
Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible - monort
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/03/355933
======
SeanLuke
More interesting to me is the fact that many people with absolute pitch start
to _lose_ it in their 40s and 50s. This has happened to me too. What happens
is that your pitch assessment often starts going sharp, so what you thought
was a C was actually a B, say. For me the pitch assessment accuracy differs
depending on the harmonic content of the sound: guitars and harmonicas are
awful, but pianos and flutes etc. seem to do better.

It's a very frustrating and difficult to explain phenomenon. I hate to use the
oft-used but inaccurate color analogy, but it might be valid in this context.
Imagine that everyone around you is fully color-blind, but not yourself.
People are amazed that you can tell something is blue just by looking at it.
You've had this ability your whole life. But then one day you look at
something and report that it's blue, and someone uses their color-analyzer and
tells you that it's not blue, it's in fact yellow. And they're right! But it
still looks BLUE to you. Something has broken, and you can't explain it to
others easily because they can only see gray.

~~~
dfan
My pitch started to drift in middle age too. Like you, I do better or worse
based on timbre; piano is great (it's my instrument, which must help),
stringed instruments are pretty good in general, wind instruments are not so
great, organs are the worst.

Playing for ten years in a Balinese gamelan that was not remotely tuned to a
Western scale probably didn't help.

Absolute pitch is still a really useful skill to have, in my opinion, and I
don't understand it when people say it's just a parlor trick or actually
diminishes your ability to appreciate music; being able to spell doesn't
diminish my appreciation of language. It is occasionally slightly distressing
to realize in retrospect that I've been off by a half step, like thinking
you're walking north and then looking at a map and realizing you've been
walking west.

~~~
aczerepinski
Same. My instruments piano and trumpet are never-miss (though I hear the
trumpet in Bb), and organs are more difficult for me too. I think organ
overtones might be off pitch or something? just a wild guess.

~~~
dfan
Mostly I feel like the timbre of an organ note is very consistent from pitch
to pitch, whereas, say, an A on a piano sounds buzzy to me while a Bb sounds
more smooth and a B natural is kind of liquid. (Of course the timbre probably
isn't really changing much but that's how my brain perceives it.)

~~~
gugagore
I just read a comment above that discussed this timbre sensitivity. In any
octave the A sounds buzzy? What about on any piano? Do all 88 keys produce a
kind of unique timbre signature for you?

~~~
dfan
A just has a kind of a buzzy feel to it. It's not something I can really
quantify or prove, just a sort of synaesthetic sense. I would say that I feel
it the strongest in the two octaves below middle C. It is basically true for
any piano. I don't have a mapping for all 88 notes on a piano, and it's not
like you could hand me a timbre and I could identify the corresponding pitch.
The whole thing is shifty enough that I assume something else is actually
going on and this is just the way that my conscious brain makes sense of it.
But it is part of the way that I perceive pitch.

------
tunesmith
Perfect pitch is overrated. In college as a music student with excellent
relative pitch, I routinely outscored peer students with perfect pitch when
taking classical ear training courses. Perfect pitch is more of a parlor
trick. It's occasionally useful when trying to tune a stringed instrument by
yourself, and distracting if your ensemble starts to drift off key while
remaining in tune with each other.

Also, trained relative pitch is better than untrained perfect pitch. For
instance, if my instructor played four bars of a four-part bach chorale on the
piano (sixteen quarter notes, perhaps a couple of eighth-note passing tones),
I could fully notate it within three repetitions, sometimes on first listen -
_if_ I were initially told what key it was in. Someone with untrained perfect
pitch would be able to tell if the instructor was lying about what key it was
in, but they wouldn't be able to notate it. So in that scenario, the only
thing it's useful for is recognizing what key it's in. If I hadn't been told,
I could have just notated it in C and then transposed it to the right key
later.

I would later learn that being able to notate a bach chorale by ear is nothing
compared to the kind of ear skills you need as a jazz musician - but again,
there, perfect pitch isn't important or super useful. We learn chord relations
- it's _all_ relative.

~~~
psychometry
Your comment is analogous to a colorblind person telling everyone how
overrated red and green are.

First, someone with "untrained" AP (I assume you mean no musical training)
wouldn't be in a position where they'd be needing to transcribe a Bach
chorale, would they? Any AP possessor with musical training--I am one--finds
transcription trivially easy since there's only rhythm to figure out.

While it can be momentarily distracting when music doesn't match its normal
key due to transposition or tuning issues, I can move past it without too much
effort, although I am continually aware of the discrepancy. It's like the
visual illusion where the ballerina can spin both clockwise and
counterclockwise depending on your perspective.

The biggest benefit is being able to identify the key without having to do the
initial hunt for the tonic by testing notes. This is very useful in an
accompaniment situation.

~~~
tunesmith
Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch should be recognized as a
disability? Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch should prevent someone
from certain licensed professions? Do you believe that lack of perfect pitch
is a safety concern in some circumstances?

Because the answer is "yes" for colorblindness. It's just a wildly overstated
comparison. I mean, even tone-deaf people don't experience the kind of
difficulties that people with colorblindness experience. You could just say
that I could never _entirely_ understand the benefits of having perfect pitch
since I don't have it, and maybe that would be true, but I have literally
never experienced a professional musical situation where I felt or thought,
"Oh man, if only I had perfect pitch - I would have succeeded where I just
failed." And this includes directing gigs, accompanying gigs, performance
gigs, etc.

I'm occasionally wistful I don't have synesthesia just because that sounds
actually expansive, but I don't pine for perfect pitch at all.

~~~
beat
Synesthesia is weird and can be pretty specific. I have it - I "hear" flavors,
although it's more about tones than pitches (think drums and cymbals rather
than pianos). And part of it is about shape. Flavors change over exposure
time, just as a musical note changes volume and harmonic content over its
duration. It's almost impossible to explain.

------
Bud
Professional classical singer here. I'm personally glad that I don't have
absolute pitch, or at least not any version that is mostly focused on A=440
Hz, because as an early-music performer, I regularly have to sing at A=415
(for Bach and other Baroque composers), A=430 (for Mozart on classical-period
instruments), A=440, and even A=465 (for Monteverdi) at times. And
occasionally at other pitches. And with varying temperaments.

This discussion doesn't seem to be acknowledging how many pitch standards
there are that are still in common use, and even in increasingly-common use
due to the original-instruments movement.

~~~
SwellJoe
It's my understanding that perfect pitch can be tuned, and also trained to
deal with microtonal harmonies, etc. I don't think it is a straight jacket.
Jacob Collier, I think(?), has perfect pitch, but going outside of western
harmony is his schtick.

I think it's more like learning new words as an adult rather than a cage. But,
maybe I'm wrong? I've heard anecdotally of people with perfect pitch
complaining about some music being "out of tune", but I somehow doubt
musicians are saying that, since as you note, music comes in all sorts of
tunings (and the more interesting the music is, the more likely it is to go in
weird directions, in terms of tuning, scales, etc.).

~~~
mhh__
Jacob Colliers perfect pitch is apparently (if his tricks on stream are to be
believed) accurate to a few cents

~~~
SwellJoe
I'm inclined to believe it. I don't care for his music, but he's _really_
impressive from a technical perspective. He can zero in on incredibly tiny
pitch variations, when listening and singing. Hearing him sing microtonal
stuff is downright intimidating.

Anyway, since he does have absolute pitch, I think he is very strong evidence
that it doesn't limit you to A=440 and 12 tone equal temperament, because he
is frequently wildly divergent from that, exploring microtonal music, harmonic
series tunings, etc. It seems to be freeing rather than limiting (I understand
some of that stuff on a theoretical level, but not on a level where I could
improvise or compose in those languages without a lot of work and a whole new
approach to ear training...musical concepts he studies and seems to grok in
days or weeks would take me months or years).

------
thinkpad20
I think it's overly simplistic to group people into those who have perfect
pitch and those who don't. Of course, I don't know if the article makes this
claim, but I think a lot of people tend to view perfect pitch as a binary
ability -- either you have it or you don't. But speaking personally, I have
"sort of" perfect pitch (imperfect pitch? semi-perfect pitch?), by which I
mean that I can sing and/or recognize the pitch of certain notes from memory,
but not any arbitrary note, not under all circumstances, and not
instantaneously. If I'm not right on the money, I'm usually at least within a
semitone or two. I can do it reliably enough that I'm convinced it's not just
a fluke when I get it right, but on the other hand it's not at all "perfect."
Moreover, the recognition happens too slowly to be practical in real time;
usually it involves audiating part of a song that I know has certain notes,
and using them as reference pitches. Perhaps if I dedicated more time to it I
could get it more accurate or faster, and maybe even develop proper perfect
pitch.

All that being said, while having true perfect pitch would probably open up
new ways to appreciate and understand the music I'm listening to, I think that
relative pitch is a far more useful skill -- nigh essential for many genres.

~~~
aclimatt
For what it's worth, I have the exact same skill as you down to all of the
details. I can remember many songs in their original key, sing them / whistle
them within a few cents usually, identify the key of many notes most of the
time, but by no means 100% of the time perfectly. It's probably something that
could indeed be trained to be more "perfect", but as someone who does have
"pretty good" absolute pitch, I still consider it a parlor trick. It's fun now
and again, but it doesn't really help much with my music. Perhaps that's
because I don't transcribe Bach concertos.

On the other hand, I completely agree that relative pitch has to be on point.
I don't see how it's possible to be an effective musician without it. Being
able to intuitively know intervals, certainly if you're a singer, is
indispensable.

------
bitwize
The way I do it is I keep a memory of a song with a known reference frequency
in my head. Usually it's the Super Mario Bros. theme, whose root is middle C.
I know how the other notes on the scale sound relative to middle C. Sharps and
flats are trickier, but if they sound unusual I can go half a step up or down
and see if they match some other note. Usually I can identify a tone within
half a step or so. Or at least I could, using this method, when I was a kid.
Haven't tried it much lately.

~~~
default-kramer
I have a similar method. It's certainly not perfect, but 99% of the time I'll
be within two semitones, 80% within 1 semitone, and 50% of the time I'll be
exactly right (percentages are approximate).

Smoke On The Water gives me a G, Call Me The Breeze gives me an A, and so on.
These are songs I've heard so many times they are just burned into my head.

------
randcraw
This is one of those occasions when the research team definitely needs to test
on more than the local population of subjects.

Because all the authors appear to be Chinese, probably all the test subjects
were too. But because the Chinese language requires substantial awareness of
subtle changes in prosody (esp. pitch), it's likely that speakers of other
languages will not perform as well on their absolute pitch tests.

I suspect native speakers of Chinese have developed a subtle ear (and voice)
for pitch during that critical period of language acquisition in childhood
that makes them more able to acquire perfect pitch in adulthood than speakers
of other languages, especially western ones.

~~~
gnulinux
This doesn't make sense to me. Everyone can distinguish relative pitch, that's
how humans understand music. It was probably a crucial part of human
evolution, somehow, as we all can do it. Tonal languages use relative pitch,
not absolute pitch. Everyone can learn Cantonese regardless whether they have
AP or not. If you claim tonal languages train you for AP that's citation
needed, I don't think that's true (we would expect tonal language speakers to
be more likely to have AP, a trend we haven't observed).

~~~
monort
Here is one paper about that:

 _Music conservatory students in the U.S. and China were tested. The Chinese
subjects spoke the tone language Mandarin, in which pitch is involved in
conveying the meaning of words. The American subjects were nontone language
speakers. The earlier the age of onset of musical training, the greater the
prevalence of absolute pitch; however, its prevalence was far greater among
the Chinese than the U.S. students for each level of age of onset of musical
training._

[http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/JASA-2006_119_719-722.pdf](http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/JASA-2006_119_719-722.pdf)

------
SwellJoe
"In three experiments, we trained adults to name pitches for 12 to 40 hours.
Within the training period, 14% of the participants were able to name twelve
pitches at 90% accuracy or above, a performance level comparable with typical
AP possessors."

This sounds like good relative pitch, with a memorized reference tone.
Absolute pitch doesn't fade in 12 to 40 hours. Many musicians have relative
pitch abilities that look, to observers, like absolute pitch, because they've
memorized a reference tone sometime in the recent past and can find any other
note relative to that reference (some folks also use their own voice as a
reference tone, because they know the top and/or bottom of their range, or how
a specific note feels when they sing it).

I only have the summary to go by, but this sounds quite different from
absolute pitch and quite similar to relative pitch. We've always known people
can acquire very good relative pitch recognition skills as an adult. That
isn't new or groundbreaking (though if they have a training regimen that works
fast enough for a study like this, that would be great news, since ear
training for very good relative pitch recognition is a months or years long
process for most people).

~~~
organsnyder
I used to be able to pretend I had absolute pitch, back when I played in a
college orchestra that rehearsed four days per week—I had that A (for tuning)
memorized very well. Now that I'm over a decade removed from that, it's not
quite as reliable as it used to be.

------
tomcam
Anecdata: my piano teacher was one of a class in the 1920s who were all
explicitly trained into absolute pitch during kindergarten . Every person in
the class learned it and retained it until at least late middle age. Some were
better than others: my teacher’s sister, for example, could give you the pitch
of anything from knocking a piece of wood to the sound of a car exhaust.

------
mistersquid
(Disclosure/Disclaimer: I don't have perfect pitch nor do I aspire to acquire
it. I am, however, fascinated that some people do have perfect pitch.)

Rick Beato provides a lot of (too much) context before explaining "Why Adults
Can't Develop Perfect Pitch". [0] (Timecode link to Beato's point.)

Beato's video was featured on MetaFilter a couple of months ago. [1]

[0] [https://youtu.be/816VLQNdPMM?t=364](https://youtu.be/816VLQNdPMM?t=364)

[1] [https://www.metafilter.com/175853/Why-Adults-Cant-Develop-
Pe...](https://www.metafilter.com/175853/Why-Adults-Cant-Develop-Perfect-
Pitch)

~~~
SwellJoe
Not sure why this was downvoted. It's an interesting video from a smart
musician with a ton of training and experience. He might be wrong, but he's
not wildly wrong. Despite this and the one study of valproate that indicated
adults could start to learn perfect pitch while using the drug, the
preponderance of evidence is _still_ that learning perfect pitch as an adult
doesn't really happen all that often (if ever).

Think of all of the musicians who do ear training for _years_ and never
develop perfect pitch (but develop very good relative pitch). That's a
tremendous amount of evidence that developing perfect pitch as an adult is
vanishingly rare. I'm not sure why a couple of tiny studies with somewhat
inconclusive results would be considered enough to ignore thousands of
musician's experience.

I'd love it if perfect pitch could be acquired as an adult, but I've mostly
accepted that pretty good relative pitch is the best I'll ever have, and a
couple of small studies don't really convince me otherwise. It's interesting
how "amazing new cancer cure" studies are brutally beaten down with "this is a
small study, don't get your hopes up too high yet" here, but this tiny study
has everybody convinced perfect pitch is totally do-able for everyone.

------
aklein
It seems all participants in the study were recruited from within Hong Kong. I
wonder if being speakers of tonal languages has any effect. I'd be interested
in seeing if the study could be reproduced with speakers of non-tonal
languages.

~~~
splonk
There's definitely some research that suggests that tonal languages have some
relation to ability to distinguish absolute pitch.

[http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/MP-2004-21_339-356.pdf](http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/pdf/MP-2004-21_339-356.pdf)

> The findings from these three experiments are in accordance with the
> hypothesis that speakers of tone language employ absolute pitch as a feature
> of speech and that they refer to precise and stable absolute pitch templates
> in enunciating words.

> The present study does not address the question of whether absolute pitch,
> when acquired as a feature of speech, later generalizes to music.

------
vnorilo
I've studied cello from age 5 to conservatory degree; the pitches of the open
strings are burned in my memory. I can also often tell which key an orchestra
plays by timbral cues. However, I do not have "real" perfect pitch, although
the topic study might find that I do. True perfect pitch is like the anecdotes
in the thread: discomfort with "wrong" transpositions or tunings, learning
melodies by real rather than relative pitch, internal references that can go
out of tune with age. All these are completely alien to me.

~~~
coliveira
I understand your point, but who knows if these things aren't really the same?
My opinion is that having the notes "burned" in your memory is a lesser degree
of the same phenomenon. People that are considered to have "real" perfect
pitch just developed these abilities beyond what normal musicians like you
did. And doing this at a very young age really helps a lot, in the same way
that leaning new languages in infancy is a painless activity and quite
difficult at adult age.

~~~
vnorilo
Yeah - I guess the early acquisition might be what influences the way these
kids develop different cognitive strategies for music early on. It's obvious
when teaching kids: the median student seems to operate on the first order
derivative of the pitch curve, while the perfect pitch kids operate with the
absolute values. A gross simplification. Interestingly, many of them require a
different strategy for transposing melodies: go note by note, while median
learners apply melodic intervals incrementally. Similar differences can be
seen in solfege and dictation.

------
mikorym
Musician here with terrible pitch guessing ability (but semi-decent
composition skillz and good harmony sense).

I have always found absolute (or "perfect" pitch) to be misinterpreted in
popular culture. I have not actually met a musician with perfect pitch.
However, perhaps my definition is too narrow.

Would a person with perfect pitch be able to tell the difference between 440
Hz A and 432 Hz A? Would they be able to tell the difference between 440 Hz A
and 438 Hz A?

If the definition is to be able to tell that a note is only slightly off
_within_ some pre-decided tuning system, then I know many people that can do
this. The question to me is whether absolute pitch is as it says in the name,
"absolute", or is it always limited by some measure of uncertainty? Is there a
physical limitation? (Is it 1 Hz, or is it 5 Hz?)

Hope someone can explain this.

Edit: In the paper, they seem to stick to a pre-decided tuning system.
Probably the standard one that we have now (equal spacing based on 13th root
of 2 with 440 Hz A).

~~~
coliveira
If you have very well developed perfect pitch, you can sense the difference
just in the same way that you can feel that two strings are out of tune by a
few Hz. That's why some people with perfect pitch like Mozart get annoyed by
out of tune instruments.

------
zwieback
My pitch recognition isn't bad but not particularly good either. When I play
my mandolin, though, I can pick up small pitch differences on certain frets
because I'm so used to associating finger position with frequency.

Not sure if you can reach AP (which is not clearly defined anyway) but you can
dramatically improve pitch recognition in general by practice.

~~~
tomcam
This could also be simply be physics, because up there on the fingerboard
there is no way to get good tuning.

------
GolDDranks
This is interesting to me, not because of the musical implications but because
of the neurobiological ones – and especially with regards of learning accents
/ pronunciation of second languages.

There has been a lot of studies that have tried to teach recognizing the
audible difference of R and L to Japanese English learners. I don't know of a
single study has been able to produce robust results. (There's a primary and
secondary acoustic cues to the difference; some Japanese have had success
recognizing the difference using secondary acoustic cues, but recognizing the
primary cue which is the most robust one and which the natives use
preferentially escapes treatment.)

However, the testing protocols and time are limited, and we have increasingly
knowledge about adult neuroplasticity. Results like this keep me hopeful that
it's just that we don't know the good way to do that yet and we might see some
results in the future.

------
anthonyserious
In my first class in college for a music theory course, the first assignment
was "memorize A" (440Hz). Surprisingly, after several weeks of playing the
tone and matching it verbally, I did learn A. Everything else from there is
knowing intervals relative to A (like, C is a minor 3rd above A, or 3 half
steps).

Edit: there are tricks you can use for memorizing the intervals, too, like
"Here Comes the Bride" is a perfect 4th, "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" is a
major 6th, and so on. There's a whole list at
[https://www.earmaster.com/products/free-tools/interval-
song-...](https://www.earmaster.com/products/free-tools/interval-song-chart-
generator.html).

~~~
splonk
I had a choir teacher who told us a story about cheating that assignment by
learning the pitch of the hum of the fluorescent lights in their classroom.

~~~
jejones3141
Yes! 60 Hz is pretty darned close to Bb.

------
auganov
How would you ever know if you "have" perfect pitch without training? I don't
even know what a C or B is[0]. Are there any tests online that don't require
prior knowledge?

[0] I do realize they denote some frequencies

~~~
tbirrell
Musical notes are a base-7 system denoted with the letters A-F repeating.
Given that it is not a numerical system, different A's or B's (ect) are marked
with numbers rather then continuing like hex. i.e. A3, E5 (etc) with lower
tones being lower numbers.

To answer your question, you won't. Perfect pitch usually develops in people
who have had musical training since very young childhood. Just like you can't
really remember learning your native language, they can't remember learning
this skill. But like everyone, they did learn it at some point.

~~~
justtopost
Notes are Base 12. A scale may be base 7.

~~~
tbirrell
The other way around. There are 7 notes and the accidentals give us a 12-tone
chromatic scale.

~~~
gmjoe
Is this a cultural thing?

I was always taught there are 12 notes, while any standard scale contains only
7 of them. (The chromatic scale obviously being the exception which contains
all 12.)

Accidentals are just for notation -- obviously B-flat and A-sharp are the same
"note", just as F-sharp-sharp and G are.

Our entire turning of equal temperament is based on 12 equal intervals, not 7.
So I'd argue parent commenter is correct -- notes are base 12, not base 7.

~~~
SwellJoe
Scales are based on ratios, and our equal tempered scale is a compromise to
get equidistant steps that can be used to closely approximate those ratios.
The idea being to be able to use the same instrument to play in any key
without retuning the instrument and adjusting the intonation.

So...one could argue for either or both interpretation and explanation. The
note names, sharps and flats, is what is most arbitrary about it.

------
qwerty456127
Can somebody recommend an app for pitch recognition training for people who
have the capacity to distinguish small differences in sound frequency but zero
knowledge of music theory? E.g. an app that plays a sound and asks to name it
doesn't qualify as I have no idea of how do musical notes and their varieties
sound and am to be taught these from scratch. Of course I can find some
examples and listen to them but that would take a fair amount of repetitions
to memorize and I'd like the app to help with this too.

~~~
SwellJoe
"an app that plays a sound and asks to name it doesn't qualify"

I don't think any ear training app works that way. Any app that is based on
good pedagogical practice would be training relative pitch recognition, not
note naming. An app like that would only be usable by people who already have
perfect pitch. Relative pitch, which is the skill most musicians cultivate, is
based on recognizing the difference between pitches as well as the sound of
combinations of pitches (i.e. recognizing major/minor chords), and only much
later do note names come into play. Someone with a very refined sense of
relative pitch can name notes, if they have a reference pitch in their head
that they can compare to (and some people take that one step further by making
the top or bottom of their vocal range their "reference note", or they
"memorize" the first note of some piece of music they know well, so they can
figure out other pitches based on where it is relative to a known note, but
that can drift).

Anyway, I've tried a bunch of ear training apps and I really like Perfect Ear.
It is, by far, the best ear training app I've found, and it covers tons of
ground.
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evilduck.m...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.evilduck.musiciankit&hl=en))

------
monktastic1
One strange phenomenon I've noticed (while trying to teach myself perfect
pitch) is that, when trying to reproduce (say) middle C, if I'm off, I'm only
ever off by multiples of a half-step. That is to say, I'm singing exactly a B
or C# (or on a bad day, Bb or D). My ear is sharp enough to detect if I were,
say, a quarter step off.

This ability seems to fall somewhere in between relative and absolute pitch,
and I'm sure I'm not the only one it is true for.

------
rustcharm
I found the entire PDF on ResearchGate.

I've played the piano for 50 years (I'm 55), and I do a lot of ear-training
practice with software (Ear Master, etc) to keep myself sharp.

I still don't have perfect pitch. Without hearing a reference note, I won't
get it.

In some ways, it's good. I keep my Bosendorfer tuned to A=443 and occasionally
someone comes over whose used to the American A=440 and it bothers them. It
doesn't bother me.

~~~
melq
440 is actually an international standard, not American.

>In 1939, there was an international conference held in London that resulted
in a recommendation to use A = 440 Hz, as a compromise between the various
tuning systems used at the time, some of which reached beyond 450 Hz. This
recommendation was further supported by the fact that the BBC required their
orchestras to tune to 440 Hz instead of 439 Hz because 439 is a prime number,
and the corresponding frequency was hard to generate electronically with
standard electronic clocks. Eventually, in 1955, the standard A = 440 Hz was
adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).*

* [https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theo...](https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theory/)

~~~
rustcharm
When I shopped for my piano, in Vienna, it was tuned to 443 which was the
custom there. It was crated up at the factory and shipped to California where
it's been holding its tune.

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#Current_concert_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#Current_concert_pitches)

A lot of continental Europe uses A=443 today

------
sizzzzlerz
From the evolutionary perspective, what advantage does having perfect pitch
"built-in" give a person or society? Being able to identify the pitch of some
game you might be hunting wouldn't seem to make you a better hunter thus being
able to survive hard times so you're able to pass your genes along better than
one without it.

~~~
SwellJoe
It's closely related to language skills, which also have nothing to do with
hunting, but have a lot to do with being an attractive mate and having
leadership abilities. So...it is not a survival skill, rather it is a mating
skill.

------
danimal88
I thought there was a pill you could take to get perfect pitch (assuming
absolute and perfect pitch are the same).

[https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-
pitch-...](https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-you-
could-pop-a-pill-for-that)

------
HelenePhisher
If you want to learn how to recognize tones I highly recommend the method of
Alain Benbassat: [http://www.miles.be](http://www.miles.be)

You'll notice a rapid understanding of tones and keys. There are (even free)
apps for Android and iOS as well.

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pixelperfect
I've heard anecdotal reports that absolute pitch training kind of works as an
adult, but not as well. If you practice enough you can start to identify notes
correctly, but if you don't keep up with training, the ability goes away.

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0x70dd
My understanding is that you can train people to recognize few/certain tones,
but if you have a perfect pitch you are able to do it for every tone, which is
something that cannot be learned.

~~~
monktastic1
There are only 12 pitch classes. Why would recognizing two be possible but 12
impossible?

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fipple
I’m a pretty good musician and have never had the slightest ability to discern
absolute pitch. I’d like it but not enough to work at it :)

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baccheion
There are supplements/nootropics that make such a thing possible.

~~~
opportune
lol, the entire nootropic industry is just one step above pseudoscience.
Nobody I know who has started taking nootropics has seen any measurable
benefit from them aside from side effects, assuming we are excluding normal
stimulants from "nootropics" and mostly referring to *racetams. Additionally,
most studies on nootropics that show promising results focus on things like
NGF rather than actual changes in intelligence, and only test one potential
nootropic at a time, while most people who take them do complex stacks / take
much higher doses, which makes me question their safety regarding long-term
use

Given that, to my knowledge, there isn't any evidence that increasing
neurotropic growth factor will cause significant neuron growth/regeneration in
regular adults, it seems the only nootropics that actually work are stimulants
and semi-stimulants, which at the end of the day just make you more alert and
focused

It's one of those "life hacks" that gives such marginal, if any, benefits that
it's not even a productive use of your time to think about them/order
them/etc. when you could do more productive life hacks with your time instead

~~~
baccheion
SEMAX + selank + alpha-GPC 5 days/week alternating every 4 weeks with
p21/cerebrolysin. Also add a multivitamin, D + K, and chelated/TRAACS
magnesium supplement.

Nootropics, if they have an effect, tend to improve aspects of cognition. For
example, focus, creativity, mental energy, verbal fluidity, ability to
multitask (ie, listen to music while reading), etc.

Not all benefits are perceivable without monitoring via sites like Cambridge
Sciences.

~~~
opportune
I'm interested in large double blind studies regarding increases in IQ or
alertness, as well as studies into the long term effects of taking these
mostly untested drugs/supplements.

A bunch of guys on the internet taking Lumosity tests doesn't replace a study

~~~
baccheion
You can look them up on Pub Med (eg, "semax
site:[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed")).

Sites like Cambridge Sciences are mentioned as another way to see if
nootropics are having an effect. Even if studies claim benefits, some may
experience nothing. That is, many things health-related tend to vary on a per-
person basis.

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ryneandal
Of course it's possible. Acquiring the breaths is the hard part.

------
raincom
It is like learning a language: just as kids can acquire a new language, they
can also acquire absolute pitch. So, send your kids for early musical
training, if they like music, in order to acquire absolute pitch.

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hanoz
Can't you just derive any pitch if you know the default pitch of your own
voice?

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akurilin
TLDR, what did they use to do the training, and is it available to the general
public?

~~~
uxp100
It was an unreleased progressive training program, with sections of immediate
feedback, and sections with only feedback after a certain amount of questions.

The secret sauce is kinda a glissando between sections to try and throw off
your pitch memory.

there are people working on recreating this in a web page. There are also
people who argue this is not Perfect pitch, but just well trained relative
pitch. It did fade after no training for 3 months IIRC.

There was a a different study that showed Depakote possibly aiding learning
perfect pitch as an adult. Don't go find some Depakote and cram music theory,
Depakote could kill you.

