[maxov]

I agree, the scientific consensus appears to be that absolute pitch cannot be developed after a certain age, and that this age is related to the 'prime' language acquisition ages. Tonal language speakers (e.g. Mandarin) have absolute pitch with higher frequency, possibly because their ears have needed to train to distinguish tones in this critical period.

As someone with absolute pitch, I should say I have not found it musically useful, and I would hesitate recommending people train for it even if it was possible. When I was learning to play jazz, it was actually a major crutch for me. For jazz especially, the modes, chords, progressions, and relationships between tones are really important and are what determines the 'color' of what you're playing. Harmony in general is determined by the relationships between tones, not the absolute tones themselves (mostly - there are of course differences in sound playing three octaves up or down), and an ear for absolute pitch doesn't help much there at all.

I could use absolute pitch to identify chords and modes, but it didn't help me 'think' about and play within them the way relative pitch does. A good ear for relative pitch, and an understanding of harmony go much farther.

[castillar76]

Yep. Classmate of mine in university had absolute pitch, and while it was useful for some things, it was a liability in several places. For one thing, she played flute: everyone tunes to the oboe, so if the oboist is a few cents sharp everyone's a few cents sharp and she spends the evening wincing while playing. Further, when we got to the 'ear dictation' section of music theory class (professor plays a melodic sequence and you have to write it down based on the relative pitches), she made the mistake of letting on she had absolute pitch. From then on, the professor would say, "OK, this melody starts on F" and then start it on Ab instead, forcing her to do the relative calculations in her head. Didn't bother the rest of us, but drove her absolutely up the wall.

[todd8]

An ex girlfriend of mine was a professional oboe player and conspicuously used an electronic tuner when tuning an orchestra (it was a bit smaller than a deck of playing cards). She did this to prevent complaints from other musicians. She claimed that the violinists liked the “brighter” sound of their instruments when tuned a bit sharp.

[kelnos]

> Tonal language speakers (e.g. Mandarin) have absolute pitch with higher frequency

This is interesting, because a tonal language like Mandarin does not care about absolute pitch; it's all relative. For example, 1st tone is a (usually higher) flat tone. But it doesn't matter what pitch you use. 2nd tone is a rising tone, but it doesn't matter what pitch you start at or end at; it just matters that the two pitches differ enough that your listener can tell that there was a change, and that it was rising.

I wonder why that sort of thing also leads to a higher prevalence of absolute pitch.

[toolslive]

There are several recorded cases of people acquiring perfect pitch late in life as a result of getting _tinnitus_. So what they do is learn the frequency of their 'ring' and map everything from there. I guess some people would call that cheating.

[mofeien]

I have a very low pitched tinnitus around 345 Hz (a little below F4 = 349 Hz), and by deliberately contracting some jaw/ear muscles (I believe stapedius and tensor tympani) the sound gets much more pronounced.

While it helps with starting on the right note when singing a song and deriving single pitches, it by no means makes me instantly know a note's pitch like someone with perfect pitch would experience. I still have to derive pitches manually, and while singing the sound of my voice is loud enough that I don't hear the tinnintus anymore and I often don't notice my singing going slightly out of tune.

I do have the ability to recognize relative pitches in relation to e. g. accompaniment playing in a given key, and this recognition is automatic in a way that the derive-from-tinnitus definitely isn't.

Also sometimes the tinnitus goes out of tune down to almost E4, this sucks.

[Bud]

It's not "cheating", but it's also not absolute pitch, by definition.

Absolute pitch (or perfect pitch) is the ability to identify a note without having any memory aid or reference tone to compare it to.

So if you have a constantly-present reference tone, due to tinnitus, and you figure everything out based on the interval from that tone, that's simple relative pitch and the ability to figure out intervals. Not perfect pitch.

[maxov]

Sure, that seems reasonable, although likely a different mechanism than the one I’m talking about, which seems to come from early life language acquisition. I think when people discuss absolute pitch, this is the type they have in mind, because using tinnitus is still using a reference tone. I believe there were early theories for absolute pitch around this idea (that those with absolute pitch used tinnitus to help them identify tones), but they have been made obsolete by more recent knowledge.

I have tinnitus as well, and while it is very mild, I am surprised at the idea it can be ‘stable’ enough to form a basis for absolute pitch. Most of the time I don’t experience it as a pitch layered on top of all other sounds. Even if I focus on it, it doesn’t feel like a sound that can be given a clear singular tone, if that makes sense. I do know experience of tinnitus varies, so perhaps there are forms that are more capable.

[hultner]

Wow I might have tinnitus, I read the yesterday night and was thinking I do often have ringing in my ears at night, it usually fades away during the day (or maybe get's filtered out by my brain). Tried mapping the tone I heard, at first I thought it was F#7 but after trying a pitch higher, F#8 it was obvious that it's the tone I'm hearing.

[akeck]

A friend of mine has a teenager who developed perfect pitch in middle school. Their first language is English, but they are learning Mandarin very rapidly (along with 2-3 other Chinese dialects).

[ThomPete]

he didnt develop it he already had it

[est]

> Tonal language speakers (e.g. Mandarin) have absolute pitch with higher frequency, possibly because their ears have needed to train to distinguish tones in this critical period.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/speaking-tonal-la...

[Hoasi]

> As someone with absolute pitch, I should say I have not found it musically useful

True. Perfect pitch can indeed prevent you from appreciating some kinds of music that become too predictable, too fast.

[Bud]

Any music that was "predictable" in the way you mean would be just as predictable for any trained musician with decent pitch memory and musical memory. Perfect pitch has absolutely nothing to do with this.

[gabereiser]

Or purposefully recorded at 432hz instead of 440hz... :(

[Bud]

Not true. Many professional musicians (like myself) routinely have to sing or play at various pitch levels: A=390Hz, A=415, A=420, A=430, A=435 or so, A=440, a bit sharp of 440 (European orchestras), etc. Many of those musicians have perfect pitch to varying degrees.

Having perfect pitch does not make it impossible, or even difficult, to "enjoy" music at varying pitches, etc.

[bjowen]

I think it depends on the musician. A couple of friends of mine struggle against their absolute pitch in historical pitch contexts (especially a notorious 19th century organ tuned to A450) and have to think in microtones, others just dial in and deal with it.

[viraptor]

Considering 432hz is not really wrong, just different, does it bother you when listening? Is it the same with microtonal music? Or performances in baroque pitch?

[colejohnson66]

It’s not “wrong” necessarily, but if you’re doing it intentionally, it’s probably because you believe that 432 is somehow better. Obviously, it’s possible to do it for satire reasons, but that’s not as common I would assume.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Great Highland Bagpipes tune to 475-480Hz as our low A. They're also a just-intonation instrument rather than equal tempered, but in a key that seems really weird if you play all 9 notes: it's really 3 pentatonic keys interwoven so the full scale sounds dissonant, but any of the pentatonic scales sounds fine. And there's some weirdness in what scales were chosen so that the melody notes don't cause dissonance with the drones.

http://publish.uwo.ca/~emacphe3/pipes/acoustics/pipescale.ht...

[viraptor]

> if you’re doing it intentionally, it’s probably because you believe that 432 is somehow better

Or cool in this specific case, or just different and fun. You can intentionally do 13ET as well because you want to, but without claiming it's somehow better. Or use many other choices...

[colejohnson66]

Im not denying that one would do it on purpose knowing there’s not really any benefits. I’m just coming from the view that there isn’t a practical difference between 432 and 440. 13TET, OTOH, gives you both another note in the octave and different pitch ratios.