Absolute Pitch

Chris Darwin

Perception of Musical Sounds: 2007

What is it?Tone-AP• Ability to name notes in isolation• Ability to adjust a note to be, say, F#• Ability to sing F# to orderPseudo-AP• Ability to name only A, but then relativePiece-AP• Ability to say when a piece is in correct key

Graded rather than all or noneTone & Pseudo may be better for particular instruments

Have you got it?

write down each note 4 practice notes then 3 groups of 12

http://www.aip.org/148th/Test_for_Absolute_Pitch.htm

We all haveit (badly(done))

Lockhead, G.R. and Byrd, R.(1981) Practically perfectpitch. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 70,387

Levitin, D. J. and Rogers, S.E. (2005). "Absolute pitch:perception, coding andcontroversies," Trends inCog Sci 9, 26-33.

Hall, D. E. (1982). Practicallyperfect pitch': Some comments,Journal of the AcousticalSociety of America 71, 754-755.

X

Donebetter ?

Zatorre, R. J., et al.(1998). "Functionalanatomy of musicalprocessing in listenerswith absolute pitch andrelative pitch," Proc NatlAcad Sci U S A 95,3172-7.

Zatorre, R. J. (2003)."Absolute pitch: amodel forunderstanding theinfluence of genesand development onneural and cognitivefunction," NatNeurosci 6, 692-5.

Bimodaldistribution

ofAP &

non-AP

Athos, E. A.,et al. (2007)."Dichotomy and perceptualdistortions in absolute pitchability," Proc Natl Acad Sci U SA 104, 14795-800.

How about Piece-AP?• 46 subjects sang two different popular songs

• 40% correct pitch on at least one trial• 12% correct pitch on both trials• 44% ± 2 semits on both trials.

Levitin, D. J. (1994). " Absolute memory for musical pitch:Evidence from the production of learned melodies.," Percept.Psychophys. 56, 414-423.

Terhardt, E. and Seewann, M. (1983). "Aural key identification andits relationship to absolute pitch," Music Percepn 1, 63-83.

• Musically trained listeners were presented with excerpts ofBach preludes at original key or shifted by a semitone30% of those without absolute pitch could do it

But those that have it, have it

Magic number 7(0) ± 2

• Non-AP: Identify c. 8 categories ofpitch

• AP: c. 70 categories

Zatorre, R. J. (2003). "Absolute pitch: a model forunderstanding the influence of genes anddevelopment on neural and cognitive function,"Nat Neurosci 6, 692-5.

Who has it? Nurture Nurture: Early musical training appears to be necessarybut not sufficient for the development of AP.Interviewed 600 musicians (conservatoires, orchestras) <=4 years of age: 40% reported AP >=9 years of age: 3%

cf age of acquiring foreign-accent-free second language

Baharloo, S., Johnston, P. A., Service, S. K., Gitschier, J. andFreimer, N. B. (1998). "Absolute pitch: an approach for identificationof genetic and nongenetic components," Am J Hum Genet 62, 224-31.

Start of musical training

Levitin, D.J. and Zatorre, R.J. (2003)On the nature of early trainingand absolute pitch: A reply to Brown,Sachs, Cammuso and Foldstein.Music Perception 21, 105–110

Tone-language

talkersDeutsch, D., Henthorn, T.,Marvin, E. and Xu, H.(2006). "Absolute pitchamong American andChinese conservatorystudents: prevalencedifferences, and evidence fora speech-related criticalperiod," J Acoust Soc Am119, 719-22.

Digression into speechperception

Categorical Perception - 1

1. Set up a continuum of sounds between two categories

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

/ba/ - /da/

Categorical Perception - 2

2. Run an identification experiment

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

% /ba/

100

0

Sharp phoneme boundary

Categorical Perception - 3

2. Run a discrimination experiment

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

% difft

100

0

1 versus 3

Discrimination peak

/l/

/r/

English

/r/

Japanese

/t1/

Tamil

/t3//t2/

/t/

English

Different languages make differentregions of acoustic space distinctive

/r/ - /l/ - 3

% difft

or

% /ra/

100

0

English identification

Japanese discriminationEnglish discrimination

1 ... 3 … 5 … 7

F3

/ra/ /la/

50

Phonemes by 12 months

Hindi adults Yes

English 6-8m Yes

English 8-10m a bit

English 10-12m No

English adults No

Discrimination of Hindi /t/ from /T/Head-turning: Werker & Tees 1981

Back to Absolute Pitch

Who has it?

12 of 21 early-blind trained musicians had APcompared with <20% of sighted musicians

(plus some fMRI evidence of change in STP asymmetry)

Hamilton, R.H. et al. (2004) Absolute pitch in blind musicians.Neuroreport 15, 803–806

Who has it?Nature:Links to autism

Brown, W. A., et al. (2003). "Autism-related language, personality, and cognition inpeople with absolute pitch: results of a preliminary study," J Autism Dev Disord 33, 163-7;discussion 169.

Absolute pitch possessors 46% Socially eccentricRelatively good at Block Design (autism indicator)

Musician Controls15% Socially eccentricRelatively bad at Block Design

Who has it?Nature: Gene??

Nature??: Self-reported AP possessors were fourtimes more likely to report another AP possessor intheir families than were non-AP possessors.

Baharloo, S., Johnston, P. A., Service, S. K., Gitschier, J. andFreimer, N. B. (1998). "Absolute pitch: an approach foridentification of genetic and nongenetic components," Am J HumGenet 62, 224-31.

How do they do it?18 musicians with absolute pitch (AP)Identified three successive piano tones by their letter names.• Perfect recall of these note names after upto 27 sec of:

– counting backwards– hearing random piano tones– singing descending scale

• But significant forgetting retaining letter trigrams while countingbackwards for 18 sec.

Multiple codes (e.g., auditory, kinesthetic, and visual imagery) areprobably used.

Zatorre, R. J. & Beckett, C. (1989). Multiple coding strategies in theretention of musical tones by possessors of absolute pitch.Memory and Cognition 17, 582-589.

Possible cognitive factors

• AP don’t need to refresh working memory inpitch memory tests - less activity in rightfrontal cortex

• Dorso-lateral cortex (forms associations?)active in AP when labelling individual tonesand intervals, but in non-AP only whennaming intervals.

fMRI