[CAUT] Pitch recognition

[Fred Sturm]

Thanks for the reference, Ed. It contains some interesting stuff, but limits
itself to the rather crude ³recognition of a named pitch² as in ³This note
is C, this is C#² rather than the finer distinctions we have been talking
about. I guess a study to focus on those fine distinctions would have to go
to a great deal of trouble in identifying and recruiting subjects, rather
than the broadband approach of this study. Those who know 440 from 442 and
the like are a small subset of a small subset.
    A couple interesting conclusions in the study:
³either you have it or you don¹t², meaning there isn¹t a spectrum of people
who are ³close but no cigar.²
G# and A# tend to be misidentified as A more often than any other notes are
misidentified.
And the thing about age causing perception to go sharp (to identify notes as
sharp of where they are when older).
    Quite a morass of jargon to wade through. Why can¹t academics learn to
write clearly?
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico


On 8/29/07 4:35 PM, "Ed  Sutton" <ed440 at mindspring.com> wrote:

> An extremely important study on absolute pitch has been done by the University
> of California, testing over 2000 subjects.
> See the report at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0703868104v3
> Piano technicians who deal with musical authorities (such as teachers and
> conductors) need to read this report.
> Accuracy of absolute pitch deteriorates with age.  No one over the age of 51
> in this study was able to attain a perfect score in a test of 36 tones, and
> many people 50 and older reported that they were aware that their pitch
> perception was drifting sharp.  This is probably due to age changes in the
> inner ear which effect all of us.
> Many of the situations we deal with may involve hearing changes in middle aged
> people.  I once had an aging choir director claim I was cheating her by
> charging for a pitch raise because the piano sounded "right on pitch" to her.
> My ETD measured the piano as over 20 cents flat.
>  
> Ed Sutton
> 


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