Posted August 17, 200619 yr THE MYSTERIES OF PERFECT PITCH When Mariah Carey belts out a glass-shattering high note, it's impossible for most listeners to identify the tone. Not for her. Carey possesses perfect or absolute pitch (AP), the ability to identify tones without any external reference. Just as most people recognize the colors green or sky blue, those with AP instantly recognize a C or E-sharp. Although roughly 1 in 10,000 people are born with this talent, without musical training they may lose it. "At some point, they have to learn the proper terms - the labels - and then learn to associate those labels with sensory impressions of pitch," says Daniel Levitin, a psychologist at McGill University in Montreal. That training needs to happen very early: Adult musicians with absolute pitch typically began music lessons around age 5. After age 9 it becomes virtually impossible to develop truly perfect pitch. The rare instances of late acquisition usually occur among the developmentally challenged - most often those with autism or Williams syndrome - whose cognitive maturation is delayed. Specific languages facilitate absolute pitch. Conservatory students who are native speakers of tonal languages (languages like Mandarin and Vietnamese in which pitch conveys meaning) display perfect pitch more frequently than do their English-speaking counterparts. Alternately, prevalence among Asians may have a genetic basis. Another study, which did not consider which language subjects spoke, found that 32 percent of Asian-American music students had perfect pitch compared with 7 percent of non-Asian-American music students. Regardless of ethnicity, people with perfect pitch are more likely to have similarly talented siblings. The gift isn't always a blessing. Awareness of pitch can distract listeners from enjoying music, and playing a melody in a transposed key can be a downright nightmare. Even so, droves of wannabes enroll in courses on "pitch identification". Of course, when it comes to musical greatness, absolute pitch is irrelevant. For every Mozart who has it, there are several Tchaikovskys who don't. (Psychology Today - Mariah Connection) My friend is a classical musician and choral singer. He has perfect pitch. It is incredibly rare - something like 5% of people have it. And most of them don't know they have it because they've never studied music.
August 17, 200619 yr ooh Shakira ahs this as well, the ability to hit a note perfectly without hearing it first
August 17, 200619 yr Author the ability to hit a note perfectly without hearing it first Or recognise notes other people are singing, or keys played on instruments. It's also the ability to hear a piece of music and recreate it, without being told the notes involved. My friend has a chinese child living in the flat beneath him. This kid plays music on a cheap keyboard all day. So my friend plays the music back at him a couple of seconds later. The child gets very freaked out and stops for a bit.
August 21, 200619 yr Author How many octaves does Mariah claim to have again? :unsure: Best not to ask. Even music journalists get this concept wrong. A piano has 4 octaves. Yet Mariah, Christina and Jeff Buckley have been alleged by guessing journalists, and their PR staff, to have 7 or 8. It can't be right. And then Mariah's dogwhistles are falsetto so some say don't count towards her octave range, because they're not part of her normal range.
August 21, 200619 yr I remember when We Belong Together was on CDUK Hotshots and Charlotte Church, Lee Ryan and someone else were reviewing them and they said she didn't have 8 octaves and The Church said she had a 3.5 which apparently was the same as Charlotte. :rolleyes:
August 21, 200619 yr Lmao! Mariah has admitted to a 5 octave range in her peak, but borrowed notes from the 7th octave (whistle register) Charlotte was just trying to compare herself to a superstar cause her career flopped :P
August 21, 200619 yr Lmao! Mariah has admitted to a 5 octave range in her peak, but borrowed notes from the 7th octave (whistle register) Charlotte was just trying to compare herself to a superstar cause her career flopped :P Very true. But don't let Graham hear you say that. :rofl:
August 21, 200619 yr :lol! I like Char, but she can't go round giving false information about people that are soooo above her in the Music Industry :P
August 21, 200619 yr Her chatshow will be good though! :rofl: The advert is great, there's all these hot miner men, and she's like 'welsh accent' you're not a real miner are you? :rofl: Edited August 21, 200619 yr by Kalen
August 21, 200619 yr Yeah as much as her gob annoys me I wanna see this chat show i've heard so much about. :lol:
August 25, 200619 yr And me! It's on Friday, I think it'll be a really good thing to watch because she's outspoken and such, it'll be better than the other c**p on TV these days!
August 28, 200618 yr And me! It's on Friday, I think it'll be a really good thing to watch because she's outspoken and such, it'll be better than the other c**p on TV these days! Was it on on Friday just gone? :unsure:
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