Absolute Pitch Education

[asker]

Is there anybody in here that has reached an ability that is comparable to real absolute pitch? Yes, you get better playing the game, but I don't think the result is comparable to someone that really has absolute pitch.

[aruffo]

I would be surprised if there were anyone here who has yet achieved the results you describe. Read the "how many years" thread. The ETC results won't be comparable to true absolute perception until they incorporate structural thinking.

[asker]

I see. I read some articles about perfect pitch and how the human brain works. It seems like the ability to AP is "optimized" away as a child when the low-level frequency information is unused. Like the inability to learn a new accent when one is an adult, it seems to be very hard if not impossible to learn AP as an adult.
If there is a way to learn it, one has to make it clear to the brain that the raw frequency information is somewhat useful. I think the APB approach is not bad, but it just trains the ability to recognize a certain pitch that you've heard a few seconds before... Anyway. Wouldn't it be better to have an addictive game that would play some tunes that would be somehow useful to win the game? And the only way to become really good in the game would be to recognize the pitch.

I have managed to recognize "A" and "C" out of 3x12 notes without memorizing a melody or similar by using the weights method; where at a first stage, a certain note is played more often than others and by reducing this increased probability. Surprisingly, I was able to learn those two notes quite fast. Now, if I play all 3x12 notes completely randomly, I am able to tell which is a C and which is an A quickly without thinking. But somehow, I lose this ability after making breaks. After the break, I need a few "confirmed hits" of A's and C's to be able to recognize them again. I wonder if practiced often enough, it will become unnecessary to have these "confirmed hits".

[aruffo]

Dear me.. I guess the best thing I could say to this'un is to suggest that you check out the rest of the research on the main website.. anything I could say is pretty much in among all of that..!

[etaxier]

Asker -- I understand and up until very recently agreed with that 'temporary memorization' feeling you mention. That's one reason why I think Chris should write a "progress scale" somewhere in the game's directions.

The first pitch (and the demo) is just that -- listening carefully for one pitch until it eventually gets temporarily stuck in your head.

The second pitch-level has both G and C, and for some reason temporary memory extends to a couple hours (at least for me).

The reason, I think, is that you aren't really learning to memorize the pitches, but to memorize a way to compare them with each other. I now notice when airplanes are closer to a C than a G (or vice-versa), and that practically every annoying buzzing light out there (not to mention my refrigerator) is a Bb, and so on, and that's just at "Blue Major."

The results so far lead me to speculate that I'll end up posting far better results when I'm dealing with a few more notes.

As far as the research goes, Chris has posted something like, "there are no documented cases of adults getting and retaining AP." In a way, then, this project is a very cleverly constructed long-term experiment that hypothesizes AP learning might be possible by replacing the normal memorization emphasis (like statistically using one or two notes more than others, for instance) with controlled and graduated comparison drills. Sounds pretty exciting to me!