ubertuber

The "diatonic system" is much more recent than the Greeks... In terms of formulating modes, much less settling on Ionian (major) and Aolian (minor) as focal points, you're talking much more like 1300 AD (Gregorian Chant ring a bell?). And even then they didn't have a conception of functional harmony that has anything to do with what we have. It was all figured bass until after Bach.

I take perfect pitch to mean the ability to remember pitch in absolute terms. Someone else used the term "audiation" to refer to a process analogous to visualization. I think this word conveys exactly the right meaning - the abilty to conceptualize pitch without reference. The pitch could be western harmony or not - but most of us have ears that are "culturized" to process pitch in 12 tone terms. Because of this, some with perfect pitch will refer to a "sharp a" rather than a discreet pitch that is somewhere between a and b flat.

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Dbass

Not to split hairs, but it was either Pythagoras or Aristotle who discovered, through using a string with a movable stopping block, the septatonic scale, which we now know as diatonic because of the repeated first note. Octave, I believe, is Greek in origin. The use of harmonics was developed from his calculations. From the octave, we develop the diatonic scalar system, although yes, before the Renaissance, we did not have even temperment (sp?) and modes were based on a random pitch, and the Ionian mode (I seem to recall) was not yet in use. However, diatonicism was in use, and the Ionian mode was a greek mode originally, named for a tribe or something, I don't really remember (MUSC 311 was 2 semesters ago). But anywho, my point is not cultural biases, it's simply that one has to develop the acquaintance with 12 tones before he or she can name them, right? That's all I'm saying, just that you can't be born, and immediately identify A as A. Infants can, however, distinguish changes in pitch, and I suppose the tests they do could sort of detect those who are more perceptive, and from that you could support an innate perfect pitch person...wow, it's late!

ubertuber

Dbass, my bad - I misunderstood which direction you were coming from. (By the way it was Pythagoras, and there is a point in there that I'll come back to).

I personally agree with your point that infants whose ears have not been sensitized to diatonic harmony probably don't dinstinguish A as a discrete note from other pitches that are between our pitch system. I believe that perfect pitch is simply the ability to produce and recognize pitches without reference. Even people with perfect pitch can train their ears, because what is important is not what you hear, but what you do with it.

Back to Pythagoras and tempering scales, which you mentioned (apologies if I'm either being too pedantic and repeating stuff you know or boring non-musicians to tears, but I promise to come back to a point). Pythagoras formulated the divisions of an octave by reducing the length of a vibrating string by proportions. From this division we get notes, that when sounded together, produce perfect harmony. However, they only work in relation to one another within the original key - meaning that the pitch g in the key of c is substantially different from the pitch g in the key of f - so much so that you can't really use a fixed-pitch instrument (piano, xylophone, harp, organ, etc.) in more than about 3 keys effectively if it is tuned by Pythagoras' proportional method. Not only that, but if you take the value of half and whole steps formulated by Pythagoras in the key of C and use them to construct a scale from D to D, your first and last D won't be an octave apart!

Fast forward to Bach's time (1685-1750) and this has become a problem. The solution was to temper the octave (split it equally). This is the system by which pianos and other fixed-pitch instruments are tuned today. Every key is now the same amount out of tune. This renders the instrument playable, but simply not in tune. Chords don't ring like they should, leading tones don't lean as hard as they should... But we've become used to it. Variable pitch instruments, like brass and wind instruments, will often play perfect harmony in orchestral music. This means lowering major thirds in chords, raising minor thirds, lowering minor 7ths, etc. The sound is amazing. My experience is that string players don't bother with this so much - perhaps it is because the tradition is to play with such wide vibrato - I don't know. If a string quartet or section in an orchestra was to play without vibrato, they'd quickly realize how out of tune they are. I've seen it happen!

At any rate, some of the people who say that perfect pitch is tied to the diatonic scale will complain about having to listen to out-of-tune music, referring to Rennaisance music with a higher pitch or organs which are often tuned low or high. These are the same people who use an out-of-tune piano as their standard of reference, which is the only way you could have the idea that 440 is the only place for an a to be in tune. An A in an F major chord has to be much lower than 440 to be in tune, while an A in a f# minor chord has to be higher than 400! Hell, the orchestras and pianos here are all tuning at A441 and 442, intentionally - to produce a brighter (sharper) sound. My point is that pitch is where we say it is. We can have great reasons for picking a particular place for our notes, but those places can and should be variable.

Now, you can make an argument for some aspects of diatonic melody and harmony being inherent in physics, which is the overtone series. This term refers to the phenomenon in which a pitch on a resonating string sounds at the note you hear easily, but it also produces pitch information for other notes above it. Invariably, these notes come in this order (related to the originally sounding pitch):

octave, fifth, octave, major third, perfect fifth, minor seventh, octave, major second, etc.

It is important to note that these other pitches are contained within the original pitch, not in sympathetic resonance with other strings or nearby objects (though overtones will certainly generate sympathetic vibrations in other things, and teachers use this effect to demonstrate the overtone series on a piano). You can see this if you ever get to play with a chromatic strobe tuner with multiple dials (one for each note, and costing thousands of dollars). They will all respond to one pitch, indicating the relative intonation of the overtones in that pitch. In fact, it is the relative strength of overtones in a pitch (and speed with which they stack up) that define timbre for the ear, making the difference between a trumpet, oboe, french horn, and voice all playing the same pitch. The ear is very sensitive - much more so than the brain. Anyway, people have used this presence of the overtone series to argue that functional harmony and our 12 note scale are not just conventions, but expressions of physics. However, even in this system of thought it doesn't matter whether you start your A on 440, 442 or even 357. It is the relative placement of intervals that matters.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Dbass

I'm with you on all this, but my final word is that unless you are at least cursorily introduced to the naming conventions of music "A,Bb, C, etc." you cannot identify pitches. My whole point is that you need to tools of music to utilize your innate talent. My case in point: 1984 by George Orwell - A dystopian government takes away words "freedom, resistance, rebellion, dissent" and the result is noone is capable of imagining these concepts or using them. Someone with a propensity for acute hearing cannot have perfect pitch from birth, he or she must first be taught music or at least the notes to use the innate tendancy.

SteveoTG

the way I can find pitches is that my vocal range goes pedal (aka bottoms out) around a low C or Db. the I just take whatever pitch I want to ID and bring it all the way down there, then compare it to my lowest pitch.

Wyodiver33

Hi all. I think that I have perfect pitch control. I'm 35 now, and my proof came from elementary school and middle school. Yes, I was in the school choir. Please! Stop hitting me! I never got beat up because of my choir time. Just kidding. I think that what really helped was, and is still serving me well, was my hearing. To this day I hear things that creap others out. I went to get a haircut last week, had to wait a while. As I was sitting and waiting, I chimed up and said that their phone was off the hook. They didn't believe me that I heard the tone from 20 feet away. I know that doesn't have much to do with "pitch-perfect," but it sure helps. And when I sing in the car, it sure sounds good to me! (Quick aside, while in the USAF, I was randomly chosen to strap a Dosomiter, a device that measures sound DB in the work place. I took it off quite often and placed it next to generators and friends cars who had thumpin' music. That could be why I was tested so often.

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jth

Clinical Perfect Pitch, I don't know. however a form of Perfect pitch can be developed through a strong sense of relative pitch.

I had a former teacher who memorized the sound of 440 (A 440) to the point of instant recognition of any other pitch by relating it back to 440. He effictively had perfect pitch in a functional sense. He couldn't tell you the pitch of a knife squeeking across a plate, but you play a note for him and he would tell you what it was immediately after you played it and was correct every time.