[HN Gopher] Learning fast and accurate absolute pitch judgment i...
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Learning fast and accurate absolute pitch judgment in adulthood
Author : dr_dshiv
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-02-13 08:38 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (link.springer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (link.springer.com)
| zx2c4 wrote:
| > By the end of the training, they learned to name an average of
| 7.08 pitches (ranging from 3 to 12) at an accuracy of 90% or
| above and within a response-time (RT) window of 1,305-2,028 ms.
|
| That doesn't actually seem very promising, or at least useful at
| all. It still seems way less useful than my accurate and near
| instantaneous relative-pitch. What could I do as a musician with
| 2 seconds of latency to be wrong some amount of the time.
| neuralkoi wrote:
| I don't understand (I am not a musician). This was an 8-week
| training program (21.4h). How long have you spent perfecting
| your relative pitch?
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Pretty sure you don't lose your relative pitch, and the better
| you are at relative pitch the better results you'll have anyway
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I wonder if they combined this with Valproic acid, which
| supposedly can help adults learn perfect pitch
| https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-...
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Interesting. Word of caution though, valproic acid is
| teratogenic, and should not be taken by anyone who may become
| pregnant. The linked article suggests it could be a "wonder
| drug" to enable learning, but there are also downsides to
| taking it.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Yeah, until they figure out how to target it to your
| ears/brain/whatever I would not take something that wipes
| your body's epigenetic slate
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| Is this type of training more beneficial to do first rather than
| recognizing intervals?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| I think its gotta be just interesting on the theoretical side
| around learning/cognition. Otherwise yeah, its like learning
| exactly how salty something is when you taste it: not a total
| waste of time maybe, but not directly beneficial for you as the
| cook.
|
| In school, at least when I was there, ear training was a
| combination of recognizing harmony, rhythm, and simple melodies
| with an arbitrary key, ontop of, of course, sight singing. It
| is of course quite sufficient to have this skill with all of
| that, but hardly necessary!
| olddustytrail wrote:
| It's not beneficial at all. Don't do it. The only music that
| will sound "right" is autotuned crap from the most boring types
| of music. Anything interesting will sound "out of tune".
| 2c2c2c wrote:
| i made https://perfectpitch.study a week or so ago. i am old and
| musically untrained and wanted to see if rote practice makes a
| difference (it clearly does).
|
| most of the sites of this type i found annoying as you can't just
| use a midi keyboard, so you just get RSI clicking around for 10
| minutes.
|
| I tried getting adsense on it, but they seem to have vague
| content requirements. Apparently tools don't count as real
| websites :-(. I couldn't even fool it with fake content. what's
| the best banner ad company to use in this situation?
| jawon wrote:
| Gave it a try. After a few minutes I felt more like I was
| recognising the samples than I was recognising the notes. Not
| sure what you can do about that short of physically modeling an
| instrument.
| yojo wrote:
| Latest browser APIs expose everything you need to build a
| synth. See: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
|
| There are some libraries that make it easy to simulate
| instruments. E.g. tone.js https://tonejs.github.io/
|
| It should be possible to generate unique-ish variants at
| runtime.
| 2c2c2c wrote:
| I am using midi and open source instrument packages, so this
| is all handleable. There's a few instrument options to choose
| from in the top right settings.
|
| Will probably add a "randomize instrument used per round"
| setting or something to really dial it in. I added a
| randomize velocity option but didn't test it much
| appleorchard46 wrote:
| The perception of perfect pitch as this magical, unattainable
| thing always seemed odd to me. Not surprised this reinforces that
| it's mostly about memorization and practice.
|
| Think of a song you know best, one you've listened to hundreds of
| times: can you sing it or hear it in your head pretty accurately
| (edit - not accurate intervals, but accurate pitch)? If so,
| congrats, you have the capacity for perfect pitch. Learn what
| note it starts on and you're 1/12 of the way there.
| ByThyGrace wrote:
| > and you're 1/12 of the way there.
|
| I'm afraid my favorite song is on a microtonal scale...
| dingnuts wrote:
| >Think of a song you know best, one you've listened to hundreds
| of times: can you sing it or hear it in your head pretty
| accurately? If so, congrats, you have the capacity for perfect
| pitch
|
| No, this is relative pitch. You might be singing it in the
| wrong key. That's why you can sing something a capella and it
| sounds right and then you add an instrument playing the correct
| notes and it doesn't.
| zeroxfe wrote:
| It's not. You should actually try out the exercise. (I used
| this approach to build partial perfect pitch, i.e., to
| sing/identify a small number of specific pitches.)
|
| Close your eyes and try to imagine a song that you know
| really well. Imagine the original version playing on your
| phone/mp3 player/cd/record. Pick a stable note from that song
| (for me, the third note of the beginning of "Tears in Heaven"
| is a solid A.) Try to sing it and match the pitch in your
| head.
|
| As you practice it you'll get better, and do it faster, and
| over time even be able to recognize it in the wild.
| appleorchard46 wrote:
| That's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to songs you
| know intimately enough that you _can_ sing a capella (or at
| least hear in your head) in the right key. Edited original
| comment for clarity.
|
| This might not be something you personally can do, but for
| those who have memorized a song in that way it's a convenient
| way of demonstrating that perfect pitch isn't as unattainable
| as it might seem.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's a different exercise though... wrong direction.
| Absolute pitch recognition is hearing -> pitch. What you
| describe is memory -> performance -> comparison <- hearing.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| > The perception of perfect pitch as this magical, unattainable
| thing always seemed odd to me
|
| Because it is really magical and unattainable
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI
|
| Show me an adult that trained to this level.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > The perception of perfect pitch as this magical, unattainable
| thing always seemed odd to me.
|
| Not sure why, it's taught and commonly considered to be an
| ability you're born with rather than something you can develop
| yourself later on.
|
| > However, no adult has ever been documented to have acquired
| absolute listening ability, because all adults who have been
| formally tested after AP training have failed to demonstrate
| "an unqualified level of accuracy... comparable to that of AP
| possessors".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch
|
| The Wiki article also describes just prior to this cited
| section that there have been countless attempts at it over the
| centuries.
|
| Doesn't exactly sound like a learnable skill to me.
| narag wrote:
| "Code availability: The codes used in this study were not
| available to the public."
| viraptor wrote:
| Watch out what you wish for though. With age our hearing degrades
| and the experienced frequency shifts. There's a number of people
| with perfect pitch recognition who mentioned getting annoyed when
| they got older and everything sounded slightly off. For practical
| music, relative pitch is fine and commonly trained.
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