Can Perfect Pitch Be Learned? If So, This Might Do the Trick!

The purpose of this article is to begin flushing out, with an open mind, the possibility of learning perfect pitch as an adult. We’ll cover what perfect pitch is in a familiar way, then think through a logical, valid approach for how one may develop this awareness if they are so motivated.

The ear-training method covered here comes from Dr. Donald Reinhardt’s “Encyclopedia of the Pivot System.” The thinking supporting the possibility that Reinhardt’s method may legitimately lead to learning perfect pitch was inspired by Gerald Weinberg’s “An Introduction to General Systems Thinking.”

Pretty exciting stuff¹.

Doc’s “Encyclopedia of the Pivot System” starts out the section on ear training with a question:

Why and how must the student’s ear be trained logically and progressively in “tonal timbre” as well as in “pitch”?

He continues:

Some performers become so confused by the variations in tonal timbre (tone quality) and with the ranges of the different instruments (other than their own) that they are unable to recognize and name the pitches of the tones being played.

That’s pretty interesting. And it makes me wonder:  is Reinhardt suggesting that recognizing pitches, or (ahem) “having perfect pitch” is no big thing? And if so, what is it? How do we get it? And is it worth the effort?

What Is Perfect Pitch?

A person with a developed sense of absolute pitch (AKA perfect pitch) can hear any musical tone, and with no point of reference correctly name that tone. The name of the note is irrelevant; it’s the listener automatically and accurately categorizing the pitch that’s important.

So a person with perfect pitch would have no difficulty hearing an instrumentalist play while simultaneously blurting out the notes they hear. It might go something like this: “A,” “C#,” or, “the first note of the theme to (fill in the blank),” and/or even, “that’s the key from, ‘Funky Town!’” You can think of perfect pitch like like color vision for the ears.

In the case of color vision, the eye and the brain work together to convert the frequency of a light wave’s cycle into the experience of seeing color. Perfect pitch is simply the ear and the brain working together to convert the frequency of a sound wave into a “pitch color.” These pitch colors — or tone colors as they are also referred to — are really just the feeling of knowing what a note is when you hear it.

Why Is Perfect Pitch So Rare?

This is just a guess, but if perfect pitch and color vision are seemingly equals as far as the brain is concerned, one may be more prevalent in human societies if it’s found more “useful” in the everyday world; Essentially an adaptation that makes it easier to accept one thing versus another. Either that or it’s completely random.

But just for fun, place yourself in a world where colors mean things. Oh wait; red means stop and green means go. And yellow means making a choice. But what does the sound “C# with a little too much D in it” stand for in these aural dark ages? Absolutely nothing, of course²!

While someone born into a world where directions to the farmers market are, “get on the bus with the Ab horn and get off when you hear four short F’s,” might have pretty good ears, it seems that the rest of us here on earth who didn’t grow up hearing a tonal language, or weren’t exposed to lots of complex music at an early age, are screwed.

Or are we? Sure, most people with perfect pitch learn it very early in life with a young, ripe mind that’s taking care of business. But does that mean it’s impossible to reawaken that potential later in life?

How We Might Learn Perfect Pitch

To grasp why Reinhardt’s ear training method may have been on track for learning tone colors, we must first get nerdy and talk about what a quality is.

A quality is something that can only be described by pointing to it. For example, “green” is a quality. Try explaining to someone what the color green looks like without pointing to something that’s green. Good luck with that!

Qualities may also exist within a range and be relative to many factors. For example, “nice” is a quality. But the people who I find nice, other people find them to be total assholes, freaks and whack-jobs. Revisiting our green analogy, we sure can lump a lot of different shades under the umbrella, “green.” Each quality is a generalized feeling that exists within some consensus.

So we learn the quality “green,” or “nice,” by pointing to things that are green and nice! So far as the observer sees it, of course. Then, after some time checking out things that are green and nice, we develop a pretty good feel for those qualities. And that’s how we see it!

But sometimes qualities are difficult to point out. In these cases, you may discover them by breaking the system that they are a part of to see what sticks around and what changes. Doing so reveals what are called either “intensive” or “extensive” properties (AKA qualities).

To borrow Weinberg’s analogy, the “chocolaty” quality of a chocolate bar is an intensive quality. Why? Because if you break the bar in half, each half still retains its original “chocolaty-ness.” However, the physical mass of the chocolate bar will change if the bar is broken into pieces. That makes mass an extensive quality as it relies on the full extent of the system (in this case the chocolate bar is the “system”).

You know where this is going: a pitch’s tone color can be thought of as a quality of that note. In other words, the tone colors can only be described by pointing them out. They will not change, regardless of what instrument they’re played on. This makes tone color an intensive quality of a musical note.

Breaking Down the Music to Uncover Tone Colors

Reinhardt may have given us a clue as to how we might break down a tone and discover these intensive qualities by mentioning our confusion with “tonal timbre” and “pitch/range.”

But let’s start by determining whether you, the listener, actually has the hardware needed to recognize tone colors. Well, it stands to reason that most people do, especially if you’re a musician.

Consider the fact that it’s somewhat common for a musician to learn their instrument well enough that they’re able to transcribe live performances of that instrument as played by another performer in real time. How can this be possible if the listener is not on some level recognizing the tone colors? Yes, those who can make these dictations quickly are using relative pitch to some degree, even people with perfect pitch. But that doesn’t account for knowing the correct key of a piece or the ability to pick out notes at random. Unless you think of the entire skill set as being relative pitch, or knowing what any given note sounds like relative to a specific instrument.

But what if you develop that same level of proficiency transcribing another instrument? Well, with enough practice you not only acquire the familiarity to know each chromatic pitch relative to that instrument, you also gain perspective on what remains constant from one instrument to the next. By learning the sounds of the tones on more than one instrument you gain some perspective on the intrinsic quality, “tone color.”

Reinhardt’s Ear Training Recommendation

With that in mind, Reinhardt’s suggestion is to first practice transcribing another performer on your primary instrument until you can dictate with 100% certainty. He uses the phrase, ” thoroughly mastered.” Think of it like taking a dictation in your native language³.

Once you have mastered your primary instrument you then move through the same process with the remaining members of the brass family. They are chosen as the progressive and logical stepping-stone since they are the closest in timbre. Once the brass family is mastered, you move onto the woodwind and string families, starting each with the instrument that most closely matches your primary in range and timbre. A trumpet player would begin dictating the woodwind family with the clarinet and the string family with the violin⁴.

Reinhardt also mentions that when practicing with a partner the performer should play with a tuner and correct each pitch to both equal temperament and just tuning. This is presumably to give a good sense of the “true” pitch color⁶. Accurate pitch on the tuner will present the clearest distinction from one tone color to the next for the listener.

Another suggestion for beginning to notice the differences in tone color from one note to the next is to practice melodies in all keys with your eyes closed. Reinhardt recommends picking a melody you like and playing it up in half-steps to your highest note, then back from the original pitch down in half-steps to your lowest note, every day.

You Are Already On Your Way

You might already be noticing some of this stuff. Do certain notes on your horn sound/feel unique to you in some way? Sure, maybe it’s the horn, maybe it’s the mouthpiece, and maybe it’s even the trumpet player. Nah. It’s definitely the mouthpiece. But along with all that other stuff, maybe, just maybe, you’re hearing a little tone color, too.

Finding what sticks around from instrument to instrument, and learning automatic pitch differentiation, is probably going to take a lot of dedication and input. That, plus a certain amount of faith in the mysterious abilities of the subconscious mind. Ultimately, deciding if it’s worth the trouble is up to you. But I will say that perfect pitch seems like a positive addition to any musician’s arsenal.

So get after it! My experience completing David Lucas Burge’s Perfect Pitch course, a process taking over a year of daily practice and choc-full of horrible mistakes, my ears are much more open. Some days, it’s great; Other days, not so much. It seems to come and go just like everything else. But at the end of the day, whatever degree you start to uncover these qualities, your musicianship will improve. So even if you never attain perfect pitch, you’ll be better off every step of the way for giving it a shot.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to read your comments, below. Also, if you liked this article, be sure to sign up for BTB’s mailing list:

Take care,

James

Footnotes

¹ Neither Doc nor Gerald had anything to do with what’s about to happen. They never even mentioned the words, “perfect pitch.” This is all my fault.

² You could argue that we choose colors as a form of non-verbal communication because more people can see in color than have developed perfect pitch. However, thinking it’s something most of us have lying dormant is way more fun.

³  If you get overwhelmed and mess up taking a transcription in your native tongue, does that mean you don’t actually speak that language, after all?

⁴ Here’s what Rheinhardt wrote about typical ear training classes: “The point is to take typical “dictation” classes in a method that trains the aspects of timbre and pitch recognition in a way that makes sense to each individual performer. In this way the student has the greatest likelihood of actually succeeding in such courses, where as to pass before would require familiarity with the piano timbre, as the concepts of relative pitch, in my opinion, take longer than a semester to internalize⁵.”

⁵ Hell, yes.

⁶ Which is relative to geographical location and the time that you live in.