Why Adam Neely is Wrong about Perfect Pitch
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
- While Perfect Pitch may have some down sides, it is NOT detrimental overall, and here's why!
I am a big fan of @AdamNeely and this not a hate video! In 13 minutes, I explain why I disagree with Adam's video: Why you DON'T want Perfect Pitch.
Watch his video here: • Why you DON'T want Per...
My name is Michael Jesse, and I post music vlog / vlogs. These can range from the circle of 5ths / fifths, to parallel 10ths, to perfect pitch and other aspects of music theory. In the future I would be interested in delving more into pop culture as a whole. I'd also be interested in doing some music challenge videos.
Some of my favorite UA-cam channels to watch are Adam Neely, Charles Cornell, David Bennett Piano, Fantano, SongPsych, Hello Foe!, RoomieOfficial, 12tone and more. If you watch any of them, you might enjoy my content!
0:15 Intro
1:03 What is Perfect Pitch (and Relative Pitch)?
3:38 Pros of Perfect Pitch
6:44 Cons of Perfect Pitch
10:31 My Response to Adam Neely
Thanks to Jan Knutson for helping out! Jan's channel: / lcknut
June Lee's Transcription: • Jacob Collier - Georgi...
Charlie Puth Video: • Video
Open D Tuning: • OPEN D: The most beaut...
Capoing The 4th Fret: • Capoing: The 4th Fret ...
Some of my favorite Adam Neely videos are Whiplash (as reviewed by a jazz musician), Why the Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit makes no sense, What is the slowest music humanly possible, The Worst Jazz Solo of All Time, and The Girl From Ipanema is a far weirder song than you thought. Check them out if you have time!
This was a really interesting watch! I enjoy Adam Neely too, but I also felt like he was oversimplifying a bit too much, and his conclusion didn't really feel well-substantiated in my opinion. Thanks for introducing a bit more context into this topic.
In any case, this is an excellent video. I'm really glad I found this channel and I'd love to see more stuff like this in the future. Subscribed.
I found your criticism at the end to be quite funny following what you had just said. You literally just said a radio station playing a song slightly sharp irritated you enough to change the station. And that is exactly what Adam was saying. One day your whole musical existence will sound like that radio station! He would definitely agree you should “use your perfect pitch while you have it” because I mean, what else can you even do? Pretend that you don’t have perfect pitch? You basically admitted that you would hate to live in a world where everything sounded as off as that radio station, and then went on to say Adam is wrong because he said he too would also hate to live in that world. ???
i fully agree. it was funny in some way.
As someone without perfect pitch, this gave me a rollercoaster of emotions, from anger to peace in the way you did your closing words.
lol
same here bro
I have perfect pitch, but if the chords are too complex or notes fly past too quickly I have a more difficult time identifying it. It's honestly just evidence that while perfect pitch is something you either have or don't have, it is definitely on some sort of a spectrum
Nicely done! I didn't think I'd watch the whole video but you were interesting enough to hold my attention, so those grade schoolers of yours are lucky to have you! There are tunes that are not available as tab or sheet music so having perfect pitch so I could transcribe them would be a dream come true.
Ideas for a video:
- slash chords, what are they and why use them. Are they more like the note in the bass or the chord on top functionally?
- what makes barbershop chords sound like they do and what would it sound like played on a piano?
Thank you for the ideas!
Awesome video, loved the format, super clear and entertaining!
Just thought it'd be interesting to share-I've worked with a lot of people with perfect pitch, and while I've found they've all been fantastic musicians, by virtue of having perfect pitch they tend to ignore developing their relative pitch (sweeping generalization lol). This led to them having some trouble thinking intervallicly. When asked to play things in jazz class, they'd have no problem, but when asked questions that relied on note relationships, they'd all take noticeably longer to answer, probably just due to the fact they don't usually have to think in that way.
I'm not saying it can't be done, I just think it's the natural reaction for someone with perfect pitch to just start playing and not worry about the "color" of an interval and rather focus on individual notes vs someone like me where the only way forward was to develop relative pitch.
Subscribed! As someone with absolute pitch, he didn’t list any negatives. For me, transposing a song is hard. It doesn’t sound like the same song. If I use a capo, it takes a good minute to force my ear to hear it. Omg and someone singing off key or if an instrument is slightly off, it’s worse than fingernails on a chalkboard (which weirdly doesn’t bother me). And jamming out on guitar.. it just doesn’t happen, my brain just falls into a song I’ve heard at some point- even if I’ve never played it.
this, some of the biggest problems working with perfect pitchers (altho, i do believe some were just faking) was around this kind of stuff. some of the worse Improvisationalist, altho i believe people who havent overly learned the rules tend to be better in general. even just trained musicians tend to fall into repetative patterns. Jazz musicians that didnt take themselves too seriously or didnt read sheet music tended to be the best
This is also me. Transposing a song is like learning a new song hahaha
But, you can also take advantage of this actually. Whenever I want to sing a song completely with my own character, I'd just transpose the song upward or downward.
2 years later to Adam's video and 1 year later to yours. you picked up on the topics I wanted to talk about too, but left it to something else. I can't read notes nor will I ever (i'm bad at learning languages), but I can pick up sounds. just not vietnamese, lmao.
but i did receive compliments from the choir teacher that i can immediatelly reach the right key as soon as i start singing (it did wreck my throat afterwards, because I prefer to sing in a lower and actually my voice range otherwise i wrack my throat). i love listening to music, I hope i just die before losing my senses tbh xD. I don't know if i have any kind of pitch since I'm untrained and i'm afraid i'll become over confident... i mean, i met at least 2 people with perfect pitch (tho one of them was online and I couldn't test their skills out), still it was a magical moment for me.
Why on Earth, people who have perfect pitch, are always regarded, as some ego driven, cocky individuals, who just want to impress others at a party!!??
Comments like that, and that kind of opinion is so stupid, that it's mind boggling to a normal, open minded person.
Yes, a good relative pitch is all you need, to be fluent at music, but for goodness sake, - if somebody wants to go a bit further, or try to do it a different way, - let them do it. This whole subject of perfect pitch has been a taboo for a very long time in the western culture, and is regarded as something foreign, and strange, - like a virus, keep away from that, it's not worth tauching, - kind of attitude. Newborn babies and toddlers can be taught perfect pitch 99 percent of time, - it's not a big deal. But the westerners don't want to do it, don't know how, or don't have time for it.
Perfect pitch? I would have it anytime, thank You, gains are by far bigger than drawbacks.
That's all, there is to it.
As a perfect pitch haver, I think you understated the fact the you do not just lose your perfect pitch, it shifts. (For example, someone plays an F and you hear an Eb) While my perfect pitch is still intact, I think that losing it would severely decrease my musical ability, at least for the first couple months. You still make a good point tho. Great vid!
I mean the fact that it shifts doesn't make it perfect pitch anymore therefore...
@@nygmaa i think @emmetalthoen612 wants to highlight the fact that you don't just go to 'oh this is how everyone else heard music?' to 'i know what pitch this is but everyone seems to be wrong about it' which are both equally useless if someone asks you what note they are playing but may feel awfully different internally
I read that some stations speed up the songs by a couple percent in order to fit more songs between ad times! I’m glad I’m not the only one that noticed some radio songs sound sharper!
Someone else made this comment a while ago, I actually did not know this before!
Wow this was a really really well crafted and well thought-out video. I hope you make it as big as Adam one day, this is really good stuff!!
My question:
Is there a term yet for when the melody goes down one note until it hits the 7th note then goes back to the 6th & refrains? Ive heard that alot in Japanese music growing up so I naturally found myself using it in many songs I compose as I tend to like songs that use it. Also, if there is a term for it, what are some of the oldest songs known to use the technique as Ive always wondered who invented it or re-invented it for the modern era(only 90s Japanese artists come to mind when I think of the earliest uses of it).
This sounds interesting! What's an example of a Japanese song that does this?
good video, thank you! It was very interesting. The only thing i don't get is why and how different guitar tunnings and capos are affected by perfect pitch. What i'm saying is that at my best, i have a mid-level relative pitch, and i still hate alternate tunnings and capos and i absolutely suck at them :)) Nice note to end the video on, tough!
Loved this!!! Learned so much < 3
Some of the - in my opinion - greatest musical creators did or do not have perfect pitch.
Most people with perfect pitch never create anything of vast musical significance.
So that`s where this whole debate ends for me.
I am interested in what sound you make, not whether you have perfect, quasi perfect, relative or no pitch at all.
I agree
omg how does this not even have a 1000 views yet?
I didn't take that as not being able to play hockey like when he was young... That's new more like my arthritic fingers don't bend and get to the keys as fast.
His description was more like swinging the stick or placing your skate and it landing a half second before or after you think it will
I think there are a lot of 'levels' of 'perfect' pitch. Like you say, it's never 100%. Then you have the quasi-absolute pitch. Then you have the recognition of a note from the instrument timbre. Other thing, like you sing in pitch, but that may also be partly linked to recognition and the timbre of your voice, or the feeling it gives while singing. The aging thing is true I think. I never had real perfect pitch I think, but when I was younger, when I had to say the note without reference, I was more correct or at least close than now (I may have had quasi-absolute pitch because what you do is familiar, but now it's not always correct anymore). Also another factor I think is how long someone 'remembers' the reference tone and if someone sings, if he stays in pitch or not, or if you're annoyed if the choirs pitch shifts down (again), although this also includes other skills than just the hearing part. When the choir director decides to sing a song like a tone lower, it's difficult for me because the notes on the paper don't match what needs to be sung, while most of the other choir members don't even notice that the director decided that if he didn't say it, except maybe in the sense of 'I had less problems with the high notes'. I may not immediately be triggered when the director gives the first note one tone lower, but after singing a few measures, I will notice and struggle. In that case, I need to transpose the notes in my head one tone lower to be able to sing it correctly, even if I'm singing with the words (because even if I sing with words, I still rely on the notes for the melody, while I think other choir members like better 'memorize' the melody than I do, without thinking the notes anymore, but I can sing better on sight), making it hard of course. But since I don't seem to have real perfect pitch, or at least not as perfect as is shown by people with perfect pitch, I think the voice timbre and feeling when you sing a note plays a big role too, and than training could make a difference. Or it's still just the quasi-absolute pitch, I'm not sure. The tuner thing is difficult to use as a way to know I think. You may need to tune without reference, and some orchestra's tune 440, or 441, or 442, and other times, there is a piano accompaniment, and you may need to tune 438 or 439. Also it may be handy to verify individual notes with a tuner, since being able to do this without tuner tells more about your musical skills than if you have perfect pitch or not, since perfect pitch is not 100%. Relative pitch should be as good for that if you know the distances.
I wonder... I may have perfect pitch, or some form of it, but because I never learned the names of notes or anything I can't utilize it. I can tune my guitars without using a tuner, or only using one for the first string then I can get all of the others from there. I can usually sing in the correct key, or at least in the closest that my voice can get to, but usually need to hear the instrumental of the song while I'm singing unless I've heard the song dozens of times. I don't know if this is memorization, autistic pattern recognition (because I have autism), relative pitch, or perfect pitch, or what. But it's interesting. I can also tell a very clear difference between different versions/recordings of the same song by the same band for instance, and perceive extremely minor variations and errors in timing (down to 3ms), pitch, etc. The problem is this sometimes takes me out of the music itself and forces me to analyze the differences before I can properly enjoy it, as well as constantly making me frustrated when I try to play a song myself because I can hear what I am doing wrong, I can tell what I need to do to fix it, but because I also have dyspraxia it's incredibly difficult to get my fingers to do what I want them to, and eventually I just lose the motivation to even try.
You sound like you have relative pitch mixed with some situation-specific pitch recognition. A good rule of thumb is that if you need a reference in any way then it's not perfect pitch.
Really fun video.
Are you reading off of a screen/page below the camera ? That eye contact break is slightly noticeable. I understand it takes time to build comfort in front of the camera. Lookin forward to seeing you find that comfort ☺️
Thanks! My script is on my computer screen, you can actually see it in the video lol
Your students are really lucky to have such a chill and talented teacher
must say dude as a good calming energy. Music teachers can really be a mixed bag
Michael, hello, thank you for your work. Could you make a video of how you can change tonality without using VII and dominant seventh chords? I would appreciate it!
What's an example of a song that does this?
@@MichaelJesse Michael, thank you for your response.
My question was rather theoretical. I have not been able to find an answer to this question for many months. I don't know if there is such a way. And my skills to identify such a way by ear are not enough. But I can offer you a composition for the analysis. I'd love to see some of the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady by Charlie Mingus. I love that album. :)
After being a musician for over 4 decades, including getting a music degree and being around musicians of all varieties from all over the world, my overwhelming experience is perfect pitch actually isn't that useful compared to learned or relative pitch, except maybe outside of the bragging rights of telling other people you have perfect pitch and hoping they'll be impressed. I mean, you can make all the arguments you want about why theoretically perfect pitch would be desirable, but my practical experience is relative pitch is more advantageous because you're just more adaptive to whatever context you're working in. A good example would be in an Early Music consort or working with indigenous musicians where they have their own tuning that's not based on current Western-biased standards. Who cares if you need a second or two to find the right pitch, as long as you can find it and can go from there. Most experienced musicians aren't starting with a blank slate when they hear a new piece of music anyway, like today when I was trying to learn a new song off of UA-cam (which is how I ended up here) and immediately knew the first chord was Fm because I have been working recently on another song that has Gm for its first chord and I was like, yeah this chord is one whole step down from Gm, which I have fresh in my memory from working on the other song for the past week. So I side with Adam. I may not word it as strongly as he does, but yeah, you don't need it to be a good and versatile musician, so why care. It just seems like silly ego nonsense, to be frank, to worry this much about it. The only times I can recall hearing another musician genuinely lament not having perfect pitch was when I was earning my degree and other students would complain about how poorly they were doing in our ear training class. Like I said, it just seems silly.
I actually don't disagree. I don't think perfect pitch is that useful, or even that rare. I was being cheeky with the title. If you watch the whole video, I'm very clear that every "benefit" of perfect pitch can be done just as easily using relative pitch. My main problem isn't actually Adam Neely not wanting perfect pitch, but rather the idea that you shouldn't want skills because you'll lose them when you're older.
I have it and I must say the advantages far outweigh these paltry disadvantages you’ve mentioned here. You’re talking about minor annoyances that are side effects to being able to transcribe, compose, improvise, etc., with absolutely no prior reference. Trust me, it isn’t a hindrance.
@@kylemeyer3920it’s not something you should want or shouldn’t want it just exists it’s not rlly that beneficial and not that disadvantageous it has pros and cons but there not major
@@kylemeyer3920 wtf are you to said that
@@kylemeyer3920lol okay
I'm not sure exactly what kind of perfect pitch I have. I can identify any single note within a second (I can do multiple notes and chords too but they take a lot longer), but I might not notice if it's up to 35-ish cents out of tune, I can usually tell (not immediately) if it's close to in between 2 notes. And if i'm told to sing a note without a reference, I can within 35-ish cents, I tend to be a little flat for some reason. I noticed that pitch sounds a bit higher when I'm in a car, to the point where I'm like 50-80 cents off If I try to sing a note without a reference. I played an improperly tuned piano a few months ago, I knew that it wasn't tuned right, but I kept playing it anyway, and my pitch got temporarily messed up, I would do a perfect pitch test and I got a couple wrong, but after doing a few more pitch tests, I was able to correct it again, which makes me wonder if if I lose my perfect pitch, I might be able to correct it? I'm not really sure.
there are also people who don't know music theory that have perfect pitch and my not even know it so just knowing theory is silly it might help yes on another note some say there really is no such thing as perfect pitch if you look into it deeper
That was me until somewhat recently!
Even though I played music from a young age the teaching was on reading notation to play along, not about intervalic relationships or what the composers had been doing. So I stopped thinking of notes as letters and just thought of the lines on the page corresponding with various finger positions.
I’ve always been able to tell if a track was transposed even a little (ie PAL speedup), and I’d know if people played the right notes by ear and memory, but only started to learn the letter names once I was playing more than one instrument. It was just a looser synaesthetic sensation before, like colour but not quite.
I believe I have perfect pitch. However, I had trouble identifying the chord at the beginning. I think I should probably work on developing my relative pitch a little more. I could still tell individual notes in the chord.
It’s all about perspective
My friend has perfect pitch and went with me to SWACDA (Southwest American Choral Directors Association) in High School to compete at a semi National level and took a solo for bass in his audition
He hates his perfect pitch because he can’t enjoy the music with anyone other than highly experienced singers and he simply doesn’t often have that access
For him to enjoy the music he has to practice like he’s around other people who are spot on without ever being able to actually practice around people regularly
He also enjoys perfect pitch for other reasons
There are tons of reasons why you could say (for or against) that perfect pitch is something someone wouldn’t want
As to your point, or more accurately your entire video, you seemed to be under the impression that the concept of why someone may not like perfect pitch was more than an interpretation and closer to a projection of an opinion. (There’s a life lesson in your video that holds true and shouldn’t be lived down. However, using a talent or ability is in a person’s best interest only when they benefit from it.)
That being said, UA-cam is built for that type of content but the style of the video itself just doesn’t resonate with me. The examples were picky to say the least. As far as Charlie Puth goes, he has openly stated that he has had to learn how to be more on pitch using autotune. You can have perfect pitch and still not be able to be ON pitch when you’re singing. It’s just annoying. The purpose of recording it at all is just to show people you can do it because they’re asking. He doesn’t brag about it and project his ability to hit any note perfectly, that would be entirely different.
Whatever the case, I understand thinking like a kindergarten teacher and translating what ideas are in your head into a different language. Teaching is habitual. You teach one way for a long time and it bleeds into your teaching style. I won’t harp anymore but I will offer my advice. Consult with two people who can help you with the video when it’s semi-controversial. One person who agrees with the premise and one person who disagrees with the premise who both have experience with the topic. (I understand you have experience but you are inadvertently biased.) If you can include a short dialogue or both sides in some fashion simultaneously it can strengthen your case or even viewpoint or argument.
I definitely don't have perfect pitch, but I can tune my cello without a reference - I find it easier to do it by my own ear than with a reference. I think it's to do with the quality of the sound rather than the actual note, and I don't think I could do it with someone else's cello. 👌
I recently just found out that people use ear training and it pretty much blew my mind lol that seems painful
I wonder why exactly how some people don't have perfect pitch and others do
It's an interesting question for sure!
You have my subscription my dude! I'm hoping to start my own music channel this year. Keep it up and stay consistent! You have the temperament for this! (See what I did there...)
lol
good luck with your stuff! Consistency is tough right now because my job tires me out, but I definitely have something good in the works!
@@MichaelJesse I hear you, you got to make a living... that's the reason I cant start straight away at the moment. But make sure you schedule in time for your passions and creativity! You got this 🤜🏼
I never noticed two stations playing the same recording with slightly different pitches, but my pitch sense probably isn't yet good enough to detect it. A possible explanation is one station slightly sped up the song (lazily, without pitch compensation) to shorten it, permitting more commercial time. No one would do that, right? ;-)
Another commenter told me the single version is pitched up slightly from the album version - I think that might be the discrepancy.
Radio stations regularly do speed it up by a couple of percent, but the ad time thing is secondary - people without perfect pitch hear it as the same song but “with more energy” rather than pitch distorted.
People regularly complain an album version (with proper pitching) “sounds boring” because it’s just a little slower. Nowadays single versions often deliberately pre-apply that effect in a way the artist finds acceptable, as opposed to the hodgepodge of speeds in times gone by (when the DJ would just slightly nudge the speed control an arbitrary amount on the tape deck or turntable).
Pitch correction can introduce its own artefacts, so it’s really a case of “pick your poison” especially since leaving the pitch increase intact is the “nostalgic” 80s & 90s methodology.
While I see where you’re going adam is specifically mentioning someone else’s anecdotal evidence and he states that. It cant be “wrong” as you say because it’s an opinion/someone’s feeling. It terms of your experiment with the guitarist with perfect pitch, I think it has very little to do with perfect pitch. Any guitarist myself included (I don’t have perfect pitch) would struggle more playing in non-standard tunings, we spend thousands of hours playing in standard tuning compared to something like open D where a guitarist playing for over a decade might have a few hundred hours with the tuning on the high end. This example just seems a little disingenuous.
Funny you mention that. I originally asked him to play in D standard, not open D. The problem was, he sounded too good! I couldn't really make my point if his solo was good.
The guitar is a bad instrument to use for this example, because if you're in a different tuning, you can just shift your fingers. A better example would be a trumpet player playing on a C trumpet instead of the usual Bb trumpet. Unfortunately, I don't know any trumpet players with perfect pitch...
General piano hacks, chord voicing, modulations/key change
Dang, yyy what did you mean stating that your friend with Suhr guitar is a great musician?
My daughter who is 13 has "absolute pitch". She can name any note played without mistakes and can match the note with her voice as well. Not sure what we should pursue to share her abilities and expand on them. She is on the higher end of the autism spectrum and we are looking into finding the right outlet for her be able to express this skill. What would you suggest? Thank you for posting!
Hello! This comment hits home more than you might realize. The last thing I want to do is tell you how to be a parent - you know your daughter better than anybody else.
I spent a good portion of this video talking about how perfect pitch isn't really important or necessarily helpful in being a musician (I say that as someone with "perfect pitch"). The main benefit of perfect pitch is only that it can make being a musician a little more fun. Music is about expression, emotion, and personal connection. I think playing an instrument is one of the best and healthiest things a child with autism can do. That said, if I were in your shoes, I would probably ask your daughter what she enjoys doing with her time. On top of that, show her what you and other family members enjoy doing, and maybe something will catch on. This could be music, visual/performing arts, sports, video games, reading books, pretty much any hobby you can think of. She will only develop musically if that is truly what she enjoys doing. There are lots of ways to get your child involved with music, like piano lessons, jamming with family, local concerts, drum circles, etc. The first thing I would do is ask your daughter's school about their band/orchestra program, and ask how she can get involved.
All this said, you should always be asking her if she is enjoying what she's doing. If she's not having fun, it will only cause frustration for everyone. Again, having perfect pitch is not important for being a great musician. Most great/famous musicians do not have perfect pitch. I really really hope your daughter finds a love for playing music, but only because it's enjoyable, productive and healthy, and not for any other reason. As a matter of fact, I think every human on the planet could benefit greatly from playing some music with family and friends.
Best of luck to you!
One of the things I appreciated was being brought to an instrument tryout seminar, so I could try a ton of instruments and settle on knowing I liked the sax. A lot of people who get involved with music do so through school band, but they often assign an instrument based on a gap in the ensemble.
I play a bunch of things now, but I might’ve bounced off music if I didn’t find something I really clicked with from the get-go, like if my first was guitar I wouldn’t have liked it as much.
But like Michael said, discussing all this stuff with her is definitely the way to go! She might not have any interest in music at all. But music skills can be useful in all sorts of other ways, eg hearing the different pitches as a ball bounces in a city enhance spatial awareness. It can be really useful in poetry and acting too, for getting a specific cadence down. And any arts or sports are really good for a kid.
About the pitch difference between radio stations. Adam (not a 100% sure if it's him, but preety sure) has a video about how some single versions of songs come in higher pitches to become more impactful.. Maybe one station is using the album version and the other is playing a single version.. Or maybe one radio is tryung to pull this "higher pich = more impactful" trick themselves
That's interesting actually, didn't know that!
There are a ton of old recordings where the notes are tuned pretty clearly between the half steps... I wonder what people with perfect pitch really feel like when listening to those awkward things...
Not gonna lie, I was mildly trepidatious in case this was gonna tell me I didn’t actually have it - but it just ended up being validating haha.
I knew all my life I noticed when PAL speedup (104% speed, almost a semitone high) has occurred and it always bothered me, and I always knew I noticed bad guitar tab and just had an easier time playing tunes by ear rather than thinking about a botched transcription.
It wasn’t until my “just hit random keyboard keys until one note reminds you of a song” method wasn’t working for friends did I start to wonder if I had perfect pitch, ironically I didn’t think about it for years because a friend with perfect pitch (which was always EXACTLY calibrated to her guitar tuner) told me I didn’t have it because my tuning by ear was always a couple cents flat (less so than that singing guy clip though).
Adam Neely’s video helped me realise I did have it, but I definitely found myself disagreeing with the conclusion - your sports example is good but I thought of it like how guys “enjoy their hair while they have it”. And at least I have a few decades’ warning that it’ll slip when I’m older.
So this video comes around in my recommendations and I just found myself relating so hard to all the points. I hate capos too, and when cover artists are a semitone flat or sharp it always stands out to me really hard.
My relative pitch also sucks, and that’s what I’ve been working on lately. Notes that are a whole tone apart sound drastically different to me while notes that are a nicer interval sound more similar, but aside from telling if it’s bass/midrange/treble my relative positioning is garbage. It’s only if I hum/sing/whistle/play an instrument that I notice the actual spatial relationships (higher/lower) at all outside of like, roughly what octave it all is.
One plus side though is I can tell what series of pitches sci-fi computer bloops are, since they’re usually sequenced and synthesised… I’ve got a back burner project to recreate various such effects on various synths, as the only unknown is really how to get the timbre dialled-in just right.
Keep working on that relative pitch - it's much more useful than perfect pitch!
i dont have perfect pitch and i still work in the way you describe. im terrible at reading sheet so dont bother. usally get the first note on, build the interval, might make a milisecond mistake touching wrong note but youd know immediately, correct it. Most famous songs are really the same 5 chords. it only really gets interesting when you hit funk and jazz.
I'm not super bothered when I hear slightly sharp or flat music, I think it's quite interesting to hear something like a=432 when I listen to random instrumentalists on youtube, it definitely doesn't bother me as long as it's on tune
Why haven't You done more vids on WAYNDE GRETZKY??
Ha ha... not detrimental? My brain analyzes the pitch of literally EVERYTHING 24/7, even my own voice, breathing and tummy gurgles. I can tell you the pitch of the attack on a string (which is different than the actual note played), the many pitches of the air pumping through the air vents in my office, and the pitches of the different fluorescent bulbs in my office. Any recorded media replayed is subject to differences between the recorded speed and the replay speed (DJ's can explain this better). But I "see" and feel music way more than I can autopsy it... which is what music theory reminds me of.
And i would kill to have that over my mediocre relative pitch.
@@shadowshibe5962
Just practice your relative pitch.
@Persun_McPersonson I have been. It still won't be as good as perfect pitch no matter how hard I try.
@@shadowshibe5962
What method are you using to learn? Because relative pitch is actually more useful overall than perfect pitch.
@Persun_McPersonson listening to a pure sine wave and then playing individual notes to guess the interval between them.
And how is relative pitch more useful?
I reacted to what you said about the comparison with colors, which I don't find very accurate. In daily life we have far fewer colors than pitches. Comparing seeing the difference of red and green is basically equivalent to hear the difference of the pitches 200 and 5000Hz, which no one needs a reference note to do. The human ear have a range of about 10 octaves = 120 different notes in TET. Can you reliably distinguish between so many colors in different situations? If we divide the visible spectrum evenly in red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and violet, you would need to distinguish between 17 shades of each of those colors.
Deserve more views
Cheers 🔥
The closest thing I have that Adam even talks about is heightened tonal memory (aka the Levitin Effect).
Con #3 does appear in Adam's video and for me it's a strong point against perfect pitch. Whenever I see someone with perfect pitch saying "that's not how the piece goes", and it is, but it's only one semi-tone too high, I see it as they being in a dissadvantage. It should not sound that different, it is the same song, even if they tuned to a bad tuning fork.
right, and now play some completely avent garde piece with them that uses only concrete cement blocks, drills and a broken piano with the harp torn out. Pitch this beaches
video is great but please make the music a bit softer when ur talking
That you have perfect pitch and work as a music teacher PROVES how useless it is.
That color is turquoise. I did not need a comparison to identify it. I have perfect color 💀💀💀
Even with relative pitch the key shift can be kinda jarring. In choir rehearsal once, we practiced a piece in E flat major, so of course I would sing the notes to the scale degrees I was used too. The next movement was in f-minor but my inner ear was still locked to E flat major. Seeing the notes and not hearing them in relation to what I expected was a grueling experience.
Also thank you for pointing out the skill level that are involved with musicians. I remember the first time picking up a 7 string guitar after playing only 6 string... yeah didn't go too well^^ So perfect pitch can be a nice tool but it needs the same context and level of mastery as anything else in music.
Your description of your own perfect pitch is not what I would call perfect, or absolute, pitch. You are able to identify C, then find other pitches (Ab in this case) using relative pitch. Adam Neely demonstrated essentially the same ability.
A music teacher of mine in college had his whole class carry around pitch pipes to memorize a certain pitch. They did so, and were then able to identify any pitch using relative pitch. That is not absolute pitch. Vladimir Horowitz supposedly had absolute pitch, which then migrated flat as he aged, causing all kinds of problems. My understanding is that this pitch migration with age is a regular occurrence in people with absolute pitch. If that is indeed true, I'm glad I have relative pitch instead.
I don't have perfect pitch, I have "quasi-perfect pitch". I said that in the video. Functionally, it's the same thing. Adam Neely actually taught me this terminology in his video.
I'd like to stress (as I did in the video) that relative pitch is more important/useful than perfect pitch. Even people with perfect pitch should work on their relative pitch.
idk what this video is about, i haven’t watched the video yet, but perfect pitch isn’t the cheese, but it’s pretty dope. For context, I have great intervallic reception and chordal analysis, but I don’t have perfect pitch. The fun for me is in the struggle of ambiguity, and it’s almost like the majority of ideas come out of hokey theory tidbits that convey opaque frequency content, relying on context, mostly, to get where you’re tryna go
Update, the video is pretty dope, much respect
Glad you enjoyed the video! Yes, relative pitch is much more useful than perfect pitch.
Everything was going well until the last point you made.
Adam Neely clearly said that not only perfect pitchers will loose their ability to identify pitches, but the rest of their life will be affected too, as in pretty much everything they will listen... Will suck.
So using your hockey analogy, it seems to me like if that player not only stopped playing for natural reasons, but also can't watch a game, can't watch his best moments, and everything seems out of place.
So I guess it's a bit more than that.
Anyways, good video! You got me engaged for the first 12:40 min lol.
When I was recommended this video after watching Adam’s, I was fairly sure it was going to be from the perspective of someone with perfect pitch. Human beings are so predictable in their desire to defend themselves; As you are doing in this video and I am doing with this comment. With plenty of measured reassurances that our intention is not cruel in nature. Funny funny funny how humanity works.
Although, without any overt emotions of aggression or supremacy, it is a humans nature to expression their own subjective experience when presented with another
I don’t think I have the perfect pitch, but I feel very uncomfortable when a (guitar) musician in a band play a wrong tone or the tone is not in tune. It is like when I read false scriped words.
In many of these pitch videos, no one is really addressing why music is considered music. It certainly isn’t being able to identify a single tone. It’s the sound of intervals between single tones, and intervals between those intervals, and intervals between those intervals.
6:35 Conductor: Oboe give me an A.
Orchestra: **proceeds to go out of tune to match the oboe**
didn't sound condescending. it's experience vs theory - an opinion based on projecting oneself into another means of perception ... he hasn't experienced perfect pitch so can't know it's upside.
And like love, it could be better to had it and lost it than to never have had it at all 😉
...maybe under it all Adam's just a little heartbroken? 😢 🤗
lol
Good one! *****
I've got perfect pitch. I was tested when I was 11, and I was pleasantly surprised. Seems like it's very common with blind people.
Hmm interesting. I've heard before that blind people are more in touch with their other senses, but I never though to connect that to perfect pitch.
@@MichaelJesse Yeah, I don't think every blind person has it, but a lot of us do. I wouldn't be surprised if Stevie Wonder has it. I wonder if Ray Charles ever had it?
I really liked your video, you must be a great teacher. Your examples are great. But I did not feel the same about Neely's video. I felt what he tried to imply was close to what I understood from your video, which is that making perfect pitch an important part of your identity was kind of a pitfall.
I mean, you take this example to show how our eyes discriminate colors better than our ears discriminate sound. This is not entirely true, as no one says "This is not the correct frequency for the red color". It means we operate on a continuum even without reference when discriminating colors. And, going back to aural perception, I feel that being "grid-locked" on the tones would be like grid-locking our vision on reference colors and feeling "this is not the correct frequency for red" when you watch an apple.
[EDIT - removed irrelevant rambling]
When I saw Neely's video, I felt like (because of my personal experience) it was a statement about "grid locking" on a given set of frequencies.
Sorry for the long comment, these subjects are hard to explain :)
(Oh, I do not have perfect pitch, by the way, and my relative pitch is average I think)
Thank you for the comment, I appreciate your take. There are only 2 main messages I want people to get out of this video:
1. Perfect pitch is overrated
2. Adam Neely's point about not wanting a skill because you'll lose it when you're older is silly
I'll admit, some of the things I said don't completely make sense. This was my first "video essay", and the script was not perfect. But I'm glad you enjoyed the vide :)
@@MichaelJesse I enjoyed it so much, I made my first long comment on YT 😅 I'll try to be concise like you :
1. On top of being overrated, I feel it's misused (grid-locking, for fame, etc.)
2. I agree, the benefits seems outweighs the fact you'll have to experience the loss
Thanks for your work 👍
[EDIT : I suscribed BTW :) ]
wow my first "first" comment ever, idk, never thought I'd see this day
lol
I like u , ur cool
It seems to me that almost everyone of theses young und doubtlessly talented musicians has a blind spot of ignorance. And I can´t find that perfect pitch does grant musical feeling. Your guitar buddy ist a good example - he has remarkable technical skills, but his improvisation is meanigless and without any musical idea behind it, although from a theoretical point of view all these notes he is playing may fit in the harmonic schedule.
All guitarists who are refusing to use capos do not understand the benefits of this tool and cut themselves off from really nice sonic possibilities. The G major chord, played with a capo on the 3rd fret, is of course a Bb major chord - but sounds so much more open ans shiny than a bar chord on the 1st or 6th fret. And gives you completely different possibilities for picking patterns. (I must admit that I rarely use a capo on an electric guitar, but even this can make sense from time to time, especialliy if you work in studio and want to create layers an soundscapes.)
Edit: I think "spots of ignorance" may have to do something withe the fact that, once you established a YT channel, you are a content creator and are forced to regularly create content to keep the whole thing running. This leads to the temptation to talk about subjects where your experience, skills and knowledge are not certified.
are you interested in talking to someone who taught themselves absolute perfect pitch in highschool? (not me btw)
I'm probably not gonna touch this topic again for a while, but that's awesome that your friend could do that!
SORRY BUT, that it matter is: Almost Nobody with perfect pitch are /was a relevant composer in yesterday o today; the perfetc pitch boy only engaged in the circus of guessing the note.
TwoSetViolin has fun with Puth's not so perfect pitch. ua-cam.com/video/NTyFqMMXPDQ/v-deo.html
I have really good relative pitch, my wife has perfect pitch. She plays with several orchestras in the SF Bay area. She's also a member of Cajun-Zydeco band and a bluegrass band. Her biggest problems with perfect pitch arise when the band wants to change key. Also, playing with old timers who don't use a tuner is a nightmare for her.
Some forty years ago I taught a class where I had to research why some people have perfect pitch and others don't. The consensus at that time was, with rare exception, children who studied piano at a very early age were more likely to perfect pitch than those that didn't. I personally know of people that didn't study piano when they were young that have perfect pitch. However, their parents were musicians and they took lessons when they were children.
Of course, there's the topic of what is a perfect pitch? I've only heard of PP applied to people who can identify notes based of our A440 tuning system. So if your piano was out of tune when you were little and taking lessons is your PP out of tune? Also, you don't have go back very far when there was no standardized pitch, electronic tuners or even tuning forks. In one of my physics books on music, the author has a chart of Church organs with pitch references. Pitch A4 (A above middle C) was found to be from the approximately 350 to 520.
I have noticed that my wife's PP is not as good as when I met her thirty years ago. But I would say it's as good as Puth's. I'm a composer/arranger and am perfectly happy with my relative pitch abilities.
Haha yeah I've seen that video
Adam argues perfect pitch is not something he wants because of the mental confusion and alienation a loss of perfect pitch has, but you call that silly because people eventually leave their athletic prime? This is not just a skill, this is perception, as if losing the ability to distinguish colours, feeling as though reality is gaslighting you. And your points for the cons were really weak, like it takes a bit longer to jam along and transcribe stuff? Obviously not counting the tuning thing as it becomes more of a negative as you mentioned, as you really shouldn't be tuning to perfect pitch, at least beyond maybe an elementary level, but even so it's not worth creating the habit.
most supposed "perfect pitch" musicians were some of the worse people to work with in my experince. not all of them by any means but many were impatient, which is understandable, but they couldnt adapt on the fly, they couldn't handle the real avant garde stuff that messed with the rules.
stuff where we detuned guitars while we played them or used non musical items to create sound, non-western notation and mircotonal drones. This they either couldnt tolerate or became like everyone else, with no advantage.
I'm sorry but what was your point with tuning differently? That it's frustrating to play with a different tuning when you're not used to it? This is how guitar tuning works, duh!
We use shapes and patterns when we play, same with improvising. We have a fix pattern that we use for learning. And if you change that, of course it's going to throw the majority off unless you're experience in that tuning. Take Mark Holcomb for example. In the newest Periphery album he used an unusual tuning for one song, and in order to do that he basically had to re-learn the note placements on the fretboard. It's not easy and requires a lot of work, just like when you switch to a different tuning you'll need practice if you want to navigate across the notes with precision.
Can't wait to check back in 30 years to see if you still feel good about having your perfect pitch distorted with age.
lol
Adam had sources for his conclusion, you do not. Therefore, your conclusion is TRASH.
Using more successful UA-camrs images to get clicks is pretty sleazy. I regret the click.