you can check it by humming down to the lowest note you can hum to see if it is F3. If it is E3, your guess was too low; raise it a semitone. You can create another test by humming to your highest note; use whichever works better, or both, for checking your C4. Practice until your C4 is correct to within a semitone; this may take days, or months, depending on the person.

(3) Once AP for C4 is good, learn C4-G4 using melodies such as the RH parts of Beyer's exercises #47-49, 58-59, at end of book. If necessary, transpose one octave down so that the C is C4. Start with Exercise #47, memorize the melody, and MP it in doremi; this exercise starts as:

do re mi fa, re mi fa so, fa mi re do, re . . .

at correct pitch. Check frequently against the piano, especially the highest and lowest notes. Then repeat with the other four exercises, one by one, practicing AP.

(4) Then finish practicing the entire C4-C5 octave, especially A4.

(5) Now practice the octaves: play a note and guess its octave(s), up and down, checking your guesses against the piano.

(6) Then play a random note to see if you can identify it using AP.

You may have AP for A4 because you had heard the orchestra tuning to it before every concert. Test yourself for A4 at every concert.

When creating notes in the mind, do not try to hum or sing them because the dynamic range of the piano is larger than the singing range and you will need to train the brain to deal with those higher and lower notes. Also, practicing AP is a process of practicing MP, and singing or humming defeats this purpose because that limits what the brain can do. Unless you are a singer who can sing on pitch (in which case you should have at least RP), you will not be able to accurately sing the pitch; the resultant incorrect sound will confuse the brain and erase any AP that you may have acquired.

For learning AP, the memory of each note for AP must initially include everything -- the harmonics, timbre, etc., of the piano -- you need as many memory associations as possible. Therefore, use the same piano until you acquire AP. Unless you have an electronic piano, make sure that the piano is in tune. Once you acquire a strong AP, it will work with any source of sound. Not singing or humming is not a strict rule, because it can be useful, but it is important to MP the notes as much as possible and not get into the habit of humming everything.

For now, we ignore the black keys and learn AP for the 8 white notes. Once you learn AP for the white notes, you will generally be able to guess the black keys when your AP becomes sufficiently accurate.

Until you learn some rudimentary AP, practice it only at the piano so that you can correct yourself as soon as you wander off tune. Do not practice MP away from the piano with the wrong pitch; this will only erase the AP. Start practicing away from the piano after the AP is at least within a semitone.

Progress may seem slow at first, but your guesses should get closer with practice. At first, identifying notes takes time because you need to check your C4 by humming to your lowest or highest notes, or you may have to guess the other notes by comparing to C4 using relative pitch.

Then suddenly, one day, you should experience that magical moment when you are able to identify any note directly, without any intermediate steps. Additionally, that identification is instantaneous. You have acquired true AP! Therefore you should actively seek and anticipate this transformation so that you won't miss it. Students who are not aware of it will miss it the first few times it happens, wasting a lot of time and not realizing that they have AP.

This initial AP is fragile and you will lose it and regain it several times before it becomes permanent; even then it will be permanent only if you maintain it. The next step is to strengthen the AP by practicing to identify the notes rapidly . Then start practicing with two- note intervals, then any three notes played simultaneously, etc. Any AP that can identify five or more notes played simultaneously is considered excellent. The ability to identify many notes is important when composing music because complex chords can often contain more than five notes. Once you have a strong AP, practice humming the notes and singing on pitch, and sight reading on pitch. Congratulations, you have done it!

The quality of AP is determined by

1. how quickly you can identify a note,
2. how many notes you can identify when they are played simultaneously, and
3. how accurately you can reproduce a pitch; this test is difficult to apply and is rarely used.

People with excellent AP will identify a note in less than a second, and identify a maximum of about 10 notes played simultaneously, in about five seconds.

AP must be maintained. After age 20, AP starts to deteriorate unless it is maintained by checking with the piano periodically. Without maintenance, you can totally lose AP in less than ten years. Maintaining AP consists of:

1. the knowledge that AP can be lost and the awareness of the need to constantly test your AP, and
2. checking your AP and working on it as soon as you notice any deterioration. The AP accuracy will naturally vary from time to time depending on your physical conditions such as health, emotional state, and the sounds and music you had been listening to, etc.

People with MP and AP tend to continually make music mentally; music keeps running around in their heads, whether it is their own compositions or music they had heard. This is why most musicians with AP will automatically start to compose music. The brain always returns to music when it has nothing else to do; it is an excellent way to maintain AP, provided you check with the piano periodically.

Most beginners will MP intervals narrow because the brain automatically tries to "increase the singing range". Thus ascending notes will be sung flat and descending notes sharp. In addition, notes higher than your mid-range will be sung flat and those below will be sung sharp.

The "standard" way to learn AP in music classes is via solfege [ (68) Theory, Solfege ]. AP is taught as an adjunct to these exercises by learning to sing everything at the correct pitch. There are no specific methods for acquiring AP in solfege; you simply take AP tests at every lesson until the correct pitch is implanted in memory. Because AP is learned together with many other things, progress is slow, typically years.