I am quite skeptical that hearing like a person with absolute pitch can be learned because it seems to be somewhat incompatible with relative pitch.
People with absolute pitch report that if a piece of music is played with a slightly lower or higher pitch, it sounds out of tune. If this feeling stays throughout the piece this means that the person doesn’t hear relatively. So even if a relative pitch person would learn to name played notes absolutely, I don’t think the hearing experience would be the same.
So I think you can’t have both absolute pitch and relative pitch in the full sense. (I do think that you can improve at naming played notes, singing notes correctly without a reference note from outside your body, etc.)
I gave this an upvote because it is directly counter to my current belief about how relative/absolute pitch work and interact with each other. I agree that if someone’s internalised absolute pitch can constantly identify out of tune notes, even after minutes of repetition, this is a strong argument against my position. On the other hand, maybe they do produce one internal reference note of set frequency, and when comparing known intervals against this, it returns “out of tune” every time. I can see either story being true, but I would like to hunt down some more information on which of these models is more accurate
Some report that after experiencing a shift in their absolute pitch, all music sounds wrong. Some of them adapted somehow (it’s unclear to me how much development of relative abilities was involved) and others report not having noticed that their absolute pitch has shifted. Some report that only after they’ve lost their absolute pitch completely, they were able to develop certain relative pitch abilities.
Overall, people’s reported experiences in the comments vary a lot. I wouldn’t draw strong conclusions from them. In any case, I find it fascinating to read about these perceptions.
I am quite skeptical that hearing like a person with absolute pitch can be learned because it seems to be somewhat incompatible with relative pitch.
People with absolute pitch report that if a piece of music is played with a slightly lower or higher pitch, it sounds out of tune. If this feeling stays throughout the piece this means that the person doesn’t hear relatively. So even if a relative pitch person would learn to name played notes absolutely, I don’t think the hearing experience would be the same.
So I think you can’t have both absolute pitch and relative pitch in the full sense. (I do think that you can improve at naming played notes, singing notes correctly without a reference note from outside your body, etc.)
I gave this an upvote because it is directly counter to my current belief about how relative/absolute pitch work and interact with each other. I agree that if someone’s internalised absolute pitch can constantly identify out of tune notes, even after minutes of repetition, this is a strong argument against my position. On the other hand, maybe they do produce one internal reference note of set frequency, and when comparing known intervals against this, it returns “out of tune” every time. I can see either story being true, but I would like to hunt down some more information on which of these models is more accurate
Rick Beato has a video about people losing their absolute pitch with age (it seems to happen to everyone eventually). There are a lot of anecdata by people who have experienced this both in the video and in the comments.
Some report that after experiencing a shift in their absolute pitch, all music sounds wrong. Some of them adapted somehow (it’s unclear to me how much development of relative abilities was involved) and others report not having noticed that their absolute pitch has shifted. Some report that only after they’ve lost their absolute pitch completely, they were able to develop certain relative pitch abilities.
Overall, people’s reported experiences in the comments vary a lot. I wouldn’t draw strong conclusions from them. In any case, I find it fascinating to read about these perceptions.