Having perfect pitch is this mysterious unicorn. Few people ever attain it and you’re not sure how to get it, that makes it an even more mystical accomplishment.
Most people with ear training learn what’s called ‘Relative Pitch’. Relative pitch uses a starting point and then trains you on the intervals and changes in pitch from that starting point. The solfege system is the most popular version of that.
Perfect pitch (also known as absolute pitch) is the ability to instantly recognize or find a pitch without any reference to it at all. People with perfect pitch hear sound the way most people see color. If you look at a wall, most people can very quickly identify the color of the paint. People with perfect pitch can do this with notes or even chords.
So how do you accomplish this mysterious task and can you do it at home? Let’s look into it.
How We Learn Language As Babies
As a baby, you have the ability to hear way more than what you can hear now as an adult. Your brain is constantly listening for differences in pitch, timing, and phonetics. This is how babies learn language so early. They are listening for different syllables and phonemes. In total there are around two thousand phonemes but the English language only uses about forty four of these phonemes.
As time goes on, you will learn which phonemes are used the most often based on the conversations and the languages you hear around you. If you only hear English as a child, you’ll only attach on to those forty four phonemes. If you hear multiple languages as a child, you’ll learn even more of these phonemes.
The hard thing is that once your brain starts to decide what phonemes are important and what aren’t, it’s very difficult to open your brain up to those phonemes again. For most people it is impossible to do it consistently and accurately.
Learning Perfect Pitch As Adults
In the same way you focus on phonemes as babies, you are also absorbing variances in pitch and timing. If you don’t listen to a lot of music as a baby, you won’t have a great sense of pitch or timing as you grow into adulthood. The more complex the music you listen to as a baby is, the greater of an understanding you will have when it comes to variances in pitch and timing.
All of this is to say that the first three years of your life you will learn fifty percent of everything you will ever learn in your life. That seems crazy at first. But as a new parent, I’ve been reminded just how fast and quick that early development stage is. Babies are little sponges that absorb everything around them for better or worse.
I say all of this because while many adults aspire to perfect pitch, the reality is that unless you’ve been trained since birth, you will never develop perfect pitch. It’s just not possible. At this stage in life, that part of your brain is almost solidified. You can certainly train your brain to start recognizing various pitches. You may be able to do it with a higher degree of accuracy, but you will never be able to put the ‘Perfect’ in perfect pitch.
Is Perfect Pitch Worth It?
Perfect pitch seems like such a cool idea. You can hear songs perfectly without missing a beat. It certainly has it’s advantages. However, it does not come without it’s downsides.
For example, even though many people with perfect pitch can name the individual notes played for them, studies have shown that people with perfect pitch were more likely not to be able to identify what pitch was higher or lower. Strange as that may seem, people with perfect pitch think of notes in a different way. They can tell you a not is an ‘E’ but they might not be able to tell you which ‘E’.
However, the biggest downside to perfect pitch is that eventually you will likely lose it. Research has show in recent years that people over the age of 50 are likely to lose their perfect pitch. And it’s not just that you lose your perfect pitch. You still feel like you can recall the notes. Unfortunately though, your sense of pitch will have shifted. You believe you’re hearing a B when really you’re hearing a C or a C#. For many people with perfect pitch, this eventuality is a huge change and can cause stress where there used to be joy in their music.
For different people this process happens at different times. Usually between the age of 40 and 60. So while they will enjoy the benefits of perfect pitch in their youth, the pendulum will eventually swing the other way and cause more hardship in their later years.
So what do you think? Is perfect pitch worth it? I don’t have perfect pitch myself so I can’t say for certain but I will say that after taking years of ear training, I am perfectly happy with how I hear music using relative pitch. If you’d like to learn how to achieve great relative pitch, come swing by the studio sometime and take some lessons with me.
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