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Mini: Perfect Pitch Perfect · Why We Do What We Do

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we Do Mini. I'm your
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Speaker 1: host Abraham, and I'm your host Shane. We are a
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Speaker 1: things at the end of this discussion. But we need
1:00
Speaker 1: to get into it because we're talking about baseball and
1:03
Speaker 1: the most perfect pitch of all time.
1:06
Speaker 2: Obviously, this is well within my wheelhouse.
1:10
Speaker 1: Yes, no, we're not. We're talking about perfect pitch for singing.
1:13
Speaker 1: So you've likely heard of people who have what you
1:15
Speaker 1: might call perfect pitch or maybe more accurately, absolute pitch. There,
1:20
Speaker 1: I think is another term for this, which is actually
1:22
Speaker 1: natural pitch. But anyway, these are people who can easily
1:26
Speaker 1: recognize or produce specific musical notes. So, for example, you
1:30
Speaker 1: could say, sing a B flat or make a singing
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Speaker 1: sound that was exactly a B flat, or if you
1:36
Speaker 1: played a B flat on a piano or on a guitar,
1:39
Speaker 1: they would be able to tell you what note it is.
1:41
Speaker 1: And that's what that means when we're talking about perfect
1:44
Speaker 1: or absolute pitch.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and many consider this to be a characteristic feature
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Speaker 3: of the world's best musicians, or possibly even necessary to
1:51
Speaker 3: be a musician at all.
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Speaker 2: Spoiler alert not huh.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but we'll describe what we do and we don't
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Speaker 3: know about what it is and how it comes about, like,
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Speaker 3: because it's a pretty interesting phenomenon.
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Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So perfect pitch, which as I said, is
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Speaker 1: also referred to as absolute pitch or natural pitch, It
2:07
Speaker 1: is difficult to define for a variety of reasons, mostly
2:10
Speaker 1: because as people have started talking about this idea of
2:13
Speaker 1: perfect pitch, various researchers over time have disagreed on the definition,
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Speaker 1: and so they've defined it and measured it in different ways,
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Speaker 1: and so we are unclear how well how prevalent it
2:26
Speaker 1: is and how much it exists, because some people call
2:28
Speaker 1: one thing perfect pitch, and another than group of researchers
2:31
Speaker 1: call it a different thing perfect pitch.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and some define perfect pitches the ability to simply
2:36
Speaker 3: identify a note that they hear. Some define it as
2:39
Speaker 3: being able to produce notes. But this could be the
2:41
Speaker 3: notes they're sung, or they could play it on an instrument.
2:43
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's all of those things. So like that's kind
2:46
Speaker 3: of where those discrepancies show up.
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Speaker 1: And that's just like you can just do it. Someone's
2:50
Speaker 1: like sing an F sharp and they would just do
2:53
Speaker 1: that thing or sing an A and they would be
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Speaker 1: able to sing that note, and if they played one,
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Speaker 1: they'd be able to tell you what note it was
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Speaker 1: that you played, no matter what octave it was in.
3:02
Speaker 1: That's the perfect pitch. There's also something called relative pitch,
3:05
Speaker 1: and that one's very similar. This one's being able to
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Speaker 1: identify or produce notes after you first have a reference notes,
3:12
Speaker 1: so someone will play a note, and then from there
3:15
Speaker 1: you would be able to sing, like if someone play
3:17
Speaker 1: to see you could then sing an e because you
3:19
Speaker 1: know the intervals between those notes. You just needed a
3:21
Speaker 1: reference one. First, most people who talk about like really
3:26
Speaker 1: high caliber musicians, they actually talk about this more because
3:30
Speaker 1: if you can do this, like, you can pretty much
3:33
Speaker 1: do anything that a perfect person with perfect pitch could do.
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Speaker 1: The only thing is they don't need the reference note,
3:38
Speaker 1: but anyone else could like literally pluck a note on
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Speaker 1: a string, and then anybody else who has relative pitch
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Speaker 1: is good to go, Like it's one second longer to
3:46
Speaker 1: do it than people who have like the ractural or
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Speaker 1: absolute pitch. And then there's also something called very fine
3:51
Speaker 1: perfect pitch apparently, which is someone who can tell if
3:54
Speaker 1: a note is even slightly over or under the exact
3:57
Speaker 1: four hundred and forty hrtz stand reference note that is used.
4:02
Speaker 1: So they're like really really fine discriminations for what that
4:06
Speaker 1: pitch is.
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Speaker 2: Right. This is also fascinating to me because I just
4:09
Speaker 2: don't have any of this.
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Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, same, but however you slice it, it is
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Speaker 3: responding in some way to music, such the person with
4:15
Speaker 3: absolute pitch, can respond with a higher than average level
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Speaker 3: of precision and find grain discrimination of those sounds.
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Speaker 2: It's estimated that only one in ten thousand people have
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Speaker 2: absolute pitch.
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Speaker 3: So the important feature here is that the person can
4:28
Speaker 3: discriminate these notes, these sounds and like very finally, yeah,
4:32
Speaker 3: to like small variations.
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Speaker 2: They can do this.
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Speaker 1: Yes, So if you've heard of this, you probably imagine
4:40
Speaker 1: if and you hear those numbers like one in ten thousand,
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Speaker 1: you're probably imagining this is purely genetic, right, like you
4:45
Speaker 1: are born with this or you are not, But this
4:48
Speaker 1: is just how some people are. And researchers had the
4:51
Speaker 1: same question. They also wanted to know, is this just
4:54
Speaker 1: something you're born with? Although disagreeing about how to define
4:58
Speaker 1: and measure their variable of interest has made at somewhat
5:00
Speaker 1: challenging to determine if it's something you're born with, But
5:03
Speaker 1: that was one of their starting questions. So let's dive
5:07
Speaker 1: into the idea that this might be something you're born with.
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Speaker 3: Yes, So shrewd listeners may have picked up on a
5:13
Speaker 3: few considerations. First of all, you have to be able
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Speaker 3: to detect musical notes to identify them, so you must
5:18
Speaker 3: have some amount of auditory acuity. Second, you have to
5:22
Speaker 3: have had some exposure to notes and ideally the names
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Speaker 3: of notes to be able to identify them in some capacity. Third,
5:28
Speaker 3: the notes as we have created and identified them are
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Speaker 3: actually arbitrary and cultural. So different cultures have different notes
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Speaker 3: in different systems of music. Cultural practices are learned by definition,
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Speaker 3: So any reference to musical notes depends on the culture
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Speaker 3: in which you experience those notes.
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Speaker 1: And so all that is to say, like you might
5:46
Speaker 1: be having a question like it's purely genetic. I'm like,
5:50
Speaker 1: how easily this comes to You might be informed by genes,
5:54
Speaker 1: but like your genes don't know what an a flat
5:57
Speaker 1: sounds like. They might be able to more clearly pick
6:01
Speaker 1: out different tones that you hear, like they might help
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Speaker 1: you like have that greater acuity, but like they don't
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Speaker 1: know what the notes are because we made up notes.
6:09
Speaker 1: We just we just decided that those word notes. So like,
6:12
Speaker 1: all that is to say, like those considerations that you
6:15
Speaker 1: just listed are if you're trying to shoehorn in the
6:18
Speaker 1: idea that this must be genetic, And I'm like, well,
6:21
Speaker 1: but music is cultural, so it cultural is learned like
6:26
Speaker 1: it is definitionally learned. It is a learned behavior. It
6:29
Speaker 1: is not something that is genetic. So like you have
6:32
Speaker 1: to have had exposure to those notes to be able
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Speaker 1: to then reference what those notes are. So like again,
6:41
Speaker 1: capacity might be the better way to think about if
6:44
Speaker 1: there is genes to the extent to which genes are involved,
6:47
Speaker 1: but exposure is literally completely necessary for you to ever
6:52
Speaker 1: develop this.
6:53
Speaker 3: I love that we brought up the idea of culture
6:55
Speaker 3: to cultural practices because that does depend. Like there are
6:57
Speaker 3: different systems and different like the reids of music that
7:00
Speaker 3: apply to culture. And it just kind of like how
7:02
Speaker 3: ads are, Like they just they're they're very specific and
7:05
Speaker 3: very cultural.
7:14
Speaker 1: All right, So we're back and so yes, like as
7:16
Speaker 1: I said, obviously genetics have to be involved. You have
7:19
Speaker 1: to have the capacity to determine the differences between those
7:23
Speaker 1: notes and you and to be able to do this
7:25
Speaker 1: with a high level of precision. So if your genes
7:28
Speaker 1: have not given you the capacity to learn that, then
7:31
Speaker 1: you won't learn that, but you so you have to
7:33
Speaker 1: have the genes, but then you have to have the
7:36
Speaker 1: opportunity to actually learn it as well, because there are
7:39
Speaker 1: that has to be at least partially learned.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So a nineteen ninety eight study surveyed six hundred
7:43
Speaker 3: musicians and reported that forty percent of musicians who started
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Speaker 3: training before four years old were able to develop absolute pitch,
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Speaker 3: compared to only three percent of people who started training
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Speaker 3: at nine years old or later. So further, people were
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Speaker 3: four times more likely to develop absolute pitch if they
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Speaker 3: were born to a family in which other members also
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Speaker 3: had perfect pitch.
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Speaker 1: So, first of all, I don't know what happened at
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Speaker 1: the gap between four and nine years old, but those
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Speaker 1: are the two numbers that I saw reported, but taken together,
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Speaker 1: the authors essentially conclude that perfect pitch is genetic because
8:13
Speaker 1: like people who start younger develop it, people who start
8:16
Speaker 1: later don't. That to me is a very weird argument
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Speaker 1: to make from those data, and it might be primarily genetic. Again,
8:23
Speaker 1: ensuring that, like the capacity is an incredibly important part
8:27
Speaker 1: of the of whether or not this ever develops. But
8:29
Speaker 1: they're missing an important set of numbers in there. So,
8:32
Speaker 1: like they say three percent, only three percent of people
8:35
Speaker 1: learned perfect pitch after they started training at the age
8:39
Speaker 1: of nine years old or higher. They learned it three percent,
8:44
Speaker 1: Like sure, those are people who did not demonstrate this
8:47
Speaker 1: ability and then learned it and then you're telling me
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Speaker 1: it's purely genetic. I'm like, those are opposite things, the
8:53
Speaker 1: things that you just said. And people were much more
8:55
Speaker 1: likely to have perfect pitch if born into a family
8:57
Speaker 1: that already had perfect pitch, which again means that some
9:00
Speaker 1: people also had perfect pitch when they weren't born into
9:02
Speaker 1: a family of people who had perfect pitch. So, like,
9:06
Speaker 1: the extent to which genes play role is extremely unclear.
9:10
Speaker 1: It's obviously important, but they're saying here like also, like
9:14
Speaker 1: if you start before four years old, forty percent of
9:17
Speaker 1: them develop it. I'm like, so forty percent of them
9:20
Speaker 1: had a higher capacity to learn. It is what I'm
9:23
Speaker 1: hearing in this particular case, because you're saying that if
9:26
Speaker 1: they started later, they wouldn't develop. But if it was genetic,
9:29
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. It's not like our eyes learn to
9:31
Speaker 1: become a specific color. Our genes program what color our
9:35
Speaker 1: eyes are going to be, and then they just are.
9:37
Speaker 1: And those are like things that can technically change if
9:40
Speaker 1: you're exposed to certain environmental conditions. But the point being that,
9:44
Speaker 1: like if it's something you're born with, if it's purely genetic,
9:47
Speaker 1: it just is like you don't there is not to
9:50
Speaker 1: learn it. Yeah, there's not really a learning curve. It
9:53
Speaker 1: just it just is like our digestive system works without
9:57
Speaker 1: us learning, Like there are actually aspects of it that learning,
10:00
Speaker 1: Like it's actually not one hundred percent genetic, but like
10:02
Speaker 1: most of it works automatically, which means it's heavily heavily
10:06
Speaker 1: governed by genetic programming, right, and we don't necessarily have
10:09
Speaker 1: to learn anything specific, but like this one is specifically
10:12
Speaker 1: saying that they learn it at a certain age more
10:15
Speaker 1: easily than at a later age, which means they learn.
10:18
Speaker 2: It right, They learn it now.
10:21
Speaker 3: There might be some primarily genetic factors to it, like
10:24
Speaker 3: the ability to hear bone structures in your ear, like
10:27
Speaker 3: the fine discriminations, but the evidence also clearly shows that
10:30
Speaker 3: some people do learn the skill. And like so many
10:33
Speaker 3: things in life, genetics set the occasion, the environment shapes
10:36
Speaker 3: the actual behavior. And I do think it's also important
10:39
Speaker 3: note that, like it's possible that is, you know, I
10:42
Speaker 3: think about that age gap from forty nine, and I'm like,
10:45
Speaker 3: that person's been exposed to so many more noises at
10:47
Speaker 3: that point in time, and they could have like potential
10:49
Speaker 3: hearing loss as a result of loud noises and loud environments.
10:52
Speaker 3: As somebody who is nearing forty, I know this to
10:55
Speaker 3: be true, Yeah, because I have lost so much of
10:57
Speaker 3: my hearing from concerts, So like, it would be more
10:59
Speaker 3: difficult for me to learn perfect pitch because of those
11:01
Speaker 3: life events that have kind of occurred too. So like,
11:03
Speaker 3: it's just one of those things where it's like, yes,
11:05
Speaker 3: genetics make it possible, but an environment shapes the actual behavior.
11:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you need the exposure to then have an opportunity
11:12
Speaker 1: to learn it. So anyway, you might be thinking, like, well,
11:16
Speaker 1: those people are super lucky who have perfect pitch. There
11:18
Speaker 1: are advantages and disadvantages of course, kind of like everything.
11:22
Speaker 1: Having absolute pitch does mean that you can easily produce
11:25
Speaker 1: notes on key and perform with little opportunity for error,
11:28
Speaker 1: So like that is an advantage, And another advantage is
11:31
Speaker 1: you can tune an instrument with no need of referencing
11:33
Speaker 1: another instrument or any kind of tuning mechanism. You could
11:36
Speaker 1: just just do it from because you can recognize those pitches.
11:39
Speaker 1: So like, there are things about it that people like,
11:42
Speaker 1: but there are also some aspects of it that maybe
11:44
Speaker 1: make it less desirable of a trait than you might think.
11:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, it also means that you're acutely aware of when
11:49
Speaker 3: notes are out of key, even slightly, and it can
11:51
Speaker 3: make it difficult to listen to music without dissecting the
11:53
Speaker 3: precision of each individual note. Further, people with absolute pitch
11:57
Speaker 3: might struggle to recognize a melody if it is played
11:59
Speaker 3: in a key or slightly off key that's different than
12:02
Speaker 3: what they're typically used to or how they were trained.
12:04
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times I would imagine, and
12:07
Speaker 3: this is just me kind of armchairing it for a second,
12:09
Speaker 3: but I would imagine that somebody who has perfect pitch
12:12
Speaker 3: is probably trained in music theory, which means they're trained
12:14
Speaker 3: in certain music structures and stuff like this and how
12:16
Speaker 3: music fits together. If you are trained to think that way,
12:19
Speaker 3: then when you hear music that doesn't really follow music
12:22
Speaker 3: theory in the same ways, it may be difficult to
12:24
Speaker 3: appreciate or understand that type of music.
12:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I mean if you imagine then hearing music
12:29
Speaker 1: from other cultures, yeah, that have used different musical systems entirely,
12:35
Speaker 1: you might have a hard time listening to that and
12:37
Speaker 1: being able to appreciate the art that they are creating
12:40
Speaker 1: because you can sort of only wrap your mind around
12:44
Speaker 1: the culture that you're familiar with and how it works
12:47
Speaker 1: and maybe not. Maybe like people who have perfect pitch
12:49
Speaker 1: will disagree with me, but like that was one of
12:51
Speaker 1: the things I found reported in here, is that people
12:54
Speaker 1: may struggle with melodies and notes if they're different from
12:57
Speaker 1: the sort of references that they're used to. Yeah, makes sense,
13:00
Speaker 1: all right, that's what we have to say about perfect pitch.
13:02
Speaker 1: If you have perfect pitch, we would love to hear
13:04
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13:26
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Speaker 1: my team of people who help make this happen, especially
13:32
Speaker 1: to Justin for his wonderful work and cobbling together the
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Speaker 1: ums and us and making my words turn into words.
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Speaker 2: Yes, we love you.
14:16
Speaker 1: Is there anything that I mester you'd like to add
14:18
Speaker 1: before we wrap this one up?
14:20
Speaker 2: No, go listen to music.
14:21
Speaker 1: All right, A perfect pitch mini is and that was
14:25
Speaker 1: my gross pitch. I hurt somebody's.
14:27
Speaker 2: Else that was so upsetting. That was upsetting to me
14:29
Speaker 2: and I don't even have perfect pitch.
14:31
Speaker 1: All right, Bye everyone, Bye, you've.
14:34
Speaker 2: Been listening to Why we do what we do?
14:37
Speaker 4: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
14:39
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