Perfect Pitch?

[Dirigible]

There's a picture of Page tuning his guitar backstage with a harmonica clamped between his teeth on page 24 of TANGENTS WITHIN A FRAMEWORK. That's photographic evidence Page probably didn't have perfect pitch. And Percy? I'm not sayin' a word.

[docron]

To tell you the truth, I didn't even know this "phenomena" had a name lol, but I guess I have it... I never thought anything of it other than "I don't understand why people just cannot do this"...

and really... how can people not do this? Its not particularly hard. I always thought it had more to do with memory.

[Dirigible]

... how can people not do this? Its not particularly hard. I always thought it had more to do with memory.

With perfect pitch someone should (ideally) be able sing any song in key, even with monitor problems in a boomy auditorium.

Or (ideally) guitarists would be able to tune to someone singing a note: "Yo, man! Gimme a G."

Wikipedia defines it as absolute pitch, or perfect pitch, is "the ability to identify the frequency or musical name of a specific tone, or, conversely, the ability to produce some designated frequency, frequency level, or musical pitch without comparing the tone with any objective reference tone."

To do that, mon ami, is a bee-yotch. =)

[docron]

With perfect pitch someone should (ideally) be able sing any song in key, even with monitor problems in a boomy auditorium.

Or (ideally) guitarists would be able to tune to someone singing a note: "Yo, man! Gimme a G."

Wikipedia defines it as absolute pitch, or perfect pitch, is "the ability to identify the frequency or musical name of a specific tone, or, conversely, the ability to produce some designated frequency, frequency level, or musical pitch without comparing the tone with any objective reference tone."

To do that, mon ami, is a bee-yotch. =)

Oh lol, I must've mis-read the post... I don't think I can go that far... I just thought it was being able to match what someone is playing...

Like I mean, if I were to start singing Pagey's guitar solo in How Many More Times from 1969-04-27 or something without it (or anything else) around to reference off of, I'm quite positive I could hit it... but I guess only if I could hear myself... I can't imagine doing it with monitor problems in a boomy auditorium.

[Dirigible]

LOL, docron.

Two things lots of musicians do not have is perfect pitch and . . . perfect time.

That's why there's tuning forks and click tracks.

[andrew]

I can tune my guitar without a tuning fork or tuner, BUT I can only do it for notes EADGB. I sure as hell don't have perfect pitch, but I've tuned my guitar enough times, played these notes open enough and heard them enough that the pitches are more or less ingrained in my memory. Same with many songs which I've heard so many times that I could more or less sing them in key without need of a reference note.

However, if someone was at a piano and randomly played a C# and asked me to name it, I would have no earthly idea!

[Dirigible]

I can tune my guitar without a tuning fork or tuner, BUT I can only do it for notes EADGB. I sure as hell don't have perfect pitch, but I've tuned my guitar enough times, played these notes open enough and heard them enough that the pitches are more or less ingrained in my memory. Same with many songs which I've heard so many times that I could more or less sing them in key without need of a reference note.

However, if someone was at a piano and randomly played a C# and asked me to name it, I would have no earthly idea!

Page probably uses the trusty ol' tuner for GADDAD.

[Dancin'Days]

All this is over my head! All I know is you can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish.

[tang991]

Interesting thoughts and new information (new to this thread at least ):

First off I must define what "neuroplasticity" means. "Neuroplasticity" is a process through which the brain 'prunes' it's neurons; that is, the brain takes neurons that have become unneeded in certain regions of the brain and puts them to use in other regions of the brain. This happens throughout life but is especially active during the early-to-mid-pubescent and pre-pubescent years. (Interestingly, it has been shown through fMRI that some eastern monks have mastered neuroplasticity, a normally uncontrollable, naturally occuring phenomenon, to the point where they can shrink the pain-receptive regions of their minds to the point of near-nonexistance; i.e. they have physically altered their brains so that they no longer feel pain!)

Secondly, scientific research has shown that infants over a certain age (I'm not sure how old, but it must be at least 6 months because before this age it is thought that all senses are melded into a single, euphoric acid-trip of sorts) all have a subtle form of perfect pitch. In other words, ALL humans that aren't born with certain brain disorders are capable of having Perfect Pitch by nurturing the proper area of the brain.

Now to put these two facts together, and to the point of this thread entry:

In people with Absolute or Perfect Pitch, a small region of the Auditory Cortex (the region chiefly responsible for processing any sort of sound [not specifically musical sound]) known as the "Planum Temporale" is larger than in people who don't have Absolute Pitch. Because of what an individual's genes may cause their personal neuroplasticity to do, it may be that some people can only learn perfect pitch by using the same mental exercises as the monks (exercises which are unknown to me [sorry to all of you aspiring monks and Perfect Pitch-ees]); that is, they must combat what their genes are telling their brain to do and either retain or regrow this area of their brain. This would also be a reason why some people naturally have Perfect Pitch; their genes are coded so that their natural neuroplasticity assists in the growth of the Planum Temporale (the area responsible for Perfect Pitch).

It is then perfectly plausible to say that everyone on the earth who does not have certain auditorily-inhibiting brain disorders is capable of teaching themselves Perfect Pitch at any stage in their life. Through literally mind-altering meditation and mental exercises, it is possible for us all to grow and shape our brain to have this wonderful gift.

So then my fellow music afficionados and Zeppelinites...

Get to it!

[tang991]

This is a bump and some proof for those of you who maybe doubted my far-out claims:

From Wikipedia:

The Dalai Lama invited Richard Davidson, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior to his home in Dharamsala, India, in 1992 after learning about Davidson's innovative research into the neuroscience of emotions. Could the simple act of thinking change the brain? Most scientists believed this idea to be false, but they agreed to test the theory. One such experiment involved a group of eight Buddhist monk adepts and ten volunteers who had been trained in meditation for one week in Davidson's lab. All the people tested were told to meditate on compassion and love. Two of the controls, and all of the monks, experienced an increase in the number of gamma waves in their brain during meditation. As soon as they stopped meditating, the volunteers' gamma wave production returned to normal, while the monks, who had meditated on compassion for more than 10,000 hours in order to attain the rank of adept, did not experience a decrease to normal in the gamma wave production after they stopped meditating. The synchronized gamma wave area of the monks' brains during meditation on love and compassion was found to be larger than that corresponding activation of the volunteers' brains. Davidson's results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, 2004 and TIME recognized Davidson as one of the ten most influential people in 2006 on the basis of his research

and some further links:

http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/links/

[Cactus]

Or (ideally) guitarists would be able to tune to someone singing a note: "Yo, man! Gimme a G."

I thought that that was tuning to a reference tone. "Relative tuning." You take a note known to be a certain frequency (an E for example) and adjust the tension of the string, listening to the phase oscillations until you are in tune.

Tuning a guitar with perfect pitch would be adjusting the string tension until it is correct, without any reference notes at all.

[tang991]

I thought that that was tuning to a reference tone. "Relative tuning." You take a note known to be a certain frequency (an E for example) and adjust the tension of the string, listening to the phase oscillations until you are in tune.

Tuning a guitar with perfect pitch would be adjusting the string tension until it is correct, without any reference notes at all.

Indeed.

[Sugarplum]

It was Your Time is Gonna Come.

The G-string was also flat on Stairway on TSRTS soundtrack.

Okay I'm done.

I was just reading an interview with Jimmy this evening, in which he said:

"I use pedal steel in 'Your Time is Gonna Come'. It sounds like a slide or something. It's more out of tune on the first album because I hadn't got a kit to put it together." So at least he realized it was out of tune.. probably not at the time it was recorded though? I have no idea whether or not he has perfect pitch. Needless to say, whatever he did worked, though:)

What an interesting thread.. I personally try to use Ev's technique often, where I will search for a specific key by matching it to a memorized pitch in a song I know well. I don't know if I can claim to have perfect pitch.. but that's the way I usually try to go about it.