How many MEs have perfect pitch?

[BouncyJones]

How many of you know certain frequencies when hearing them without having to check on a keyboard or tone generator? I've done an exhaustive search of gearslutz and haven't found this topic mentioned here before.

I'm really really curious about this because modern music production employs pitch shifting and god knows how many other techniques to subtly shift frequencies and I can't help wondering how the tone changes with it.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

How many of you know certain frequencies when hearing them without having to check on a keyboard or tone generator? I've done an exhaustive search of gearslutz and haven't found this topic mentioned here before.

I'm really really curious about this because modern music production employs pitch shifting and god knows how many other techniques to subtly shift frequencies and I can't help wondering how the tone changes with it.

Some of us may have perfect pitch. I don't have perfect pitch except I can identify most notes played on the clarinet because I played that instrument for about 20 years. I can usually identify a note on the piano within a few half steps, which is, I guess "imperfect perfect pitch". But most good engineers, not just mastering engineers, even those who don't play an instrument, have good "relative pitch"----because we can identify the range for equalization within half an octave or so. For example, we should practice until we can hear whether to center an equalizer around 200, 250 Hz or 300 or 400, even before touching the knob, and then fine-tune that by ear.

I'm not sure what you meant by the relationship of perfect pitch to "subtly shift frequencies and how the tone changes with it." Can you elaborate on your question?

[Jerry Tubb]

imo perfect means perfect ...not close.

Many of us MEs with a musical background have good relative pitch, may come from years of studying music, playing an instrument etc.

In the studio I keep an A-440 tuning fork close at hand as a reference, mainly for fun.

On a good day can tell what notes and chords are being played on guitar or bass, particularly Fender P bass, from the timbral quality. Some individuals relate to a piano keyboard instead.

But musical pitch recognition is not really necessary for a mastering engineer, although it can be an added bonus, as long as it doesn't become a distraction from actual mastering.

Much more important to be able to recognize general frequency range of sounds... perhaps even relating to which octave on a frequency chart.

JT

[cooker]

I'm not mastering engineer but have a strong musical background. I'm not perfect pitch but when I get an A, then its easy to find any note(s). Try memorizing intervals (like perfect 5th, minor 7...), takes time but later you won't find yourself searching notes no more. Though I must say I'm not sure how much it helped me with mixing or mastering. After some time using plug-in eq's, I finded myself memorized most of freq.s and got confort while using eq. Hearing what the source wants in your head is most important rather than trying stuff to make it sound better.

[lucey]

I have no idea who might have it. Perfect pitch is a bit of a curse as almost all music is a little off. I don't envy any ME with perfect pitch listening to music all day that they can't choose.

Musically homogeneous is it's own 'ear'.

[BouncyJones]

Originally Posted by bob katz

I'm not sure what you meant by the relationship of perfect pitch to "subtly shift frequencies and how the tone changes with it." Can you elaborate on your question?

Some individuals hear certain frequencies and associate colours with them, and some just simply know what the frequency is without necessarily associating a colour with it. For example, they may hear an A natural (440) and associate the colour blue with it. Or, they may just instictively recognise it as being A.

What if something were originally recorded in A but then pitch-shifted more to Ab: would it maintain its A colour or would it simply sound like Ab (and have whatever colour associated to that)?

I think it's a relevant question to mastering because a lot of discussion centres around the tonal qualities of different mediums such as tape or digital (44 vs. 96 etc.). Well, isn't there a possibility that tape, especially in the lower end affects the tone of the bass drum based on the pitch that translates onto the tape?

This could be all pie-in-the sky type stuff but I've just been trying to think about some of the questions masterers face from different angles and see if there's some unchartered territory to consider.

To the OP I agree that perfect pitch can be a hindrance and didn't at all mean to imply that it was a virtue. It has its pros and cons.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

I think it's a relevant question to mastering because a lot of discussion centres around the tonal qualities of different mediums such as tape or digital (44 vs. 96 etc.). Well, isn't there a possibility that tape, especially in the lower end affects the tone of the bass drum based on the pitch that translates onto the tape?

The low end of an analog mix is something you can train yourself to hear in many cases, but pitch and analog/digital have nothing in common.

[cooker]

For the first question I guess the color would be Ab if A is pitch shifted. But even if a composer isn't perfect pitched, after writing the song he/she should recognize something is wrong with the track color wise(if not Ab, at G even a collage student should feel something different). Though we don't think about it often, the freq. range has great importance of the feeling of a song and pitch shifting it would possibly 90% harm the song(even if the vocalist is ok with it).

I didn't understand why a digital or analog device should affect a tracks pitch?If you experience this on a tape, then it should be repaired.

[dkatz42]

I taught myself "pitch naming" (I don't like to call it "perfect pitch") when I played in the junior high school orchestra some 35 years ago. After hearing Concert A over and over again, I could hear it in my head reliably. I started working out what notes I was hearing by relative pitch against that A, and eventually the notes just started sounding like themselves.

For me, at least, it's not really about "color" other than as an analogy; green looks different than blue, and A sounds different than B, and I can name them both. For me it's all about frequency, not timbre; An A that has been pitch-shifted to an Ab sounds like an Ab, not an A. And the source of the sound (physical or synthetic) doesn't seem to matter either.

This trick has come in handy for me as a musician (it's real easy to jump in when you can tell what key something is in) and as an engineer (it makes it easier to communicate with the musicians.) I view it as mostly a parlor trick though.

For me, it is "perfect enough" in that I can tell the pitch of something I hear as long as it is reasonably well in tune. Where things fall apart is when something (or an entire band) is tuned a quarter-tone off; then I get uncomfortable. But I couldn't tell you if something was five cents flat or sharp, for example. Once, when I had a high fever and my time sense was distorted, my pitch sense was off as well. Kind of makes sense.

Daniel Levitin's excellent book, "This Is Your Brain On Music" has a section on the supposed rarity of "perfect pitch." He designed a ridiculously simple experiment--have a series of subjects sing their favorite popular song. What he found was that a large fraction of them could reproduce a song within a semitone in pitch and a fairly small range in tempo. While not the same as pitch naming, this does indicate that most people have a pretty accurate sense of absolute frequency, which seems to be what perfect pitch is based upon.

What most people lack is the music theory and knowledge to actually put names to what they can hear and reproduce. (Great book, BTW.)

[dcollins]

Originally Posted by dkatz42

Daniel Levitin's excellent book, "This Is Your Brain On Music" has a section on the supposed rarity of "perfect pitch." He designed a ridiculously simple experiment--have a series of subjects sing their favorite popular song. What he found was that a large fraction of them could reproduce a song within a semitone in pitch and a fairly small range in tempo. While not the same as pitch naming, this does indicate that most people have a pretty accurate sense of absolute frequency, which seems to be what perfect pitch is based upon.

What most people lack is the music theory and knowledge to actually put names to what they can hear and reproduce. (Great book, BTW.)

Yes, highly recommended. He is a guy that has been in both recording studios and serious academia, which is a rare combination.

Amazon.com: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession: Books: Daniel J. Levitin

DC

[jamsmith]

I have a strange kind of "perfect pitch". I can't identify a note to save my life. But if I tune my guitar from slack, its always within a couple of cents of dead on.

But...

It doesn't always end up E. Years ago it would come up as F,E, or Eb

Now its always E or Eb. And that may be because I always keep different guitars in both those keys. All guitarist have to develop some kind of relative pitch as they bend notes and have to hear when the notes are in tune. Being a huge Albert King fan, Mr. Microtonal Bends himself, I had a lot more notes to learn!

[sleepytownryan]

any decent mastering engineer can identify a frequency range. 100hz sounds quite different from 200hz, etc. however, it's not a profession that would influence perfect pitch. it's not always necessary to even know the key of a song in a mastering project although there are advantages to having that information.

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by jamsmith

I have a strange kind of "perfect pitch". I can't identify a note to save my life. But if I tune my guitar from slack, its always within a couple of cents of dead on.

This is pretty common as you develop a kind of memory for pitch color for the instrument you play all the time. Piano players often are able to recognize the exact pitches on their own instrument. But that's different from perfect pitch which isn't bound to a color/timbre/specific instrument.

I agree with lucey, having perfect pitch in a rock/pop enviroment probably is a very painful experience!

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

Some individuals hear certain frequencies and associate colours with them, and some just simply know what the frequency is without necessarily associating a colour with it. For example, they may hear an A natural (440) and associate the colour blue with it. Or, they may just instictively recognise it as being A.

What if something were originally recorded in A but then pitch-shifted more to Ab: would it maintain its A colour or would it simply sound like Ab (and have whatever colour associated to that)?

It's really not a pitch thing per se. The reason why it definitely would NOT maintain its color for reasons that the values of the formants of the material would change, the relationships of the fundamentals to harmonics. A singer has a particular sound because the shape of the resonance chamber of his mouth. If you change the pitch, you move his fundamental resonance up or down and he doesn't sound like himself. The harmonics as well, and not in a linear relationship.

BK

[BouncyJones]

Respect to one and all who took the time to answer this thread. Proof positive what a great thing gearslutz is.

[jamsmith]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

This is pretty common as you develop a kind of memory for pitch color for the instrument you play all the time.

You may be right on with that. It also put a thought into my head that it might not be my ear at all, it my be my sense of tension (maybe also a factor in bending). I notice over the years as I string up a guitar (I rarely use a string winder unless in a hurry) I find that I get closer to proper pitch (tension) by feel before I even start to tune.

[djwaudio]

I don't have perfect pitch, though just for kicks I sang a low E, then went over to the guitar to see if I came close. It was close within a few cents. I have a definite memory of certain notes, particularly as they relate to guitar. I hear pitches as color and texture. I hear interval relationships as characters.

This gets challenged in a big way when the timbre of the instrument changes dramatically. It was obvious when I was in college taking ear training, doing transcriptions of continuos. Initially I had a hell of a time hearing what the mostly-out-of-tune pianos where playing. It sounds like chaos to me if the tone gets too complex, and makes it difficult to hear the notes and chord changes.

Since I never played piano to that point, it was foreign to my ear, and thus had to be learned.

We did have a fellow student with perfect pitch who was always irritated by the pitchy pianos. I would see her squirm while listening, but she always had the transcription on the first pass!

[audibell]

When I was taking singing lessons, I learned that my upper break, where my voice changed gear moving up toward falsetto, occurred at f5, more or less. Checking on the piano, it was never more than a semi-tone away. My highest note was d6, anything higher just didn't happen. So when looking at the music, I could hold a finger in one ear, find either of the two "known" notes and then transpose to the note I was supposed to enter on; only because it was still a semi-tone either way I couldn't rely on it to make an exposed entrance. but it was in the ballpark. I knew a woman who had "fixed" pitch but it wasn't concert pitch so the orchestra was always "off" to her. I think her A was around 420 and she found it difficult to match her pitch with anyone else, with miserable results. She teaches piano now, I think.

[rhgg2]

Whilst a bit of the variations in "colour" between different keys comes from their interactions with the formants, I think most of it is a hangover from the time of non-equal temperaments, when different keys genuinely did have different colours because they were tuned differently. E.g. C major = triumphant because its major thirds are actually in tune and so more euphonic. In these days of 100 cents a semitone it's just the weight of history perpetuating this.

Having said that, certain things fall under the fingers in certain keys on certain instruments which don't in others so I guess some of the "colour" also comes from the way this predisposes the harmonic structure.

Richard

[zacheus83]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

Some individuals hear certain frequencies and associate colours with them, and some just simply know what the frequency is without necessarily associating a colour with it. For example, they may hear an A natural (440) and associate the colour blue with it. Or, they may just instictively recognise it as being A.

What if something were originally recorded in A but then pitch-shifted more to Ab: would it maintain its A colour or would it simply sound like Ab (and have whatever colour associated to that)?

Sorry if this question has already been answered (I stopped reading when I read this post)

I was born with perfect pitch, though I didn't realize it until I was 16. Until then, I assumed everyone was born with it. At the time, I associated colors to each note, but over the next 2 years, I learned how to call the notes by standard names (C#, B-flat, etc...).

I have been tested by professors, teachers, conductors, and even friends and have found that I am able to identify all 88 notes on a piano with 100% accuracy no matter the time, place, instrument, or any other conditions (sometimes the low B-flat and A notes give me hell when the piano is out of tune). All of the people I have met who have perfect pitch identify the notes as colors, emotions, or even numbers and from there will translate the information into standard piano note names. I have also learned to identify all 3 note chords by name and can pick apart up to 7 notes played simultaneously (though I don't know some of the proper names, like A-flat suspended 9th etc...)

Here is my color spectrum:
C - blue (aqua)
C# - brown
D - blue (deep)
D# - gold
E - violet
F - red
F#- purple
G - light blue (sometimes white)
G#- orange
A - blue (with a black mixture)
A#- orange/brown
B - black (with a dark blue mixture)

I find it interesting that most of the colors I see are either a shade of blue, or a shade of brown/orange/gold.

To somewhat answer your question about frequencies: Just as every individual note has a color, every key signature, chord structure, and song has multiple colors throughout, but only one or two combined colors at a time based on what chord is happening. I am familiar with many pop and hip-hop recordings where the producer will speed up a sample. When I hear a song that has been sped up considerably (like a song originally in D major changed to F Major), the song will sound like it belongs in the new key color-wise. BUT, when a song shifted slightly, that's when things get interesting.

I know a song that was originally in C minor but was pitch shifted to a pitch "in-between" C minor and C# minor (like changing A 440 to A 446). I could actually tell that the song was shifted because the song sounded pinkish-green; which is not a color in my color palette that I am used to hearing. When I tried to play the song on the piano, my perfect pitch was fooled into thinking the song was in C minor, when it was actually closer to C# minor. C minor sounds orange and dark green while C# minor sounds easily black and purple. Another thing that I realized while listening to that particular song, is that songs pitch shifted "in-between" traditional key signatures sound more "exciting" and edgy than normal because of the different "colors" it produces to my ears. That's why sometimes "Pop" songs will sound more pleasing on the radio, even with the loss of sound quality compared to the CD, when the DJ speeds the song up between a half or whole step.

Anyways, sorry for the long post (this is my first post), and hope this helps someone!
Feel free to ask me any questions!

[Jerry Tubb]

Originally Posted by zacheus83

Feel free to ask me any questions!

What about the reverse scenario ? Do you hear music when you look at colors?

If you were to see several colored sheets of paper arranged in sequence, would the associated melody appear in your minds ear?

Just curious (I know kind of a goofy question)

Or for a more practical matter can you sing perfect pitches at will, without a reference?

i.e. sing a C#an octave above middle C in perfect intonation, then jump to an Ab below middle C?

JT

[dkatz42]

Originally Posted by zacheus83

I find it interesting that most of the colors I see are either a shade of blue, or a shade of brown/orange/gold.

Interesting, it sounds like synesthesia. For me, the notes just sound like themselves--an A is an A, and it's different than a B, and it doesn't matter what instrument it's played on. No colors or numbers or anything else, just a frequency play.

When you talk about seeing colors, can you describe what this means? Is it sort of a "mind's-eye" vision, like remembering what a hammer looks like, or is this in your actual visual field?

[zacheus83]

Originally Posted by Jerry Tubb

What about the reverse scenario ? Do you hear music when you look at colors?

If you were to see several colored sheets of paper arranged in sequence, would the associated melody appear in your minds ear?

Just curious (I know kind of a goofy question)

Or for a more practical matter can you sing perfect pitches at will, without a reference?

i.e. sing a C#an octave above middle C in perfect intonation, then jump to an Ab below middle C?

JT

Hello JT. No, I don't hear music when I visually look at colors with my eyes. However, when I use my minds eye and think of a place, painting, or some time of rich visual, I typically can associate music to match. For example, I have been asked on numerous occasions to envision a beach or a rainy day and produce music matching the visual and emotions you would expect if you were actually "there". I think that this type of visual is more or less typical with most musicians, and has very little to do with my perfect pitch. Another way to answer this question is to say that my perfect pitch travels in "one direction" from sound to color to description and not from color to sound.

In terms of singing perfect pitch, I am able to sing any note (in my voice range of course) without a reference. Intervals are no challenge at all. However, when I am sick, I have noticed that my intonation may be flat a few cents here and there.

Originally Posted by dkatz42

Interesting, it sounds like synesthesia. For me, the notes just sound like themselves--an A is an A, and it's different than a B, and it doesn't matter what instrument it's played on. No colors or numbers or anything else, just a frequency play.

When you talk about seeing colors, can you describe what this means? Is it sort of a "mind's-eye" vision, like remembering what a hammer looks like, or is this in your actual visual field?

Hello d katz, I have never heard of synesthesia. i will definitely check that out later tonight.

It's definitely a minds eye vision. Imagine feeling the vibration of a note on your body and sort of absorbing the note through some sort of medium. My particular way of absorbing the note is by translating it into light frequencies on a color spectrum. It's just that this translation happens automatically, as long as I can remember all the way from birth. From there it's up to me to describe it according to traditional standards.

I plan to do quite a bit more research and share what I find!

[BouncyJones]

Thanks for your fascinating posts zacheus. When you discussed hearing a sample that had been pitch shifted and the colours and energy involved with it: that was exactly what I was looking for in my original post. Most interesting stuff.

Originally Posted by zacheus83

Hello d katz, I have never heard of synesthesia. i will definitely check that out later tonight.

Please check out this composer – Alexander Scriabin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prometheus: The Poem of Fire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a specific section in the wiki on his synesthesia. You might find it interesting to see how your colour spectrum lines up with his. To listen to his work, you can go to naxos.com and listen for free for fifteen minutes (which should be enough).

Thanks again!

[zacheus83]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

There is a specific section in the wiki on his synesthesia. You might find it interesting to see how your colour spectrum lines up with his. To listen to his work, you can go to naxos.com and listen for free for fifteen minutes (which should be enough).

Thanks again!

Hello Bouncy. According to the wikipedia report, Scriabin didn't actually have perfect pitch or synesthesia and the colors he attributed to each note was based on the circle of fifths. I am sure that different people who experience tone to color synesthesia (including myself) base the colors off of things they experienced in their childhood, which would result in a non-uniform/universal color system. In other words, I'm sure that most other synesthetes see the note F as some other color than red, while I do see it as red.

[aleatoric]

Two! Two have perfect pitch, i will tell you who they are if you tell me how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop!

[dkatz42]

Originally Posted by zacheus83

In terms of singing perfect pitch, I am able to sing any note (in my voice range of course) without a reference. Intervals are no challenge at all.

When you hear a random piece of music, can you tell what key it is in, name the chord sequence, that sort of thing?

My sense of pitch isn't particularly exact (in terms of singing within a few cents), but I know what notes/chords/key I'm hearing. Makes it handy to jump in as a bass player, and it made quick work of transcribing the changes on songs back in the days when we were doing covers.

[illynoise]

So am I that un artistic because I don't see any color at all? People have told me this, and I just don't understand color and music.

[zacheus83]

Originally Posted by dkatz42

When you hear a random piece of music, can you tell what key it is in, name the chord sequence, that sort of thing?

My sense of pitch isn't particularly exact (in terms of singing within a few cents), but I know what notes/chords/key I'm hearing. Makes it handy to jump in as a bass player, and it made quick work of transcribing the changes on songs back in the days when we were doing covers.

D Katz, if you can tell in the middle of a song what chord is