It’s not possible to have an innate ability in something that is an artificial human creation. There’s nothing natural about western musical systems, not to the level that anybody could be born able to understand and identify pitches. (In the same way as nobody is born with an innate ability to speak a particular language.)
Sorry, but this simply isn’t the case.
Absolutely not. You could do this with a well-developed sense of relative pitch. I don’t have perfect pitch and I could write basic melody lines and chord progression from my head. Now, I’ve never formally trained my aural skills, so much is left to be desired as far as relative pitch is concerned, but a well-trained musician should be able to write out the music in his/her head without needing an ability of perfect pitch.
Now, the difference is the person may not know exactly what key he’s composing in. He may be hearing B flat in his head, but be writing his score in C. But that’s really a minor quibble.
But there could be more to this.
(emphasis mine.)
So while there’s nothing innately different betweeen say an A and a C, there does seem to be genetic variation in the way one perceives pitch, which may have something to do with perfect pitch.
seems to me a sloppy piece of writing.
“…suggesting your genetic make-up largely enables your ability to perceive pitch” seem’s to me what is actually being described. Our genes don’t tell us what D# sounds like, or what a minor chord sounds like, that’s done by exposure to western harmony every day of our lives. I’m quite happy with the suggestion that some people are predisposed to acquiring this understanding more easily than others.
But it seems to be a little more than that. It seems that certain people have an inability to acquire this understanding at all due to genetics, much like color blind people will never be able to truly distinguish green from red. Do a google search on:
“absolute pitch” genetics
and gloss through some of the fascinating studies.
I reallize that GQ is not the place to be speaking out my ass w/o any cites, so I’ll just pretend this is part of my original general question. In discussing this with a math person (who wrote at least one journal article on math and music) I was told that there is most certainly a “natural” (I don’t think that’s the best word BTW) mathematical relationship between notes in any music system. Yes, it’s an accident that we tune to A-440 (or slightly shaper as many prefer.) It’s an accident that western music cuts an octave into 12 tones. It is not an accident that an octave is still an octave (not necessarily called that) wherever one may choose to listen. Some may prefer to cut it up into 31 tones, but when you ascend that scale of 31 tones, you’re back at the same note.
I’m going to see if I can find some more info about this, but any insight (esecially the type that shows that I’m completely wrong) is appreciated.
As someone whose background includes both music theory and mathematics, I’ll back you up on this.
The octave is a very natural musical division. Take any string that produces a tone when plucked. Pluck it. Now, take that same string, and with your other hand, hold it exactly halfway between the ends (so that only half the string can be moved) and pluck it. You’ll very quickly realize that you’ve just ceated one.
Octaves also come fom the harmonic series. Explained simply: when you cause a string to vibrate, both halves of the string vibrate (at a frequency of twice what the full string is vibrating). All three thirds of the string vibrate, each at a frequency of 3 times the vibration of the whole string. It goes on to fourths, fifths, sixths, and so forth. Some of these correspond (more or less) with certain other notes. Our modern system of equal tuning (where the octave is divided into 12 equal partitions in a chromatic scale) means that some of our notes are fudged a little bit from where the harmonic series states they should theoretically be.
For example, here’s some of a b-flat harmonic (easily remembered due to my time on the trombone). I give each as the fraction of a string tuned to b-flat that would vibrate to produce that note.
1/1. B-flat
1/2. B-flat (next octave up)
1/3. F
1/4. B-flat (another octave up)
1/5. D (at this point, it starts to get a little off, and I have to make a more significant adjustment to my slide position to stay in-tune)
1/6. F
1/7. A-flat (actually, this one is the first note in the b-flat harmonic series that is so significantly flat that I use a different harmonic series when I need to play this note (different slide position))
1/8. B-flat
1/9. C (Again, this one will sound really awkward and not in tune at all from a B-flat harmonic)
1/10. D
1/11. E-ish (really off)
1/12. F
1/13. G-like (really, really off)
The harmonic series thus also suggests a rational basis for why certain intervals sound good when played together, and others do not. Western music has traditionally made use of these harmonies and dissonances. The harmonic series for C and G share many notes, and thus sound good when played together. The harmonic series for C and D do not share as many notes, and create more dissonance. The harmonic series for C and C# share even fewer notes, and thus, this combination was traditionally avoided.
If you want to know more, here’s a link: Harmonic Series
I said I wouldn’t get dragged down this route again - suffice to say that there’s a lot of fugding and compromise in the equally-tempered chromatic scale, to the point it really does not sound like a particularly logical adaptation of overtone relationships, and that it’s use isn’t as universal nor as historically-rooted as can seem from a basic explanation. Yes, the octave is a natural phenomenon - everything else we do in western harmony is artificial. And the progression of European music has largely involved advances in how to use and create dissonance, not how to avoid it. You can search for previous threads if you want to read more of what I’ve said about this before 
You are correct, GorillaMan. I have understated grossly the amount of fudging that equal temperament causes. I should have been more careful to state that I was speaking from a historical, idealized context rather than a context that was strictly… umm… true. The fifth partial is a good 4-5 cents sharp of today’s equal-temperament explanation of where the notes should be, while the seventh partial can be as much as fifteen cents flat of the notes as we expect to hear them today.
(Having scanned the answers and not being sure anyone has given this simple one…)
The top plate of your violin has its own fundamental resonance (the wolf note) which, unlike that of the strings as they loosen in storage, doesn’t change. So, in a sense, you do have a reference note in that you know where the wolf note used to occur (even if not explicitly - you may merely be familiar with the ‘feel’ of the instrument when the strings are tuned to that reference).
While true, this is de-simplified by the more common use of the phrase ‘wolf note’, describing all unpleasant resonances at certain points on an instrument, that are to be avoided at all costs. They’re certainly not something you could tune to.
I’m not a violinist, so I would defer to your experience there. But I know I have a strong body resonance at F# on the 4th string of my classical guitar (and I know that cellists know exactly where the strong wolf of the top plate occurs when their instrument is in tune). And so, I could tune my 4th sting holding my finger on the 4th fret until the wolfyness was maximised and then tune the other strings to it.
Sounds like (no pun intended) guitar wolf notes are very different creatures. In the violin family, and particular on the violin itself, they’re horrendous noises. I’m really not sure if we’re actually describing the same thing - I was under the impression that the violin was designed to avoid having a body resonance anywhere within the range of the instrument. But I may be wrong on that. However, if you get to hear a really good (or is that bad?) violin wolf note, you’ll know what I mean
Oh, they’re highly undesirable on guitars also - the string resonance “splits” producing two horribly dissonant notes. The point is that this occurs at a very specific and permanent frequency (depending on the instrument, between 400-500 Hz in a violin and 200-250 Hz in a cello: PDF), and so one could tune the string until it sounded most undesirable at that place you knew it sounded so.
(Incidentally, the only way to avoid them is to increase the damping (friction) in the plate, which makes it not so good an instrument in other ways. Top plate response governs how well the instrument transmits the string frequencies, but make it too responsive and it will respond to certain frequencies too much. The usual trick is to try and make it fall between two notes, which are not natural harmonics of the open strings).
I was tempted to quote myself, but since my lack of clarity is obviously impenetrable I’ll try something else.
I’m not sure how one describes “innate” ability without referencing an artificial human creation. (That’s my problem.)
Is saying, “I don’t have perfect pitch,” equivalent to saying “I don’t have Japanese” or “I don’t have Math.”
A lot of people seem to think so, I don’t.
The innate ability that underlies perfect pitch is recognizing and producing or reproducing tones, regardless of how those tones are identified, with accuracy. (Not necessarily vocal accuracy.)
In effect, without an artificial human creation to reference, this means producing tones that work with each other in specifically the way the “composer” intends. (Dissonance may be their intention.)
emphasis mine
I don’t think that is a minor quibble in the least. (Again, my problem.)
I can put toagther a C chord and a G chord and call it music. I can play a C note and G note with it and call it a melody. To me, that does not describe the Eroica symphony.
In a lame attempt to bring this back to the OP: I can tune a guitar to itself and I can piece togather a song by listening to it. I believe with training and effort, I could learn to recognize notes… after all, that’s how I learned to tune instruments and learn songs. Lots o’ people do it better… some do it almost intuitively.
If you’re not going to have any reference to human creations, then all you’re going to be producing is the overtone series. Anything else is an artificial creation which we learn and acquire.
I suspect I’m just out of my depths, but:
You’re saying perfect pitch is, by definition, learned. (?)
That unlike something like 20/20 vision where the ‘20/20’ part is artificial, but one’s visual acuity is not, perfect pitch is NOT a way of defining an individual trait using a human construct, but it is a learned skill. (?)
I was describing to you my limitations. Your point was that one couldn’t compose a symphony away from an instrument without perfect pitch. I’m saying it is, in fact, possible. There are many musicians who can, and do, compose away from an instrument without possessing perfect pitch themselves.
To do it to the extent Beethoven did it requires genius, no doubt. But it does not require perfect pitch. I really don’t see how or why it would. Does it make a difference whether someone here’s a note and says, “hey that’s a G” versus “hey, that’s the fourth”? As long as you have a base key in your head, you can identify notes based on their relationship to the home key.
I want to agree to this, but the fact that there are so many professional musicians who play every single day of their lives and don’t develop perfect pitch makes me wonder whether, in fact, there is more to this than just simple training.
While the scientific studies all seem to favor the idea that genetics is at least somewhat, if not mostly, responsible, I also have to wonder whether we’re going about the teaching process all wrong. When I was a kid, I could instantly tell the difference between a white and black note on a piano. The black notes just had a very different character or feel from the white notes, no doubt because my first experiences in music were in the key of C. I’ve long since seemed to have lost this ability and never refined it to individual notes.
Now, the thing is, some people who don’t have perfect pitch think it’s about memorizing how high or low a given note is. Every single AP (absolute pitch) possessor I’ve talked to does not identify notes in this way. Each note has a specific feel or color associated with them. An A at 220 feels like an A at 440 which feels like an A at 880.
So, either it’s genetic, and AP possessors simply perceive music differently than most of us, or AP possessors trip across the ‘secret’ of distinguishing notes from one another, probably early in their childhood. Perhaps it’s similar to something like language acquisition and if you don’t train it early enough, it becomes exponentially more difficult at a later age.
Thing is, I don’t know of any perfect pitch training program that reliably and consistently teaches one this skill. I’d be curious to know if any exist.
The ability to identify individual pitches from the chromatic system, and to identify tunings in related to A440, are learnt. There is nothing natural about this organisation of sounds - until we learn what it sounds like (which we do from Day 1), it’s an alien system. Certainly, some people are predisposed to be better at identifying pitches etc. But it’s still all acquired.