Anthony,
Check http://www.perfectpitch.com. They claim that many people have
acquired perfect pitch with their method and cite two studies in
which its
effectiveness has been confirmed:
(1) Rush, M. A. An experimental investigation of the effectiveness of
training on absolute pitch in adult musicians, The Ohio State
University.
(2) Nering, Marguerite Elaine. A study to determine the
effectiveness of
the David Lucas Burge technique for development of Perfect Pitch, The
University of Calgary.
I tried the method about 15 years ago and got to hear what they
described:
a maximum in smoothness at C and a maximum in sharpness at F#
(those were
not their exact words, but what I remember I perceived). However, I
was
not as consistent as recommended (I was too busy to practice
everyday) and
after a while my performance actually started to decrease. I gave
up at
about 1/4 of the course.
Arturo
Hi, i've found some interesting comments on absolute pitch on this
mailing list and was wondering if anyone has heard of any examples of
people who have acquired absolute pitch somehow during their later
lives,
ie not in early childhood development.
There is a clear trend between absolute pitch (AP) and autism, and
many
autistic savants with musical talents (which tend to be more in
terms of
music reproduction ability than creative composition) that have been
examined also have AP. There are numerous examples of people who have
acquired special abilities such as those exhibited by autistic
savants as
a result of injury or other non-developmental processes. I haven't
however
heard of any examples of people who have acquired AP later in
life, it
would be very useful if anyone knows of any examples.
There are suggestions that AP development is an independent
process that
is present in autistic and non-autistic people, and that presence
of AP is
pre-requisite for development of special musical abilities for
savants.
This model would suggest that cases of later-life AP
development would be unlikely, however if there are any examples
of people
developing AP later in life for example through brain injury,
similar to
how savant-like special abilities have been shown to be developed
(essentially spontaneously), it would be very useful.
thanks
Anthony
a couple of references:
** <http://www.brams.umontreal.ca/plab/publications/article/
32>Absolute
pitch in autism: a case study, L Mottron, I Peretz, S Belleville,
N Rouleau
- Neurocase, 1999
Musical savants: exceptional skill in the mentally retarded,
Miller L K,
Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989: 266
Absolute pitch in blind musicians, Roy H. Hamilton, Alvaro Pascual-
Leone
and Gottfried Schlaug, NeuroReport Vol 15 No 5, 9 April 2004
--
Leuconoe, don't ask — it's dangerous to know — what end the gods will
give me or you. Don't play with Babylonian fortune-telling either.
Better
just deal with whatever comes your way. Whether you'll see several
more
winters or whether the last one Jupiter gives you is the one even now
pelting the rocks on the shore with the waves of the Tyrrhenian
sea — be
smart, drink your wine. Scale back your long hopes to a short
period. Even
as we speak, envious time is running away from us. Seize the day,
trusting
little in the future.
--
__________________________________________________
Arturo Camacho, PhD
Alumni
Computer and Information Science and Engineering
University of Florida
Web page: www.cise.ufl.edu/~acamacho
__________________________________________________