<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; = charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2712.300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>List,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I received this post from a customer = with perfect pitch.  I thought it might have some interest to the = List.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>David I.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>David,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>We were talking = about perfect pitch at rehearsal last week, and a few days later a friend send me a = photocopy of the following article from the December 2001 issue of Discover = magazine.  I found it online, and am sending it on, as I = thought you might find it interesting. Judy     The Biology of ... Perfect Pitch   Name That Tone   = Can your child learn some of Mozart's magic?   By Michael Abrams   The psychology annex building at the University of California = at San Diego   has no elevator, but it has something even better: a = singing stairwell. "It's a   low F, I think," Diana Deutsch says, = pausing on the top step to listen to the   wind's howl. Deutsch has a face = as round and sprightly as a sixteenth note, a   red bob of hair, = and a doctorate in psychology. She also has perfect pitch. "I   = realized I had it when I began taking piano lessons at the age of 4," she says. =   "It was a great surprise to me that other people could not name notes. = It was   as if everyone around me was unable to name colors."   Mozart must have known how she feels: He could name a single = note from a   tolling bell or a chiming pocket watch. Yet only one in = 10,000 Americans   has perfect pitch, and even professional musicians = tend to make do with   relative pitch: They can name only the intervals = between notes. To   approximate perfect pitch, some musicians memorize = just one note, usually   middle C, and then use relative pitch to = navigate to others. But these pitch   estimators need a moment of thought = to name a note, and they tend to be   slightly off. (Granted, the notes themselves are a bit off: In Handel's time, an   A above middle = C had a pitch of 422.5 vibrations a second; these days, that   same A = has climbed to 440 vibrations a second.) People with perfect pitch =   name notes instantly and they're invariably correct.   For decades, biologists thought that perfect pitch was a = genetic anomaly,   passed on from generation to generation. Identical = twins are far more likely   than fraternal twins to have perfect pitch, = and nearly half of all people with   perfect pitch have relatives = who have it. But studies by Deutsch and others   have shown that perfect = pitch is far more common than it seems. It's a form   of speech = rather than a feature of music—and like speech, it can be learned.   The essential idea began to take shape in Deutsch's mind three = years ago,   when she was studying music perception among people from = Vietnam. The study subjects, she found, had no trouble   = understanding her Vietnamese when she spoke at the correct pitch. "But when I = deliberately shifted my pitch—to an   extent that would be barely = noticeable in English—it was as if I'd said, 'I like your beat,' or 'I like your = bite,' when   I'd meant to say, 'I like your boat.'" Just to communicate, = she realized, Vietnamese have to identify pitches correctly.   What = seems like magic to Americans is just second nature in other parts of the = world.   "The real puzzle about perfect pitch is not why so few people = possess it but rather why most people do not,"   Deutsch says. = "Everyone has an implicit form of perfect pitch, even though we aren't all able to put a = label to notes.   It's as if people suffer from a kind of anomia: They = can recognize the note but can't label it. What's learned as a child =   is the ability to label." In a study published in 1994, psychologist Daniel = Levitin at the University of Oregon asked   subjects to sing hit songs = such as "Hotel California" from memory. Forty percent came within a semitone = (the   change from F to F-sharp, for instance) of the first pitch on = the recording. If someone was a little off-key, it was   probably = due to their singing ability: They could hear the correct pitches in their = heads; they just couldn't reproduce   them. "I have perfect pitch, but I = sing terribly out of tune," Deutsch says. "Toscanini had perfect pitch, but = I've heard   it said that he insisted on humming out of tune . . . = very irritating to the players. There really is a difference between =   perception and production."   Deutsch has spent the past few years circling in on this = innate sense of pitch through a series of experiments. To   demonstrate, she = sits me down in front of a microphone and digital audiotape machine and asks me = to talk about   anything I wish for five minutes. Although she seems = interested in hearing about my flight from New York and the   = malfunctioning flaps on the airplane, she's really after my pitch range. Most people's = voices, she says, stay within a   single octave—a do, re, mi, fa, sol, = la, ti, do, identified by the name of its first and last notes. "Congratulations,"   Deutsch says, after analyzing my soliloquy, "you're a = G-sharp, just like me."   Pitch ranges are often a handy way for people to distinguish = males from females and very young children from adults.   But Deutsch = thinks the distinctions we make are far more subtle. "You can evaluate whether = a person is speaking   your dialect based on the range of their voice," = she says. "Supposing you want, as birds do, to judge if someone's   = from the same geographic region. You may be able to do so by evoking a pitch = range."   The best example of this ability is what Deutsch calls the = "tritone paradox." Imagine two tones played one after the   other. The = first tone is actually two separate notes an octave apart—a high and low C, = say—played in perfect unison   so that they sound like a single tone. = (When Deutsch performs the experiment, she plays six octaves at once, but =   they still sound like one.) The second tone is a "tritone": a note = exactly halfway between the two octaves—a G-flat   in this case. = Although the G-flat is between the two Cs, some listeners hear it as higher and some = as lower,   depending on their pitch range. More intriguing still, = their responses vary depending on where they were raised.   Pitch ranges are so clearly tied to geography that Deutsch can = often guess where her subjects or their parents grew   up. = Californians tend to have a pitch range that starts and ends around C-sharp; Vietnamese = have a range that starts   and ends around E. The predictability of = those ranges suggests, in turn, that people develop a sense of pitch at a very =   early age, perhaps even in the womb. "Children probably pick = up their pitch range from the voices they hear around   them," Deutsch = says. "The noise of the mother's voice comes through very loudly during = pregnancy."   For most of us, learning to keep within a certain pitch = range—and to identify that range in others—is all the voice   training we = really need. When Deutsch recently asked English speakers to read the same list = of words on different   days, she found that their pitch for any = given word could vary by as much as two notes. But speakers of certain tonal   languages, such as Vietnamese and Mandarin, don't have that = much room for error. In Mandarin, for instance, the   word ma can mean = "mother," "horse," "hemp," or "to scold," depending on its pitch. In a study = presented to the   Acoustical Society of America, Deutsch found that tonal = speakers hit the same pitches dead on, day after day, and an   unusual = number of them have perfect pitch.   Certain genes may help some people acquire perfect pitch more = easily than others, but Deutsch's findings suggest   that almost = anyone can learn to label notes—provided they start young. Children who don't = learn to do it by the time   they learn the rudiments of language may never = gain the ability. Deutsch thinks that parents should give young   = children access to musical instruments, preferably with labeled notes, to help = the process along. "I often wonder if I   acquired my perfect pitch = because I had a color-coded xylophone as a kid," she says, noting that people = with perfect   pitch have a higher incidence of synesthesia: When = they hear a sound, they see a color. Even when they don't, she   says, = their gift adds an extra dimension to their listening experience, revealing the = music's architecture as well as its   sound. "It's as though you are = seeing the musical score scroll past your eyes."     RELATED WEB SITES:   Details of Diana Deutsch's study of Vietnamese and Mandarin = speakers can be found at   www.acoustics.org/press/138th/deutsch.htm.   To learn about perfect pitch, visit www.provide.net/~bfield/ whatabs.html and www.provide.net/~bfield/   abs_pitch.html. =     </BODY></HTML>