Practice or Innate talent?

College Majors Music Majors
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This speaks to my theory that it is exposure to music that is really important in develping perfect pitch & musical ability. Your son didn’t get training, but he had music around him & a demonstrated interest. Parents playing instruments is much more than background noise. He had to absorb the flow & almost by osmosis, pick up an ability to recognize musical patterns, etc. </p>

<p>I’d be interested in seeing an experiment where kids from a culture that only has, say, pentanomic scale music, are played a piece of music in a western style & asked to sing back the notes. I wonder if they could, as some notes would strike them as quite odd or out of place. I don’t believe anyone is born with perfect pitch. My kids have it, but they were exposed to good music from birth. Their ability to pick up new instruments & play them comes, I think, from their success on a previous instrument. Their understanding of music has become so internalized, coupled with the confidence of playing other instruments, that they can move ahead quickly. I compare it to the absolute fearlessness of young kids as they explore technology. Hand a new cell phone to a seven year old & he’ll push every button to figure out all the features. Hand that same phone to your 80 year old grandma & she might be quite intimidated, despite having an equal amount of intelligence & natural curiosity.</p>

<p>I agree with the earlier post about talent perhaps being an ability to pick up the skill rather quickly & this positive reinforcement resulting in a more eager pursuit of the skill.</p>

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ASW, what genre are you talking about? Classical?</p>

<p>One of the great things about folk music is the desire to pass on the tradition to youngsters. Probably the most social genre of music my kids are involved in is Irish traditional music. World renowned musicians who fill enormous, prestigious venues will routinely show up at little hole-in-the-wall pubs or festivals & play at marathon sessions & teach kids. It’s all about the music for these artists & they seem to have absolutely no egos. I love it.</p>

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<p>I sort of wince everytime I hear about kids with perfect pitch and there seems to be a lot of these kids for CC parents. Perfect pitch sounds like an all or none attribute. None of our kids seem to have good pitch or nearly perfect pitch.</p>

<p>I don’t remember ever hearing someone claim my D had perfect pitch, or even near perfect, or even good. Now after a year and a half of conservatory training, including ear training, that seems to be changing. Yesterday she was playing the piano and remarked about the need to have it tuned. She can hit each key and determine which are out of tune, in which direction and by how much. Sounds like pitch perception can be learned.</p>

<p>I suspect we are all born with the skills needed for language and music. Do some individuals have exceptional skills. Maybe, but I can’t see it. I suspect math skills are different. Kids and adults vary widely in their ability to learn math and some seem gifted well beyond the level that could be attained by encouragement or nuture. IQ tests have gone out of favor, at least for general application, but measured IQ does seem to correlate with some learning abilities, including math. It does not appear that anyone can show that type of correlation with music. All of the music prodigies I have seen spent a great deal of time with music. </p>

<p>I have only known two individuals I would consider intellectually gifted. One had an amazing memory and analytical powers. One the surface he was very successful with MD, Ph.D and law degrees and was well known for this accomplishments. Those of us who knew him well also knew he was a tormented individual. He could cover up but had, among other problems, severe insecurities and difficulties with relating to others. He was a Will Hunting who never had an epiphany. The other gifted individual I knew has even more difficulties and has never been able to convert his intellectual abilities into any sort of meaningful achievements or success. Hopefully, these two individuals were exceptions. In any case, my sympathies to any of you with truly gifted children.</p>

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<p>edad, my son definitely does NOT have perfect pitch. He knew a kid in high school band who did and was quite impressed by him. My son is struggling through ear training classes in college, going to extra help sessions, and was totally thrilled when he actually got a B. He is learning, but it is not something that comes naturally to him.</p>

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<p>edad, good point about pitch. My D may have perfect pitch (or very close to it) but it’s not something that any of her teachers have handed out gold stars for. On the contrary, for an orchestra player, perfect pitch can sometimes get in the way, while relative pitch is much more important. Of course there’s no question that her “good ear” has helped her enormously with her own musical learning and made ear training and solfege much easier than it might be otherwise.</p>

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I’ve seen so many young singers improve their intonation that I have to agree with this.</p>

<p>Orchestramom, I also think many people confuse absolute pitch & relative pitch. Having a good ear is probably enough to succeed musically. The only reason I know my kids have perfect pitch is because d could easily reproduce any pattern that her violin teacher played. He always said she had a “good ear” & one day was curious to see if she had perfect pitch, because he always suspected it. He tested her by having her face the wall while he played notes on the piano. She identified them all. No gold stars, but just something that helps explain her musical ability. Son has it, too.</p>

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<p>SS – yep, my D’s teacher played that same game with her too. Usually just played one note, not even a pattern, sometimes on the violin, sometimes the piano. It was great fun. They used it as a warm up for scale exercises!</p>

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<p>OM: I really liked to sit in and watch them do that. He’d play a cool pattern in, say, a jazz style. Then she’d follow with her own. He called it “musical conversations.” I think that was always the most creative part of any lesson & it really helped her ability to improvise or do some cool drone or accompaniment when playing in groups or accompanying a singer. </p>

<p>Musicians shrug off this ability as “no big deal,” but it is wonderful for non-musicians like myself to observe.</p>

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<p>My musician son does not have perfect pitch. However, his perception of pitch has definitely improved over time. I find my own sense of pitch has also improved quite a bit just from being around him and attending his lessons for so many years. </p>

<p>Neither hubby nor I are musicians. I played flute in high school, guitar in high school and college (folk music type stuff) and we both sang in college. All 3 boys grew up with us singing to them and with them since before they were born. I was a stay at home mom and often had the classical music public radio station playing during the day for my own enjoyment. All 3 boys loved to sing when they were little. It was apparent from a very young age that the oldest and youngest could sing in tune and the middle son didn’t have a clue. We would sing with him anyway. He was always all over the place pitchwise. When he was about 10 his brothers refused to let him sing along with us any more because his lack of pitch sense drove them crazy. </p>

<p>Why would 3 kids growing up in a very similar environment have such different perceptions of pitch if there was no innate factors involved? The oldest never touched an instrument until he was 10 and now is quite an accomplished musician. There is something within him that is not present in either of the other 2. I call it talent, passion, persistence, and determination all rolled together. The youngest has the talent but not the other 3 in regards to music. The middle one doesn’t have any of it. He likes music, though, and eventually settled on percussion where his lack of pitch sense isn’t much of a hindrance.</p>

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<p>I don’t have perfect pitch either…but I can definitely tell when something…in fact almost anything…is out of tune. That’s a little different than those with perfect pitch who can name the note you are humming. I can’t do that…but I can tell you if you’re singing or playing off pitch.</p>

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<p>Symphony string players that I know have told me how difficult it is for those with “perfect” pitch to play with others–because they are so inflexible. Think about the tempering of the piano, vs. the flexibility of notes within a scale on fretless instruments and in different cultures. My son’s teacher, also a symphony musician, told us he knew of one major symphony orchestra that had a stated policy to tune to A 441, while in our symphony, sometimes it’s A 440 and sometimes A 441.
I have a friend who has “perfect” pitch and refused to let her kids study stringed instruments because it would pain her too much. Perfect pitch does not make someone a musician. We all in our culture are too stuck on attributes we can measure–perfect pitch; which Suzuki book; how many concertos. What I can see with my kid is an innate love of music and an ability to express that in performance. He’s developing his technique and musicianship–a lifelong pursuit–to be able to grow in conveying these feelings.</p>

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<p>I grew up playing a piano that was never tuned. I also had some ear trouble, which left me with a lot of scar tissue. I blame my lack of “ear” on a combination of those two things, though it may also be an inherant lack. My family used to sing in the car, and I was the one often asked to not sing along. My piano accompanying skills grew, as that was the way I participated. </p>

<p>My H has an excellent ear, as do all three kids. I have no idea how much is learned, how much inherited. I often say the kids get their ear from their dad, their passion from me. Which is an exaggeration, as my H also loves music. However, my H quit playing violin some years ago, when he didn’t have time to maintain top skills, and I bravely soldier on with the piano. I am often the least talented in the crowd, and the most willing. I’m a huge fan of the Henry van Dyke quote:

But I like to think that my willingness to make noise despite not being the best was a good counter to the rest of my family’s perfectionist tendencies, and perhaps “allowed” them to pursue their music more confidently, knowing that they would at least always be better than me. :)</p>

<p>My kids have all had teachers comment on their “ear”. They do have that relative pitch, which is learned. We used to wake up my S2 by playing incomplete phrases on the piano in random keys. It would drive my S crazy, and he would have to get out of bed and finish it. A few weeks ago, when S1 was visiting, he called S2 on the phone, and played an incomplete phrase and hung up – just to bug him. S2 doesn’t have a piano in his apt. He immediately called my D back on her cell, and begged her to please go play him a G!</p>

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<p>Just FYI…my husband has an excellent ear for pitch and music. In a previous job, he used his musical ear to DO his job. BUT he can’t sing his way out of a paper bag…just can’t match a pitch (always off pitch or in a different key). He played the trumpet and was pretty good at that. Just because you have a good ear does NOT mean that you have the ability to apply that good ear to performance. Come and listen to Christmas caroling at my house if you don’t believe me :)</p>

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<p>I don’t know that perfect pitch makes a good musician or not, but for my son, it has faciliated his transcribing and transposing on the spot, which is difficult for people without perfect pitch to do. He finds it a valuable attribute, albeit one that was a gift of birth. Of course, he occasionally finds it to be a bit of a curse, since he can hear notes that are “off” in rehearsals, even if they are minor and unnoticable to others.</p>

<p>I am surprised that he doesn’t sing better though; he sings reasonably, although by no means really well, considering his excellent sense of pitch. This also causes him a bit of frustration, but he is working to improve his singing voice, since it is yet another instrument that he wants to master. We’ll see how he does. :)</p>

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<p>Both are important</p>

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<p>Perfect pitch isn’t a “gift of birth” either. From what I’ve heard, you basically have no chance of getting it unless you learn music before you are 4 years old and you are about 4 times as likely to get it if you speak a language that uses pitch such as Chinese. So, even perfect pitch is a learned trait.</p>

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<p>My son had no musical instruction whatsoever, until he was seven years old, and has only spoken English (we did listen to a great deal of music though, even when he was a baby, and he began fooling around with instruments in our home long before formal instruction began). </p>

<p>Every music teacher he has had since he was 7 has noticed his perfect pitch immediately.</p>

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<p>Oh. Well I dunno, I’m probably wrong then. It’s just what I remember reading a long time ago. But of course there are always exceptions, so it’s possible that your son is just one of those 1 in 10,000,000 who gets it anyway.</p>

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<p>Well…I have perfect pitch and I think it just came from long years of music experience. I studied piano from age 3 to 13 and self-studied from 13-17 (now). It’s a combination of nature and nurture.</p>

<p>Edit–I had the same experience as your son did, -Allmusic-, my parents sent me to learn piano cause I was ‘fooling around with instruments’ from age 2 or something</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if everyone on here understands what perfect pitch is, such as when they say “my son/daughter has perfect pitch”. </p>

<p>The vast majority of people, even amazing performers, do not have perfect pitch, they have relative pitch.</p>

<p>Some would even argue this is a good thing in regards to music, that having relative pitch can be more helpful than perfect pitch.</p>

<p>Perfect pitch doesn’t mean just being able to tell if something is off key, out of tune, etc or even being able to name an interval when it is played. </p>

<p>It means a person can tell if something is perfecly on pitch or not, and if it is off, by how much it is off. They can also name specific notes when they are played on any instrument, without looking at all. For example, if an a cappella group is singing, and they end a half step below where they started, which very often happens, most people wouldn’t know, unless there was someone with perfect pitch who was able to stay in key the whole time.</p>

<p>The same is true for “tone deaf”, people like to throw that term around also, and the truth is that very very few people are actually born with a condition of being tone deaf. when you are tone deaf, you literally cannot hear one note from another. Most people when they hear a song, can repeat it, even if they are a little off tune.</p>

<p>Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there.
I have a friend with perfect pitch, and it’s really creepy. He’s a math/science genius, literally. He is also an amazing musician, but in a very analytical way. He has amazing technique, and can learn fast. However, he is unable to grasp the feeling in music.</p>