Theremin and Irish Jig

"I disagree that the gift of "perfect pitch" can be written off as nothing but an ego booster for those with a need to feel exceptional. Probably a lot more people claim to have it than actually DO have it, but that does not mean PP is simply the figment of over-inflated, needy imaginations."  - coalport

Very sorry, I wasn't being clear, but I actually agree 100% with you.  I'm pretty sure there is something to it, but it is so obscured by ego and such that it is difficult to know what that is.  AP is unfortunately one of those "feather in the cap" superman kinds of things for musicians.  The studies I linked to seem to fully accept it as a real thing - their activities are directed at understanding the boundaries / limitations of it.  As with most things, the real knowledge is likely contained in the nuances / deviance from the ideal.

I've definitely heard/read people bragging about all kinds of things which I've thought unlikely, both on the web and in real life. Not that those things aren't possible, but some claimants seemed just to be... fronting. *laugh* Music forums definitely aren't immune to that.

Fortunately, I'm not too worried about posing on a website. I'm only doing the work because I think it will be useful. If I develop a better pitch memory, awesome!

If not, and I'm bragging in spite of not having things down, it will be me who looks/sounds awful when I play (even if only in private, because I dare not expose my posturing), and I'll know it It won't matter how much I posture, because I'll have nowhere to hide from awareness of my own ineptitude.

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Geez... all this discussion ensuing from me working a course, in a topic about a "jig" from a video game... *laugh*

<< What follows is a longwinded technical / medical ramble, not related to theremins! >>

My interest in PP is pehaps driven more by curiosity than anything else.. I spent much of my working life involved with medical electronics, and a substantial part of this time in researching how sensory data was processed.. I was fairly low in the "system" at first, largely just devising the electronics to measure things like the frequency at thich a flashing indicator appeared continuous (flicker Fusion Frequency) and producing low distortion equipment to measure audiological functions..

I moved from this to more complex audio equipment for theraputic work - One of things I was most pleased with was a breathing sound synthesiser - it was noted that babies and infants (under the age of 2) with severe breathing problems, would often "fight" the ventillator - their weak but natural breathing patterns were assynchronous to that of the ventilator.. It was known that healthy infants often synchronise the the breathing patterns of of other humans (parents or siblings primarily) in the same room, but they did not seem to do this so easily to the sound of a ventilator.

I built a breath sound synthesiser which synchronised to the ventilator, and was cranked up so it was louder than the sound from the ventilator - The result was a huge improvement in the childrens breathing..

The idea that there MIGHT be some fundamental ELF to which we are predisposed - and the chance that IF we were to loosely synchronise medical equipment to this, it MIGHT improve  the performance of said equipment / peoples response to the equipment (ventilators, pacemakers etc) interests me..

Which brings me to PP.. Any individual who can "produce" a repeatable pitch where the frequency is accurate must, I think, have some stable "reference clock" - For me, the question is what the source of this "clock" might be.. Is it "local" and this individual simply has a better one than others - Or is it external, from some source which is intrinsically stable..

And this discussion has also got me wondering about PP vs TM .. Some one with accurate TM, who can, from memory of a note in a song, exactly identify or hum that note, must I think either have an accurate "local clock"  - Or have access to an "external clock", from some source which is intrinsically stable.

The actual pitch / frequency of this note is IMO unimportant - its the fact that there is a mechanism to provide any stable consistant mental pitch which interests me.. In this context, PP and TM may be similar - The PP may "simply" have "produced" a full set of "notes" and degree variants of these "notes" (as in, the ability to know how many cents deviance the sound they hear from these "notes") wheras the TM has only encoded a few "notes" and may be able, from these, to produce notes reletive to this reference...

But in both cases I think there MIGHT be a common "Master Reference"... I do not actually see any mechanism in our "meat computer" that could be "frequency stable" (And I am NOT saying that this means anything, There may well be some highly tuned HF generator based on quantum resonances or whatever, for all I know) - It seems that with our fluctuations of biochemistry etc, it is more likely that any stable reference is something 'outside' that we tune to.

Fred.

Fred wrote: And this discussion has also got me wondering about PP vs TM .. Some one with accurate TM, who can, from memory of a note in a song, exactly identify or hum that note, must I think either have an accurate "local clock"  - Or have access to an "external clock", from some source which is intrinsically stable.

Like some others on this list, I have very good "tonal memory" but do not have Perfect Pitch. In my own case, TM seems to have an emotional component to it. When I hear a performance in my musical memory of a composition that I have known for decades, it comes with a whole slew of emotions and recollections. It is similar to recalling the image of someone you love, or have loved in the past. All sorts of things come with it that seem to reinforce the experience. 

Tonal Memory does not seem to be isolated - at least for me it doesn't. It is part of a whole package of things that reinforce one another and that take me back to a time when I listened regularly to the composition. This allows me to reconstitute the experience, relive it and rehear it in the present moment, complete with accuracy of pitch.

I guess what I am suggesting here is that several different parts of the brain may be involved in the accurate re-creation of the musical experience.  

I'd be inclined to imagine PP recalibrating constantly as one gets older, so that pitch perception changes in the way that one adjusts to the increasing length of one's limbs during puberty. If one is in a culture where music is present, that might be enough for someone to readjust while their brain becomes less plastic, more set in its ways.

I've always wondered if humans all perceive colors in the same way, or if at the brain level one person's internal experience of "red" might match someone else's internal experience of "yellow." I suspect that rather than our sensory apparatus and brains matching, we instead calibrate our language so the same input gets the same description across a variety of people... or close to it. You still have variations, sometimes due to severe light exposure (in very sunny places, green sometimes gets lumped in as blue, because of the inability of the eye to perceive a difference due to damage).

Anyway, I think that pitch, like color, gets recalibrated and reinforced over a lifetime.

"I've definitely heard/read people bragging about all kinds of things which I've thought unlikely, both on the web and in real life. Not that those things aren't possible, but some claimants seemed just to be... fronting."  -Explorer

And they often treat you like you're the unreasonable one when you dare question any of it.  One would think onus would be on them to back up their somewhat fantastic claims with the requisite fantastic evidence, particularly if they put any personal stock in them.

The cochlea is full of hair cells tied to a bundle of nerves, and even has a positive feedback mechanism that mechanically amplifies low level sounds (otoacoustic emissions can evidently be picked up by a microphone placed in the ear canal) so sky's the limit on what it might be capable of.  But if the ability in question isn't a commonly held one then the rest of us might need a little help believing it.

Ah! I didn't think PP/AP and tonal memory were still on the table as to whether they were actual observed phenomena.

If I did think someone was proposing they weren't, then the extraordinary proof needed would be that all those well-documented and peer-reviewedresearch papers from independent bodies were part of some huge conspiracy.

To be clear, are you proposing that PP is not an observed phenomenon?

"To be clear, are you proposing that PP is not an observed phenomenon?"  - Explorer

Not at all.  Please ignore me, I'm feeling a bit cranky lately.

"I guess what I am suggesting here is that several different parts of the brain may be involved in the accurate re-creation of the musical experience. " - Coalport

Oh, I fully agree and empathise with your expieriences..

But its the "reference" for these mental "notes" which intrigues me.. (the other aspects,such as emotional / memory effects etc are even more facinating though ;-) ..

"Ah! I didn't think PP/AP and tonal memory were still on the table as to whether they were actual observed phenomena." - Explorer

I believe they have been reliably observed - but am not sure to what degree they have been scientifically quantified - For example, has anyone ever subjected PP's to a tone a few cents out, and had them declare the error - I know experiments have shown that some people can hear a CHANGE in pitch of less than 1 cent - but I wonder how much error someone with PP or similar affliction (LOL ;-) is needed on an invariant tone, for this to be recognised, let alone quantified.

"But if the ability in question isn't a commonly held one then the rest of us might need a little help believing it." - Dewster

A bit funny really ;-) .. At the bottom line, whilst we may share some common sensory perceptions, I dont believe any of us can be SURE that any of our sensory expieriences are the same as that of anyone else.. Carry this through to our mental replication of these expieriences (like hearing music in our heads when so signals are present at the ears), and I think our differences are likely to be huge.

I think it extremely unlikely that I "see" mental "photographs" in the way my STB-Ex-wife does - she can look at something and go home and paint it, whereas I cannot even see it "in my mind" ... But I can hear the waves and the wind playing in my mind after ive visited a beach.. I can hear full orchestas in my head......  But I cannot know if what I hear in my head is anything like what anyone else hears in their head..... What I hear may be weak and washy compared to what anyone / everyone else hears.

As a child,  I had a great puzzle once - After the lights went out and it was really dark, I had dreams which were filled with light.. I could not understand where this light came from, LOL ..

Fred.

Fred, having read the helpful posts of you and many others on this site over the years, I can assure you that you were directly observing your generosity of spirit.