Perfect Pitch: Why Do People Lose It?

when i started my channel back in 2016 i did a series of videos on perfect pitch because i had just done some videos with dylan that were huge on facebook where dylan was demonstrating his perfect pitch [Music] dylan was three when i discovered he had perfect pitch and since i don't have perfect pitch i wanted to learn more about it so i started looking at a bunch of research papers when does it happen how does it develop and then one of the things i came across is that people eventually lose their perfect pitch which i thought was fascinating in today's video we're going to explore how and why this happens before we get started let's talk about perfect pitch versus relative pitch so i have my guitar here it's way out of tune now if i were to tune it i would [Music] i'm just doing it relative this [Music] i would just tune the strings to each other so that's a fourth that's a fourth [Music] that's that's a fourth [Music] i tune that to a fifth between those two strings so this is basically in in pitch relative to itself now if i were to put this up against the tuner though it's not going to be to standard pitch let's see [Music] well actually it's perfectly in tune with standard pitch now why is that because i was using relative pitch to tune the guitar by tuning the strings using intervals so the low e string right i went up a perfect fourth to tune the fifth string a another perfect fourth up from a to d to tune the fourth string and then from d to g g to b is a major third and then b to e is a perfect fourth again so that is the sound of the open strings of the guitar using both relative pitch and some of you are going to say well rick has perfect pitch because that's exactly in tune but when i said pitch memory that is a thing that is actually related to perfect pitch perfect pitch is really pitch memory but it's an instantaneous thing now what is perfect pitch the definition perfect pitch is the ability to instantly name a note once it's struck or reproduce a note without a reference tone if i say that note there i'm hearing the note in my head and i'm singing it take this clip of jacob collier this is from a june lee video so jacob is singing these pitches and the piano is added afterwards in post-production but you'll notice that the notes are perfectly in tune because jacob collier has perfect pitch with that in mind if i hear a chord like [Music] any of you that have seen jacob collier's videos listen to any of his music no he has one of the greatest ears of any human beings just as ridiculously good perfect pitch can hear micro tones and if you're not familiar with him you should definitely check him out so let me tell you a little story when i hit 50 or so 5152 i started tuning my guitar up and when i thought it was perfectly in tune like that it was perfectly in tune to e flat and i don't know why that happened it wasn't like i was playing a lot of guitar parts tuned down a half step it just i could swear the e was that note which was e-flat what i didn't realize is that my pitch memory was drifting down a half step then i started talking to people that had perfect pitch that were also in their 50s and they said that their perfect pitch started to become inaccurate not everyone but most people that had perfect pitch just about everyone i'd call some of my friends that i'd known for years and i said yeah my perfect pitch is off by half step they always said it's off by half step so then i started doing more research on it and i came across some really interesting videos on youtube check it out i saw an interview with the great russian pianist richter who complained of the same thing if you have absolute pitch perfect pitch if you live long enough you will lose it and he said just as i'm saying that that he lost it and how long he said it's terrible to walk out for a concert and expect to hear this [Music] and certainly to your ear when you sit down at the piano even though you're playing those notes it may sound like this [Music] so your perfect pitch has visited it now it's it's it's gone down the tube so that's the very famous opus 110 beethoven piano sonata number 31. so what abby simon is saying is that richter came out playing these notes starting on this a flat major chord but in his brain that was really a g in richter's mind he was hearing the piece down a half step in g so when he played those notes he was surprised it was like wait a minute those aren't the right notes there's another great example that i saw and it's from a dick cavett oscar peterson interview so dick cavett is interviewing oscar peterson this is from 1979 so oscar is 54 years old right in the range where you'd begin to lose your perfect pitch and there's a feedback note that happens and dick have it asks oscar if you know what note this is and oscar's like yes it's e would that be at least an educated comment um well i would hope so what was that note was it was that you wanted that you mean if you hit it on the piano it would prove it you passed the test close to so as soon as dick cavett goes uh that note oscar says e well that note's actually e flat so it's the same thing oscar's doing the same thing so oscar thinks it's e so it's actually a half step lower than what it is in his brain now how do i know that he has perfect pitch or had perfect pitch well there's a record that came out about five years earlier there's actually a bunch of things where that i've read that oscar peterson had perfect pitch but there's a particular record with joe pass a duo record where at the end of stella by starlight joe places solo and ends on this b-flat major seven chord which is very common voicing on guitar but it's very uncommon on piano and oscar plays that right after joe plays it and the only way that he would do that is if he had perfect pitch it's obvious the way he does it to start off his solo you know this topic actually came up in an interview i did with gary burton gary burton is one of the most famous vibes players of all time probably the most famous he got many people's career started in fact in this video here you can see a young pat matheny who was in his group that's from 1976 and had a legendary ear he had perfect pitch and in 2011 he came out with a story on npr about how he lost his perfect pitch so i asked him about this when i interviewed him unfortunately that didn't actually get on film when we talked about it was actually during the setup so gary told me that his heart had stopped for a short period of time and he went on a heart lung machine and didn't realize that he had lost his perfect pitch until he went to a gig a couple months later with chichoria at the blue note so they're warming up and gary says to chick why are you playing that in d flat jake says what are you talking about i'm playing an f and gary says no you're playing in d flat chick says no i'm playing an f and so gary told me he walks around the piano he looked at chicks hands and was astounded he realized he didn't know any of the notes that chick was playing so his whole life he had perfect pitch could play over any chord progression knew exactly what to play and then all of a sudden on this gig he's playing notes and he has no idea what they are you know one of the reasons i wanted to do this video is because i had a lot of emails from people about my beethoven video where i talked about the fact that maybe beethoven heard the ninth symphony or a lot of his later works in a different key than they were down a half step maybe in his mind he was doing the e to e flat thing maybe the ninth symphony was supposed to be down half steps some people then wrote well they found a tuning fork that was 455 you know a equals 455 and so i mean whatever his pitch reference was beethoven had perfect pitch the other thing is a lot of people have asked me well do you i think it's an ear thing that that maybe your ear canals change or anything no this is a brain thing it has to be right because you're imagining what these pitches are if you think okay so in my brain that note was a flat but you noticed i was very slightly flat from it my perception of what a flat is is off it's not accurate anymore so really what you want to do is develop your relative pitch because your relative pitch is just measuring one note against the next what the interval relationship is between notes it actually in many ways is just as fast as perfect pitch but it lasts an entire lifetime this is a video of me from instagram that i did probably last august or so where i'm using my ear training program to randomly generate intervals and i'm naming them quick lesson first thing i do every morning before i even practice a guitar as soon as i get in is work on some relative pitch training using my beater ear training method i'm going to do random intervals i'm going to start with a reference tone c here we go d b flat c g a flat d b flat b f a flat c g b f sharp e d c g e a f sharp d e flat b flat f a flat e c e flat [Music] as you can see that's pretty much the same speed as having perfect pitch i noticed in the comments section of some of my videos like when i just did the spotify top 10 video i'm sitting here and i'm playing the chords of the songs as they go by well that's just using relative pitch because of my ear training course and spending years and years learning intervals and the sound of chords i'm able to instantly figure out songs so if you want to check out my ear training course shameless plug go check out beato ear training.com you can watch the introduction video that's all for now don't forget to subscribe if you're a first time viewer ring the bell that'll let you know when i go live and when a new video comes out give it a thumbs up leave a comment that's very important if you're interested in the biato book go to my website at www.rickbiota.com follow me on instagram at rickbeat01 check out the new beatto ear training program at beautiertraining.com and if you want to support the channel even more think about becoming a member of the biato club thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 418,543

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Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, perfect pitch, relative pitch, absolute pitch, twoset violin, how to develop perfect pitch, classical music, charlie puth, dylan beato, the worlds greatest ear, ear training, Jacob Collier, June Lee, Oscar Peterson, perfect pitch training, ling ling, relative pitch training, relative pitch practice, dylan beato perfect pitch

Id: 3rx08qWtFak

Length: 13min 18sec (798 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021