You should contact Dr. Andrew Huberman (has a podcast and has been on lots of podcasts, like Rogan.) he's done research in to the neuroscience behind neuroplasticity. This topic would be a fascinating conversation to watch both of you discuss. Edit: I realize that might be coming out of left field, I am referencing the original video you did on the topic, which is how I discovered your channel.
Hey Rick, love the content was easy to subscribe to your channel with how great it is. I wanna buy some of your books and wanna know what is the best place to purchase them that gives u the most profit?
Watching you figure these chords out was something else! Intellectually, I knew what you were doing, but it still pretty much seemed like black magic. That is a really really cool skill. Talent? Skill? I'm not sure what to call it.
Absolutely fascinating pierre. Any advice as how to help my 4yr old develop. I think she may have perfect pitch. Ask her to sing any song, even ones she hasn't heard in weeks or months, and she sings it perfectly in the original key.
You speak a language I don't understand but my dad was a jazz pianist and I recognise the sounds. Grew up to him practising, composing and doing orgistrations. Miss him now.
Pierre is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He is an exceptionally talented musician and a great person. It warms my heart to see him getting the recognition he deserves.
Perfect pitch definitely makes transcribing for piano easier! I love the complex jazz chords here. I can figure them out if I take the time. I’m sure I’d recognise them faster if they were more common in the music I listened to. They don’t come up that often for me, but it’s kinda fun to work them out because they’re outside my usual comfort zone. Great vid, Rick!
much of my family has perfect pitch, with my mom being a singer that never learned to read music because of her talent. what made you learn to read, despite having perfect pitch?
@@hovis_esports, The correct term is absolute pitch. Equal temperament is actually out of tune when you play chords. To many beats. It’s useful for fixed pitch instruments, but is a bad compromise tuning system.
I find this perfect pitch business absolutely fascinating. I don't have it, in fact I'm probably negative if anything but watching it in operation live is brilliant.
Well the lady I'm featuring on my channel is a step above from perfect pitch, she's a synesthete with perfect pitch as by-product. She's been playing by ear since she was a toddler. I have footage of her doing various rare feats live involving audience (mashing up live audience requests and improvising on audience input) and involving other musicians (solo battle where she copies solo of other musician on the fly and plays it back embellished). Gifts like that help define your peak potential but it still requires thousands of hours to reach that peak potential.
Despite the recognition that the brain is plastic, so far all evidence points to getting perfect pitch from very early child development (Rick has spoken about playing complex music for his kids endlessly throughout their early life) or not at all. However, pretty much anyone at nearly any age can develop very good relative pitch as Rick mentions here. You can do it as simply as two sound sources (e.g. two pianos or electronic keyboards, two guitars, etc.) and one person plays single notes while the other detects them within a small range, like C then D or C then E and have the person repeat them back to them. If alone you could simply record enough of these to not be able to memorize them and practice this by yourself. Do this over a few hours and you may be amazed at how much you'll progress to hearing 3 or possibly more notes in a row, or wider ranges start to be possible because you can "run the notes up" in your head to figure out the further note... I basically went that route and forever ruined, so to speak, my desire to learn to play traditionally despite having a piano teacher mother. But as soon as I started hearing the notes and intervals, I would figure what was on the sheet music once, and thereafter just use my ear to replay it. Over a few decades playing guitar I got good and quick enough at just recognizing the intervals I could even do a bit of soloing over key changes. Endless fun, but not much commercial value!
@@brianmi40 It's very likely that kids are born with perfect pitch and other gifts. It can be proven statistically. Say in a family there are 2 kids of similar age (preferably twins or 1-2 years age gap) that were exposed to the exact same household musical conditions, yet one of the kids shows early signs of talent and aptitude toward the craft. Especially if it's a slightly younger child of 1-2 years age gap that pulls away early compared to the older child, while being exposed to the same musical conditioning and lessons. Such talent gap would be apparent at age as early as 4 years old between siblings. Enough documented cases like that can statistically prove that you don't develop these gifts in early childhood. I have one case like that researched and documented already, where a child younger by 1 year started playing by ear at the age of 4, pulling away from older sibling. All while having the same exact household exposure (you can even argue that older sibling had an extra time of this musical exposure - their mom played piano at home and they both poked around until they were sent for piano lessons).
I don't know what's factual or statistically significant, but I know 30 year olds can learn a new language. It's no doubt harder for them but with immersion it can eventually become the language they use to think with, or even dream with, without having to translate in their heads. They would have to want to learn and probably have no alternative but to learn because that's the place they are living now. When the nuances of sonic structures start to truly translate to emotional expression, I think single notes and note relationships become embedded and recognizable, but like the speech analogy, it has to become usable as the 'first' language without the intervention of a translator within the head. Highly unusual I would say, maybe it's because people keep telling others that it's impossible. If you weren't driven to be a musician (within yourself) at an early age then the level of dedication and commitment is unlikely to be there, but there is more than just talent and desire involved in a persons relationship with their passions in life and some people don't connect with that passion till later in their lives.
Holy poly-chords! Crazy to see/ hear this guy. Would be so cool to see a scan of his brain during this session. (Music therapy nerd here) As always, thank you @RickBeato!
The thing about it being flat in his memory is actually pretty interesting. I've heard about this happening sometimes, if the piano in the home isn't tuned regularly when they're kids and getting that initial exposure needed to develop it.
Wanting to get all metaphysical and such, I think it being flat in memory (this happens to me too) is because we tune instruments to A=440 but the universe is supposedly tuned to 432hz. That's my hypothesis. I have no intention of finding out if it's correct or not lol.
I have heard about this happening with age to Oscar Peterson and he found it frustrating to have to kind of "modulate" away from what his brain was telling him.
A professor of mine had absolute pitch. He told me that he grew up with piano that was a half step flat so he always had to account for that when naming pitches.
@@Ascendantmusic interesting thought but the universe is also running on perfect fifth pythagorean tuning and not equal temperament like a piano, so one might also expect to have a different "internal representation" of the intervals which doesn't seem to be the case, or at least he didn't mention it. Seems more likely he learned on a slightly flat instrument during his formative years and that got sort of baked into his neural pathways, but who knows. Mysterious stuff.
By far, THE most impressive perfect pitch video I've ever seen is that first one that you did with Dylan! Really nice that Pierre became friends with Lyle who, for me, is the best, most expressive pianist/keyboard player to ever grace this planet. He's sorely missed and I really think that Pat's best stuff was when he was with Lyle. I've been listening to the pair of them for 35 years now. Anyway, good video. Would have liked to hear some input from Dylan now that it's some years ago since the first. I'd quite like to know how he perceives his ability.
Ive always been musically inclined. I play but always play by ear and ive always had the ability to pkay what i hear or imagine. This video made me realize i can see the sounds and intervals that Pierre was trying to replicate. For me its not just replicating the intervals but breaking down the texture of the chord that i see in my mind. I dont play jazz but hearing the chords Rick was playing made me realize how rich in texture those chords are.
Excellent Video on "Perfect Pitch" Rick, thanks for making & posting the video. This guy Pierre is amazing & you threw some complicated chords at him & he got them. I just subscribed to his channel as in addition to 4 guitars I also have a Casio CTS-410 keyboard. I will be watching a lot of videos on his channel, thanks again.
Rick - my son has insane perfect pitch. He "sees" the notes as colors. The notes are always consistently the same color and have been since we discovered he had PP when he was around 7 years old. He likes certain keys over others because the colors are more pleasing.
I have the same. I'd say that approaching music theoretically like we do in music school has made me analyse it differently and perhaps less 'colored'.
I don’t have perfect pitch, but when I sometimes I change the key of a song I am learning to suite my vocal range. Even though the new key is relatively all same, I often sense something is just different, whether we can hear it or not each individual note has its own unique quality I believe. So interesting.
I ‘see’ chords too, but not in colour. What I see is the physical distance between the notes whilst also being able to read and hear the SATB voices from my mental score, both individually and in combination. My piano teacher told me what I can do is a rare skill, although I had difficulty in explaining it to him, and my last examiner asked me if I had Perfect Pitch. I told him I didn’t know, but asked him why he thought I might have. He said it was because my answers to the aural questions came so fast. My better half can’t match it in spite of his being a much better musician (piano and bassoon) than I am. If there’s a particular harmony he wants to use in his jazz flights of fancy he’ll ask me to find it for him. Sadly, my deeply baroque soul prevents me from being able to play a single note of jazz myself. 😮 To each his own, I guess.
I found Pierre a bunch years ago. I was super impressed with a transcription and performance he did. Years later his curated book on Lyle came out. I’m really glad the world now has multiple opportunities to appreciate his contributions to this important music.
Speaking of perfect pitch, I enjoyed the Rick Beato article this morning on CNN! I agree with all the good points the interviewer made about why this channel is so relevant and important. 😊
The big advantages with Perfect Pitch for a musician seems to be that it substantially reduces the amount of time it takes to learn a piece/find the notes, and makes recall easier and more accurate.
There are other advantages too such as hearing stuff and playing by ear and increasing your improvisational vocabulary much faster and broadly. The lady I'm featuring on my channel has been playing by ear since she was a toddler, she's a synesthete (~1 in 100K ability) with a perfect pitch (~1 in 10K ability) as a by-product bonus and she's an amazing fluent improviser and a great composer. I have footage of her doing feats in a live setting such as: mashing up live audience requests, improvising on random audience phrases and rhythms, as well as doing solo trading battles where she copies solos of others by ear and embellishes them when playing it right back, and all of that is fluent not like in this video with pauses and thought involved. There are definitive advantages being born gifted, provided you put in the time to practice and utilize your gifts to the fullest. Gifts like that help define your peak potential.
but it's a hindrance to many other musicians with perfeect pitch. Seen early period classic musicians say they had problems that relatve pitch folks didn't.
I'm exactly the same as Pierre in how he hears certain notes and chords, and how he ascertains what he's hearing. But rather than being trained on piano or in jazz lessons, I trained my ear as a kid subconsciously because my mum used to have Radio 1 on all the time, and they used JAM Creative Productions to make their jingles for them. I was fascinated by how one voice sounded like four or five, and I would sit and work out what the notes were that they would begin a section on and follow one of the intervals to see how it worked against the others, how it would push one of the other parts to go to a note slightly outside of what the "melody" was they were singing because it fit the others, and how individual parts would work to make chords like major 7ths or augmented and diminished chords.
the way I think about perfect pitch is like seeing with the ears. When you see an image you don't see the colors or shapes separately, but you can determine which colors are there or what shapes you're seeing. If you're asked, you could respond that Rick's jacket is brown and his pants are grey. Perfect pitched people do that with music. Which is amazing to us non-perfect-pitched
Wow! What Pierre said at 7:50 about always being "flat" in his head just VALIDATED something that has always bothered me! I have (almost) perfect "relative" pitch (relative to the open strings of standard guitar tuning), but if I don't use it for awhile - it goes a half step flat. So I strive to use (or more specifically - what I like to call "CALIBRATE") it at least once a week if I don't practice for a period of time. Very interesting and gratifying stuff here Rick.
@@tommyteetime"Perfect" or "Relative" in respect to musical pitch is dictated according to the standard of A-440Hz tuning - not notes/pitches in relation to each other (which could occur at ANY tuning above or below "440"). So, for example, if you were stranded on an island with NO A-440 tuning reference of any kind - and you hummed an E above middle C, you'd be spot-on with the same note played on a piano (or any other calibrated instrument or reference).
Me too. I can hum a "G" note out of nowhere. BUT, if don't practice it OR most of the time in the morning when I wake up, I hum a Gb instead which pisses me off. LOL Later in the day it gets corrected up 1/2 step to "G".
A friend of mine is a sound engineer, and he once showed me his new electric piano and hit the A key. With a puzzled look, he said, there is something wrong, and made the keyboard show the frequency for the A, and it was 444. He corrected it to 440. He could hear a 4 hertz deviation.
I'm like that. I have nothing approaching perfect pitch, but I have decent pitch memory and I can hear a 1% pitch variation, so I sometimes will hear a note and instinctively know something's wrong without being certain what.
@@geraldfriend256 blues not so much, because I know it's part and parcel of the style, but imperfect singers can cause me to involuntarily physically cringe.
I understand what he's saying it's hard to describe. I feel this same mind blocking anxiety he is describing when he's trying to show someone else what he can do. I also understand just recognizing chords from other music. I can't do what Rick does by singing out the notes with relative pitch but I can understand movement and find the chords using chords in that key. Awesome stuff.
"I know that chord.... because I played it" .... That's the essence, having a relationship with each note.... the open bell in AC/DC s "Hell's Bells" is what note? If you can hear the bell in your head and go to a piano figure out which note it is ....that's a great starting point.
that's how I determine root pitch...certain notes are burned very accurately into memory. The opening E&Eb in Fur Elise. The C bass note & gmaj chord in van halen jump, the opening to ain't talkin bout love, etc.. it's burned in the head with very accurate pitch.
@@EddieVanAidan a lot of older records were sped up as well to add energy and excitement. I always wondered what it was like as someone with perfect pitch to listen to a band like Pantera who tunes somewhere in between standard and flat a lot of the time- like A 425 instead of 440
This is such a genius music channel. I've been listening to and playing music (guitar, piano, voice) for nearly sixty years and I still learn something new almost everytime I watch a video here.
09:32 when Pierre hears notes in his head and remembers them a bit "flat", it's because he's remembering them at their actual A432 Hz pitches. Test him out 😉😆
Hi. Love the channel! First of all, I also have perfect pitch and I've been blind since birth. Like your friend, mine goes off too when I get sick and usually the lower notes that go wonky on me so, if I hear a base note below the first octave Like an a, or a bee flat or a really defined note in a song, it sounds much lower than actually is. Otherwise, I pitch is fine and I am also amusician and the only one in my family with perfect pitch, or any musical ability. Keep up the great work and thanks for everything you do on both channels.
The first video I ever saw on this channel was of Dylan demonstrating chroded perfect pitch (up till then, I had only ever seen it done with individual notes). I subscribed right away, and feel enriched by your "what makes a song great" videos. Nice to see another video about perfect pitch and some of the techniques behind it.
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I don’t have perfect pitch, but I can sing lots of songs I know in their original key before playing the recordings. What the hell’s that called? 🤣
It's all in defining what is perfect pitch? There's no question Pierre has a very distinct talent of hearing and reproducing chords and I would never take that away from him, although ask him to sing what is called concert pitch (A-440 hertz) without any reference; A-439 is close but not perfect. After tuning thousands of pianos during my 48 years as a piano technician I always had to default to a tuning fork and now to an electronic tuning device (ETD) to find my starting pitch. Pierre actually alludes to his inability to reproduce specific pitches out of his head towards the end of the video, nevertheless Pierre has an amazing gift!!
NOBODY can tell the difference between 439 & 440. Even when you tune a guitar to "A" 440, when you strum the A chord it will register 441 or erven 442 briefly and then settle. You are splitting hairs. This guys has perfect pitch. There is NO QUESTION. He can hum any note perfectly out of nowhere. He proved it.
Hey Rick, I really enjoy and love these videos, especially your takes on perfect pitch. I'm personally modeling a years-long curriculum for my son based off of what you did with Dylan and high-information music. If you happen to see this, I'm sure I speak for many people when I say that we would love an update on how Dylan is doing with his life and how his perfect pitch has helped him, just generally how things are going. It's been a while since he was on the channel! If you or he doesn't want to, that is understandable as well. Thank you for all that you have done to advance music appreciation, education, and communication to the masses, your life is a true inspiration. God bless you.
Wow - I’ve gone through life thinking that what was illustrated in this video was actually called “acquired pitch”, and that perfect pitch was the ability to determine if a note is being played/sung perfectly in tune (without getting into the discussion about how different continental regions use slightly different frequencies for pitch). I had to google it to discover I was wrong - although I wasn’t able to find a designated term for what I have been calling perfect pitch.
He’s a very cool dude. I play in a wedding band with him and we have so much fun cuz we hear the same type of jazz reharms of pop tunes. He throws in very tasty stuff and I’m just trying to keep up With his ears. 🤘🏾
Hello Rick I enjoy your show and your instructional material. I purchased the 4 module set and am using it now. I played Coronet and Trumpet 6 years in school band. We studied alot besides learning our instrument. All us 7 kids in my family played an instrument with one in chorus. Our parents enjoyed a wide range of music and gave us educational opportunities to have a wide appreciation also. Your videos are mostly for advanced beginners and intermediates. And in music theory it is all advanced. I know one thing that would help people who are absolute beginners with music and music theory and that is Leonard Bernstein’s Young Peoples Concerts. They will lay a great foundation and seed interest in learning more. It did for all us. I still watch them once and a while for refresher. Thanks for your passion for teaching. Your material is worth every penny and it is very helpful. I really enjoy your interviews and guests it is an archive like no other and will go down in the annals’ of The Library Of Alexandria. Thanks for your work.
It's videos like these that get me curious about theory. I've never dived into it much, and pretty much rely on my ear to tell me what's going on, but I dig this nerdy stuff. :)
It's so good to hear someone else with perfect pitch say they have the natural tendency to prefer the notes flat. It's an odd feeling knowing that you want to tune it flat but it feels right. Great video Rick!🔥
I finetune my strings/ acoustic instruments whereever I get the best harmonic resonance and sustain with the open strings..it always ends up flatter on the higher strings , G string being almost a quarter step down. This temperament Flatter Tuning becomes the most noticeable playing/listening to Flamenco
Our friend's very young daughter refused to perform with a group of older students (strings).because she said they were playing it all wrong. She apparently wants things tuned to 444hz
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Same here. It’s been happening since I was a kid. I improved that by trying to get as close as quarter tones when tuning and identifying pitch. Another thing that happens is, when I’m extremely tired, I know I’m way off. Like a half step sometimes.
I think you did one of these with your son. He has perfect pitch and I was amazed with his ability to know the chords and notes from hearing the chord once. Quite good. Many are like that.
I can't agree with your last paragraph. I don't think more than a very few can identify all the notes in a totally dissonant (eg not a "named" extended chord), let alone instantly and with total reliability, like Dylan demonstrated.
I used to engineer for an artist who had amazing ears. This guy was completely self-taught, crazy talented, played by ear, and had zero formal training. Another engineer on the session had told me once that the artist came into the studio one day with a song idea and started tracking keyboard parts. He kept pausing and saying something "wasn't right" with the way the keyboard sounded. Eventually, he got frustrated and took a break. When the engineer went through all of the midi controller keyboard settings to look for an issue, he noticed that the global pitch setting had been modified. Someone had accidentally offset the "fine" tuning setting by -2 cents (or 1/50th of a semitone). When he set the pitch back to zero, the artist returned and started over- this time with no complaints about the keyboard sound. I know that you can train your ears with enough practice, but It's amazing that some people are just wired that way.
I believe your story, but from what I know that makes basically no sense. When real orchestras play classical music they tune together, and they can easily be off by much more than 2 cents for the entire evening without anyone being bothered by it.
I recently found out that I have perfect pitch, and now I am performing a study at my high school to find others that also have it. It's an amazing gift and I can't wait to see how many others have it!
Rick, been following you for a while after I found you via one of my perusing TH-cam and completely by accident..lucky me......I'm a musician with over 50 years on the Trumpet. Playing an instrument that can only play one note at a time gives a kind of tunnel vision until I make this mistake that actually is one of those skills you could never get right but all of a sudden BAM there it is.. Your videos are like that, I always come away from your videos with tidbits I wish I knew years ago. Keep up the great work you do.....Pete
I used to know a piano tuner with perfect pitch. He never needed a tuning fork, and when checked his work with either a tuning for or an electronic tuner, it was absolutely prefect.
I thought this video was going to the about that aspect of perfection, rather than what it turns out to be about which is not pitch accuracy but the ability to reliably name every note. I imagine some are strong on one or the other, not so many on both.
@solideo That’s not how I tune pianos. It’s also not the way I was trained to do it as an apprentice to a guy who used to go on world concert tours with a famous pianist as his personal tuner/technician.
Having perfect pitch is like being colorblind. It's a unique "quirk" that people's first reaction is to test you and act surprised by it. Except one is like a music super power and the other just makes me question all my fashion choices.
I’m glad I’m not alone in hearing pitches just a little flat in my head. I also don’t have the jazz “vocabulary” to draw on, so some of the chords are more difficult for me to get right away. Great video on a topic I have thought a lot about.
Absolute Fascination! I have the Ear to hear the "Haunting Notes" but no Vocabulary to explain why i find Music so Satisfying......across all Genres....Classic, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Country, and to a lesser Degree R&B and Rap?, and Swing, Big Band, ShowTunes, and Timeless American Standards.....all make Lyrical Sense to my Untrained Ear. Thanks Rick........there must be Rhyme for the Reason!
I used to think I had perfect pitch because I could identify notes like Pierre. And then I started recording my own music and the guitar tracks were never in tune with each other and I realized that perfect pitch is relative, but not exact. When you’re tuning an instrument, especially for recording, you need exactness.
Subscribed to Pierre! I'm always amazed by perfect pitch. Interesting that Pierre's perfect pitch is informed by his jazz knowledge, whereas Dylan's was probably more "pure" or "direct". Meaning Dylan probably saw weird chords and normal chords more equally.
I was so looking forward to hearing Pierre's thoughts on how he experienced this and thinks about this, but then it just turned into an extended remix of the original party trick that made me want to learn more of his experience.
Hi Rick. New to your channel. I suppose I have been ghosting you but I finally subscribed. Love your content. Little about me, I am 57 years old and finally decided to get over my fears of failure and bought a takamine, epiphone dove and a fender telecaster fmt hh . I am still catching up on your videos, so if I missed this please forgive me. I would love to see an episode about under rated country players like Steve Warnier, Jerry Reed , Don Rich and others. Thanks for your time and I am happy to have found you. All the best 👍
Great video! I dont have perfect Pitch, but somehow I also remember the tones halfstep. I used to play 100 years old piano as a kid, and always thought that was the reason that happen to me. Thanks Rick for all the amazing Interviews! Hope you come one again to Berlin!
This is very relatable, I seem to use very similar mechanisms to what Pierre describes and can relate to his panic with identifying notes in complex chords. I also have his "remembering pitches flat" issue, and I think Charlie Puth probably has it too, as he often reproduces notes a bit flat. Although it often isn't really noticed until notes start sounding a full semitone sharp, I reckon a gradual sharpening of pitch perception may start when we're very young.
Excellent as always. I really enjoy your clips & interviews as I speak the same language & also have pp. A great example of practical applied theory & aural training in action. I'd also add the shape changes on piano help to master this as we all have the same hand, wrist, arm & shoulder positions that help contribute to finding the chord / inversion much quicker once you know how it all fits together. My musician friends & I lovingly call some of those poly chords (especially with sharp 5's & 9's) demolished chords! Keep up the great work Rick, cheers from Australia 🇦🇺
We used to do this at the store I worked at for our customers. Its very similar for me to how Pierre hears the notes. Theres a familiarity with the notes. I cannot however pick out as complex of chords as him Lol
Thanks for having Pierre on. I love his Lyle songbook even though I can't play a lick of piano. I try to channel Marc Johnson or Bill Frisell on those tunes.
Great video Rick! My mother has perfect pitch. 🙁 Bummer I didn’t inherit this amazing gift! She is not a show-off by any means, but she does sometimes joke around with friends or relatives with comments like….”your doorbell notes are C and E” (or whatever the actual notes were); or if she hears you honk the horn on your car then tells you the notes. She can listen to a song on the radio and then sit down and play the melody/chorus/bridge on the piano (and not just single notes, but she will play the song with fully developed chords - often times improvising to make it sound the way she prefers). She has a hard time, putting into words how she does it - but says things like “I hear colors, but it’s more than that….I can’t quite put it in to words.” She can compose a song directly from her head to the paper without the aid of any instrument(s)….and she has commented from time to time how a certain piece of music just ‘would not sound right’ if written and performed in a different key. It is indeed astonishing. I have childhood memories of practicing the piano in the living room, and when I would make a mistake playing a chord, and then tried again but still wrong, she would call out to me from the kitchen and say things like: “You need an F sharp there!” I wonder sometimes if individuals with perfect pitch hear and enjoy music with a little extra richness and depth that most of us cannot perceive. I think we all probably agree that analogies are never perfect….but sometimes I think about the idea of how it would be for someone who was born and grew up with eyesight that could only see in black and white, (and gray tones in-between black & white)….but then suddenly and miraculously could see in color! - how crazy, amazing, and wonderful that would be for the person! 🤔 I wonder what the experience might be like if suddenly our ability to hear, perceive, and enjoy listening to music suddenly changed from the way most of us hear now, to having perfect pitch perception.
Very interesting, because based on the specific examples you give, one might wonder if perfect pitch could instead actually be a potential * hindrance * to the enjoyment of music...i.e. an inverse correlation of how the majority of us seem to derive instinctive pleasure from hearing notes (chord progression, melody, dissonance to consonance, etc...) without really knowing what those notes are. Similarly, I am in admiration of virtuoso musicians who are said to have no formal understanding of music theory but I wonder therefore what impact their natural abilities might have on the way their brains process and enjoy music? Is there a chance they hear music in a more intellectual, left-brained, less emotional way than others? Could this by any chance even be a prerequisite for becoming a world-class musician? Concentration notwithstanding, a lot of musicians who blow me away also often seem to display rather unemotional facial expressions while they play, unlike, say, me when I'm listening to them! 🙂Same thing for rhythm: do top-notch drummers or percussionists get the same feeling as us from a groovy beat, the structure of which they have a clinical understanding of, while us relatively untrained listeners get carried away by it, often without much insight into its precise structure? 🤔
@@nicknelson9450 - Good comment. So……the only “negative” to my mother’s experience performing - she has said that an out-of-tune piano is a bit difficult to play.
the issue i have with perfect pitch, is how its defined. what people call perfect pitch i see as a combination of skill, intellect, and natural ability to hear and produce a specific note. the muscle memory to know where that note is on an instrument requires a large amount of effort to learn, and is something you cannot be born knowing. since your voice is the only instrument your born with i imagine a proper test of ones natural ability to comprehend unique tones would require hearing and producing a note on an instrument including your voice and without mistake, slide, bend, vibrato, ect. but also include being able to hear a single note, and name a song that uses that note and reference that moment ("its the first note of this song"/"thats the same chord in another song") in this case then also restricting relying on patterns by not allowing to 'find' the note on an instrument before answering. i also believe the idea that some people are tone deaf is misrepresented and over exaggerated considering that a real tone deaf person would also not be able to hear and understand expression in speech, such as the upward inflection in a question, something humans are keen on understanding, supporting the notion that everyone could learn music with enough time and effort, even if against their will. -TLDR consider this: you hear the 1st note in a song, and before the 2nd note you immediately think and call out the name of a song. as long as the song you named does use that as the 1st note, to that i propose to be plausible proof of perfect pitch.
I know this is absolutely NOT the point of the video, but putting Pierre's astonishing perfect pitch aside, I also find it amazing how close the digital keyboard sounds to the real acoustic piano. Technological progress marches on. Hats off to today''s engineers.
Derek Paravicini, an autistic savant, has an insane level of perfect pitch, possibly the greatest in the world. He can play 10-note chords instantly upon hearing them and when faced with more than 10 notes in a chord, e.g. an 11-note chord, he just rolls it. He can also play a piece after hearing it once. His memory capacity for music seems unlimited. The connection between perfect pitch and musical memory is very interesting. Many of the greatest pianists and keyboardists were known for having prodigious memory in addition to perfect pitch. Gould, Richter, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov, Hofmann, Horowitz, Liszt, and Mozart to name a few. It is generally agreed that Bach very likely also had absolute pitch and there are clear indications that his memory was prodigious as well.
I knew a guy years ago who could do this, just one note at a time though. I didn't think much of it at the time but now I realize what a talent he had. We had a singer for years who would start singing some the songs we performed before anyone would hit a note and he'd be right on key. He didn't play any instruments though which seems kind of odd.
👂If you want to learn how to develop your ear, check out my Ear Training Program here: rickbeato.com/ear
You should contact Dr. Andrew Huberman (has a podcast and has been on lots of podcasts, like Rogan.) he's done research in to the neuroscience behind neuroplasticity. This topic would be a fascinating conversation to watch both of you discuss.
Edit: I realize that might be coming out of left field, I am referencing the original video you did on the topic, which is how I discovered your channel.
Already have a ear
don't need it since I have perfect pitch but I'll check it out
Hey Rick, love the content was easy to subscribe to your channel with how great it is. I wanna buy some of your books and wanna know what is the best place to purchase them that gives u the most profit?
Awesome video I have your ear training course but I am stuck telling the difference between major and minor triads any suggestions?
This video should be called "Rick tortures a guy with perfect pitch for 8 minutes straight"
😂
tortures all of us rest for 8 minutes too
Thanks for having me, Rick! 🙏🏻
Watching you figure these chords out was something else! Intellectually, I knew what you were doing, but it still pretty much seemed like black magic. That is a really really cool skill. Talent? Skill? I'm not sure what to call it.
You've contributed to explain certain facts and processes that also happens to me, when we're recognising notes in a chord. Thank you 🙏🏻
Absolutely fascinating pierre. Any advice as how to help my 4yr old develop. I think she may have perfect pitch. Ask her to sing any song, even ones she hasn't heard in weeks or months, and she sings it perfectly in the original key.
the best!!!! ✌✌
I'll be checking you out...have a keyboard, never played it...ever.
You speak a language I don't understand but my dad was a jazz pianist and I recognise the sounds. Grew up to him practising, composing and doing orgistrations. Miss him now.
Pierre is one of my oldest and dearest friends. He is an exceptionally talented musician and a great person. It warms my heart to see him getting the recognition he deserves.
You are also a great friend to him for thinking this way, great minds find each other ;)
Perfect pitch definitely makes transcribing for piano easier! I love the complex jazz chords here. I can figure them out if I take the time. I’m sure I’d recognise them faster if they were more common in the music I listened to.
They don’t come up that often for me, but it’s kinda fun to work them out because they’re outside my usual comfort zone. Great vid, Rick!
much of my family has perfect pitch, with my mom being a singer that never learned to read music because of her talent. what made you learn to read, despite having perfect pitch?
Good to know!
Nice to see you here SheetMusicBoss! Great content!
@@hovis_esports, The correct term is absolute pitch. Equal temperament is actually out of tune when you play chords. To many beats. It’s useful for fixed pitch instruments, but is a bad compromise tuning system.
The boss himself!
I find this perfect pitch business absolutely fascinating. I don't have it, in fact I'm probably negative if anything but watching it in operation live is brilliant.
Well the lady I'm featuring on my channel is a step above from perfect pitch, she's a synesthete with perfect pitch as by-product. She's been playing by ear since she was a toddler. I have footage of her doing various rare feats live involving audience (mashing up live audience requests and improvising on audience input) and involving other musicians (solo battle where she copies solo of other musician on the fly and plays it back embellished).
Gifts like that help define your peak potential but it still requires thousands of hours to reach that peak potential.
Despite the recognition that the brain is plastic, so far all evidence points to getting perfect pitch from very early child development (Rick has spoken about playing complex music for his kids endlessly throughout their early life) or not at all.
However, pretty much anyone at nearly any age can develop very good relative pitch as Rick mentions here. You can do it as simply as two sound sources (e.g. two pianos or electronic keyboards, two guitars, etc.) and one person plays single notes while the other detects them within a small range, like C then D or C then E and have the person repeat them back to them. If alone you could simply record enough of these to not be able to memorize them and practice this by yourself. Do this over a few hours and you may be amazed at how much you'll progress to hearing 3 or possibly more notes in a row, or wider ranges start to be possible because you can "run the notes up" in your head to figure out the further note...
I basically went that route and forever ruined, so to speak, my desire to learn to play traditionally despite having a piano teacher mother. But as soon as I started hearing the notes and intervals, I would figure what was on the sheet music once, and thereafter just use my ear to replay it. Over a few decades playing guitar I got good and quick enough at just recognizing the intervals I could even do a bit of soloing over key changes. Endless fun, but not much commercial value!
@@brianmi40 It's very likely that kids are born with perfect pitch and other gifts. It can be proven statistically. Say in a family there are 2 kids of similar age (preferably twins or 1-2 years age gap) that were exposed to the exact same household musical conditions, yet one of the kids shows early signs of talent and aptitude toward the craft. Especially if it's a slightly younger child of 1-2 years age gap that pulls away early compared to the older child, while being exposed to the same musical conditioning and lessons. Such talent gap would be apparent at age as early as 4 years old between siblings. Enough documented cases like that can statistically prove that you don't develop these gifts in early childhood.
I have one case like that researched and documented already, where a child younger by 1 year started playing by ear at the age of 4, pulling away from older sibling. All while having the same exact household exposure (you can even argue that older sibling had an extra time of this musical exposure - their mom played piano at home and they both poked around until they were sent for piano lessons).
@@LogioTek I'm not claiming everyone gets it. What is factual is that no 30 year old can "get it".
I don't know what's factual or statistically significant, but I know 30 year olds can learn a new language. It's no doubt harder for them but with immersion it can eventually become the language they use to think with, or even dream with, without having to translate in their heads. They would have to want to learn and probably have no alternative but to learn because that's the place they are living now.
When the nuances of sonic structures start to truly translate to emotional expression, I think single notes and note relationships become embedded and recognizable, but like the speech analogy, it has to become usable as the 'first' language without the intervention of a translator within the head.
Highly unusual I would say, maybe it's because people keep telling others that it's impossible. If you weren't driven to be a musician (within yourself) at an early age then the level of dedication and commitment is unlikely to be there, but there is more than just talent and desire involved in a persons relationship with their passions in life and some people don't connect with that passion till later in their lives.
I've seen a lot of channels about music over the years....Rick's is just about the only one i'm still interested in these days though!!!
From day to day you never know what Rick is going to surprise you with on his next video. I love the variety of topics, with a central theme... music.
Yeah, pretty much the same
His video with O Martian was fantastic.
@@cleroyster2610 loved him with Maynard as well!!!!
Rick is just the bee's knees. What an absolute treasure in our community!
Holy poly-chords! Crazy to see/ hear this guy. Would be so cool to see a scan of his brain during this session. (Music therapy nerd here) As always, thank you @RickBeato!
rick you are a freaking jewel. this is why you are unique and so loved. thank you for everything
The thing about it being flat in his memory is actually pretty interesting. I've heard about this happening sometimes, if the piano in the home isn't tuned regularly when they're kids and getting that initial exposure needed to develop it.
And there's a phenomenon of it happening eventually with age.
Wanting to get all metaphysical and such, I think it being flat in memory (this happens to me too) is because we tune instruments to A=440 but the universe is supposedly tuned to 432hz. That's my hypothesis. I have no intention of finding out if it's correct or not lol.
I have heard about this happening with age to Oscar Peterson and he found it frustrating to have to kind of "modulate" away from what his brain was telling him.
A professor of mine had absolute pitch. He told me that he grew up with piano that was a half step flat so he always had to account for that when naming pitches.
@@Ascendantmusic interesting thought but the universe is also running on perfect fifth pythagorean tuning and not equal temperament like a piano, so one might also expect to have a different "internal representation" of the intervals which doesn't seem to be the case, or at least he didn't mention it. Seems more likely he learned on a slightly flat instrument during his formative years and that got sort of baked into his neural pathways, but who knows. Mysterious stuff.
4:47 is perfect explanation summary for what Perfect Pitch is and how people who have it understand it.
By far, THE most impressive perfect pitch video I've ever seen is that first one that you did with Dylan! Really nice that Pierre became friends with Lyle who, for me, is the best, most expressive pianist/keyboard player to ever grace this planet. He's sorely missed and I really think that Pat's best stuff was when he was with Lyle. I've been listening to the pair of them for 35 years now. Anyway, good video. Would have liked to hear some input from Dylan now that it's some years ago since the first. I'd quite like to know how he perceives his ability.
Yeah I miss seeing Dylan! Absolutely brilliant ear 🎶🔥
what happened to him? does he not care about music?
Maybe he is not wanting to be on TH-cam. Now that would be a 1st. To comment that he does not like interest is just ignorant. @nfrankiksa4596
Is this really so impressive? I always thought everyone was able to do this, guess not.
@@glp.1337 So make an impressive video of you doing it, then! Yeah, guess not, eh?!
Love the excitement in Pierre. He seems to be having so much fun. Great video, Rick!
I love watching music nerds talk, I just wish I had even a 10th of either of their talents!
Ive always been musically inclined. I play but always play by ear and ive always had the ability to pkay what i hear or imagine. This video made me realize i can see the sounds and intervals that Pierre was trying to replicate. For me its not just replicating the intervals but breaking down the texture of the chord that i see in my mind. I dont play jazz but hearing the chords Rick was playing made me realize how rich in texture those chords are.
Excellent Video on "Perfect Pitch" Rick, thanks for making & posting the video. This guy Pierre is amazing & you threw some complicated chords at him & he got them. I just subscribed to his channel as in addition to 4 guitars I also have a Casio CTS-410 keyboard. I will be watching a lot of videos on his channel, thanks again.
Rick - my son has insane perfect pitch. He "sees" the notes as colors. The notes are always consistently the same color and have been since we discovered he had PP when he was around 7 years old. He likes certain keys over others because the colors are more pleasing.
Synesthesia
Does he have any other intellectual abilities?
I have the same. I'd say that approaching music theoretically like we do in music school has made me analyse it differently and perhaps less 'colored'.
I don’t have perfect pitch, but when I sometimes I change the key of a song I am learning to suite my vocal range. Even though the new key is relatively all same, I often sense something is just different, whether we can hear it or not each individual note has its own unique quality I believe. So interesting.
I ‘see’ chords too, but not in colour. What I see is the physical distance between the notes whilst also being able to read and hear the SATB voices from my mental score, both individually and in combination. My piano teacher told me what I can do is a rare skill, although I had difficulty in explaining it to him, and my last examiner asked me if I had Perfect Pitch. I told him I didn’t know, but asked him why he thought I might have. He said it was because my answers to the aural questions came so fast.
My better half can’t match it in spite of his being a much better musician (piano and bassoon) than I am. If there’s a particular harmony he wants to use in his jazz flights of fancy he’ll ask me to find it for him. Sadly, my deeply baroque soul prevents me from being able to play a single note of jazz myself. 😮 To each his own, I guess.
I found Pierre a bunch years ago. I was super impressed with a transcription and performance he did. Years later his curated book on Lyle came out. I’m really glad the world now has multiple opportunities to appreciate his contributions to this important music.
❤🙏🏻
Speaking of perfect pitch, I enjoyed the Rick Beato article this morning on CNN! I agree with all the good points the interviewer made about why this channel is so relevant and important. 😊
The big advantages with Perfect Pitch for a musician seems to be that it substantially reduces the amount of time it takes to learn a piece/find the notes, and makes recall easier and more accurate.
There are other advantages too such as hearing stuff and playing by ear and increasing your improvisational vocabulary much faster and broadly.
The lady I'm featuring on my channel has been playing by ear since she was a toddler, she's a synesthete (~1 in 100K ability) with a perfect pitch (~1 in 10K ability) as a by-product bonus and she's an amazing fluent improviser and a great composer. I have footage of her doing feats in a live setting such as: mashing up live audience requests, improvising on random audience phrases and rhythms, as well as doing solo trading battles where she copies solos of others by ear and embellishes them when playing it right back, and all of that is fluent not like in this video with pauses and thought involved.
There are definitive advantages being born gifted, provided you put in the time to practice and utilize your gifts to the fullest. Gifts like that help define your peak potential.
@@LogioTek Most definitely. I didn't want to try and document every advantage using my cellphone.
It can be, but remembering pieces by developing a relative understanding of them is more effective in the long term
but it's a hindrance to many other musicians with perfeect pitch. Seen early period classic musicians say they had problems that relatve pitch folks didn't.
3:39 "Hello, is it me you're looking for?" 🎶
Hahahahaha good one! Same type of chord, but I think it's off a semi-tone or two...
It's off by a minor third, it's a Cm9 but the song is Am9
See also Mr. Roboto except Eb minor 9, in the verses. lol.
100%. I thought the same
I'm exactly the same as Pierre in how he hears certain notes and chords, and how he ascertains what he's hearing. But rather than being trained on piano or in jazz lessons, I trained my ear as a kid subconsciously because my mum used to have Radio 1 on all the time, and they used JAM Creative Productions to make their jingles for them. I was fascinated by how one voice sounded like four or five, and I would sit and work out what the notes were that they would begin a section on and follow one of the intervals to see how it worked against the others, how it would push one of the other parts to go to a note slightly outside of what the "melody" was they were singing because it fit the others, and how individual parts would work to make chords like major 7ths or augmented and diminished chords.
the way I think about perfect pitch is like seeing with the ears. When you see an image you don't see the colors or shapes separately, but you can determine which colors are there or what shapes you're seeing. If you're asked, you could respond that Rick's jacket is brown and his pants are grey. Perfect pitched people do that with music. Which is amazing to us non-perfect-pitched
Wow! What Pierre said at 7:50 about always being "flat" in his head just VALIDATED something that has always bothered me! I have (almost) perfect "relative" pitch (relative to the open strings of standard guitar tuning), but if I don't use it for awhile - it goes a half step flat. So I strive to use (or more specifically - what I like to call "CALIBRATE") it at least once a week if I don't practice for a period of time. Very interesting and gratifying stuff here Rick.
@@tommyteetime"Perfect" or "Relative" in respect to musical pitch is dictated according to the standard of A-440Hz tuning - not notes/pitches in relation to each other (which could occur at ANY tuning above or below "440"). So, for example, if you were stranded on an island with NO A-440 tuning reference of any kind - and you hummed an E above middle C, you'd be spot-on with the same note played on a piano (or any other calibrated instrument or reference).
Me too. I can hum a "G" note out of nowhere. BUT, if don't practice it OR most of the time in the morning when I wake up, I hum a Gb instead which pisses me off. LOL
Later in the day it gets corrected up 1/2 step to "G".
A friend of mine is a sound engineer, and he once showed me his new electric piano and hit the A key. With a puzzled look, he said, there is something wrong, and made the keyboard show the frequency for the A, and it was 444. He corrected it to 440. He could hear a 4 hertz deviation.
I'm like that. I have nothing approaching perfect pitch, but I have decent pitch memory and I can hear a 1% pitch variation, so I sometimes will hear a note and instinctively know something's wrong without being certain what.
@@DanielTalOrDoes it make it hard to listen to old blues or imperfect singers?😊
@@geraldfriend256 blues not so much, because I know it's part and parcel of the style, but imperfect singers can cause me to involuntarily physically cringe.
Derek Paravicini is my favorite perfect pitch player and the 20,000+ songs he can recall at the drop of a hat! And only needs to hear it once! ❤
I understand what he's saying it's hard to describe. I feel this same mind blocking anxiety he is describing when he's trying to show someone else what he can do. I also understand just recognizing chords from other music. I can't do what Rick does by singing out the notes with relative pitch but I can understand movement and find the chords using chords in that key. Awesome stuff.
"I know that chord.... because I played it" .... That's the essence, having a relationship with each note.... the open bell in AC/DC s "Hell's Bells" is what note? If you can hear the bell in your head and go to a piano figure out which note it is ....that's a great starting point.
that's how I determine root pitch...certain notes are burned very accurately into memory. The opening E&Eb in Fur Elise. The C bass note & gmaj chord in van halen jump, the opening to ain't talkin bout love, etc.. it's burned in the head with very accurate pitch.
its a G I think (the bell in ACDC)
for Bb I usually think of the first "to meeee" that starts the piano vamp in the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody
It's an A but I think the whole track is a few cents sharp, so it'll probably drive some people with perfect pitch crazy lol
@@EddieVanAidan a lot of older records were sped up as well to add energy and excitement. I always wondered what it was like as someone with perfect pitch to listen to a band like Pantera who tunes somewhere in between standard and flat a lot of the time- like A 425 instead of 440
I'm super grateful for the Lyle Mays book that Pierre worked on.
can we appreciate how good the synth-piano sounded in direct comparison…🖖🏽🍀
This is such a genius music channel. I've been listening to and playing music (guitar, piano, voice) for nearly sixty years and I still learn something new almost everytime I watch a video here.
thank you!
Getting Jacob Collier on would be the most amazing thing.
09:32 when Pierre hears notes in his head and remembers them a bit "flat", it's because he's remembering them at their actual A432 Hz pitches. Test him out 😉😆
Hi. Love the channel! First of all, I also have perfect pitch and I've been blind since birth. Like your friend, mine goes off too when I get sick and usually the lower notes that go wonky on me so, if I hear a base note below the first octave Like an a, or a bee flat or a really defined note in a song, it sounds much lower than actually is. Otherwise, I pitch is fine and I am also amusician and the only one in my family with perfect pitch, or any musical ability. Keep up the great work and thanks for everything you do on both channels.
The first video I ever saw on this channel was of Dylan demonstrating chroded perfect pitch (up till then, I had only ever seen it done with individual notes). I subscribed right away, and feel enriched by your "what makes a song great" videos. Nice to see another video about perfect pitch and some of the techniques behind it.
I don’t have perfect pitch, but I can sing lots of songs I know in their original key before playing the recordings. What the hell’s that called? 🤣
Quasi-absolute pitch
Great memory
I'm sure Rick did a video about that. He said it's a good skill to have!
Pitch Memory
@@marshac1479 It is! Especially when performing live.
It's all in defining what is perfect pitch? There's no question Pierre has a very distinct talent of hearing and reproducing chords and I would never take that away from him, although ask him to sing what is called concert pitch (A-440 hertz) without any reference; A-439 is close but not perfect. After tuning thousands of pianos during my 48 years as a piano technician I always had to default to a tuning fork and now to an electronic tuning device (ETD) to find my starting pitch. Pierre actually alludes to his inability to reproduce specific pitches out of his head towards the end of the video, nevertheless Pierre has an amazing gift!!
NOBODY can tell the difference between 439 & 440. Even when you tune a guitar to "A" 440, when you strum the A chord it will register 441 or erven 442 briefly and then settle. You are splitting hairs. This guys has perfect pitch. There is NO QUESTION. He can hum any note perfectly out of nowhere. He proved it.
Hey Rick, I really enjoy and love these videos, especially your takes on perfect pitch. I'm personally modeling a years-long curriculum for my son based off of what you did with Dylan and high-information music.
If you happen to see this, I'm sure I speak for many people when I say that we would love an update on how Dylan is doing with his life and how his perfect pitch has helped him, just generally how things are going. It's been a while since he was on the channel! If you or he doesn't want to, that is understandable as well.
Thank you for all that you have done to advance music appreciation, education, and communication to the masses, your life is a true inspiration. God bless you.
Wow - I’ve gone through life thinking that what was illustrated in this video was actually called “acquired pitch”, and that perfect pitch was the ability to determine if a note is being played/sung perfectly in tune (without getting into the discussion about how different continental regions use slightly different frequencies for pitch). I had to google it to discover I was wrong - although I wasn’t able to find a designated term for what I have been calling perfect pitch.
I’ve always heard perfect pitch was an accordion being tossed into a dumpster hitting a banjo….
Rick's own son years back was way better than this guy
I'm not familiar with Pierre, but this is the best description I've ever heard as someone with perfect pitch. Amazing video!
I remember the vid of Ricks boy doing this. That vid is when I discovered the channel. Amazing
It is very amazing when someone has that kind of talent and can hear the notes to that degree.
Great video.
Subbed to his channel. Seems like a really cool dude. Thanks rick!
He’s a very cool dude. I play in a wedding band with him and we have so much fun cuz we hear the same type of jazz reharms of pop tunes. He throws in very tasty stuff and I’m just trying to keep up With his ears. 🤘🏾
Love Pierre’s tutorials. I subscribed to his channel when he showed up on my feed a few months ago.
Loved this! Would be so cool next time to split the screen so we can see both keyboards in the same orientation, and all four hands at once!
Hello Rick I enjoy your show and your instructional material. I purchased the 4 module set and am using it now. I played Coronet and Trumpet 6 years in school band. We studied alot besides learning our instrument. All us 7 kids in my family played an instrument with one in chorus. Our parents enjoyed a wide range of music and gave us educational opportunities to have a wide appreciation also. Your videos are mostly for advanced beginners and intermediates. And in music theory it is all advanced. I know one thing that would help people who are absolute beginners with music and music theory and that is Leonard Bernstein’s Young Peoples Concerts. They will lay a great foundation and seed interest in learning more. It did for all us. I still watch them once and a while for refresher. Thanks for your passion for teaching. Your material is worth every penny and it is very helpful. I really enjoy your interviews and guests it is an archive like no other and will go down in the annals’ of The Library Of Alexandria. Thanks for your work.
Great job with the cameras, recording, and editing.
That’s so insane. I would love to even have that basic chord vocabulary even in relative pitch. What skill
It's videos like these that get me curious about theory. I've never dived into it much, and pretty much rely on my ear to tell me what's going on, but I dig this nerdy stuff. :)
It's so good to hear someone else with perfect pitch say they have the natural tendency to prefer the notes flat. It's an odd feeling knowing that you want to tune it flat but it feels right. Great video Rick!🔥
might be age
I finetune my strings/ acoustic instruments whereever I get the best harmonic resonance and sustain with the open strings..it always ends up flatter on the higher strings , G string being almost a quarter step down.
This temperament Flatter Tuning becomes the most noticeable playing/listening to Flamenco
@@PcBguitarLibrary might have to do with temperament as well, especially on a guitar. Have you tried or heard of true temperament guitars?
Our friend's very young daughter refused to perform with a group of older students (strings).because she said they were playing it all wrong. She apparently wants things tuned to 444hz
Same here. It’s been happening since I was a kid. I improved that by trying to get as close as quarter tones when tuning and identifying pitch.
Another thing that happens is, when I’m extremely tired, I know I’m way off. Like a half step sometimes.
I think you did one of these with your son. He has perfect pitch and I was amazed with his ability to know the chords and notes from hearing the chord once.
Quite good. Many are like that.
I can't agree with your last paragraph. I don't think more than a very few can identify all the notes in a totally dissonant (eg not a "named" extended chord), let alone instantly and with total reliability, like Dylan demonstrated.
I used to engineer for an artist who had amazing ears. This guy was completely self-taught, crazy talented, played by ear, and had zero formal training. Another engineer on the session had told me once that the artist came into the studio one day with a song idea and started tracking keyboard parts. He kept pausing and saying something "wasn't right" with the way the keyboard sounded. Eventually, he got frustrated and took a break. When the engineer went through all of the midi controller keyboard settings to look for an issue, he noticed that the global pitch setting had been modified. Someone had accidentally offset the "fine" tuning setting by -2 cents (or 1/50th of a semitone). When he set the pitch back to zero, the artist returned and started over- this time with no complaints about the keyboard sound. I know that you can train your ears with enough practice, but It's amazing that some people are just wired that way.
I believe your story, but from what I know that makes basically no sense. When real orchestras play classical music they tune together, and they can easily be off by much more than 2 cents for the entire evening without anyone being bothered by it.
I recently found out that I have perfect pitch, and now I am performing a study at my high school to find others that also have it. It's an amazing gift and I can't wait to see how many others have it!
I’ve got it! I discovered it when I was 13.
Amazing that some people have this talent.
BY FAR THE BEST VIDEO ON YT ABOUT PERFECT PITCH THANK YOU!
Fascinating; I'm wondering if Pierre also has unusual maths abilities, given the connection between the two disciplines.
I would have liked Piere to have given you some chords to identify! Always amazing stuff on this channel.
pierre explains the perfect pitch experience perfectly. sending this video next time someone asks me how i do it 🤣
Rick, been following you for a while after I found you via one of my perusing TH-cam and completely by accident..lucky me......I'm a musician with over 50 years on the Trumpet. Playing an instrument that can only play one note at a time gives a kind of tunnel vision until I make this mistake that actually is one of those skills you could never get right but all of a sudden BAM there it is.. Your videos are like that, I always come away from your videos with tidbits I wish I knew years ago. Keep up the great work you do.....Pete
I used to know a piano tuner with perfect pitch. He never needed a tuning fork, and when checked his work with either a tuning for or an electronic tuner, it was absolutely prefect.
aboslutely prefect? lol :D
@@fearlessflyersfpv420 lol
I thought this video was going to the about that aspect of perfection, rather than what it turns out to be about which is not pitch accuracy but the ability to reliably name every note. I imagine some are strong on one or the other, not so many on both.
Pianos are not tuned like that
@solideo
That’s not how I tune pianos. It’s also not the way I was trained to do it as an apprentice to a guy who used to go on world concert tours with a famous pianist as his personal tuner/technician.
Having perfect pitch is like being colorblind. It's a unique "quirk" that people's first reaction is to test you and act surprised by it. Except one is like a music super power and the other just makes me question all my fashion choices.
I’m glad I’m not alone in hearing pitches just a little flat in my head. I also don’t have the jazz “vocabulary” to draw on, so some of the chords are more difficult for me to get right away. Great video on a topic I have thought a lot about.
Absolute Fascination! I have the Ear to hear the "Haunting Notes" but no Vocabulary to explain why i find Music so Satisfying......across all Genres....Classic, Jazz, Rock, Pop, Country, and to a lesser Degree R&B and Rap?, and Swing, Big Band, ShowTunes, and Timeless American Standards.....all make Lyrical Sense to my Untrained Ear.
Thanks Rick........there must be Rhyme for the Reason!
I used to think I had perfect pitch because I could identify notes like Pierre. And then I started recording my own music and the guitar tracks were never in tune with each other and I realized that perfect pitch is relative, but not exact. When you’re tuning an instrument, especially for recording, you need exactness.
Those Event 20/20s back there. Best of the best !
Subscribed to Pierre!
I'm always amazed by perfect pitch. Interesting that Pierre's perfect pitch is informed by his jazz knowledge, whereas Dylan's was probably more "pure" or "direct". Meaning Dylan probably saw weird chords and normal chords more equally.
Love this kind of video Rick! Keep up the good work!
You are approaching 4 million subscribers RB!
This is fantastic! I followed Pierre's channel.
2:35 "Keith Jarrett-edy kinda thing". My favorite improvisational pianist.
I remember when he used to have his son on here when he first started. He was a beast at this even at a very young age. He needs to bring him back on.
I was so looking forward to hearing Pierre's thoughts on how he experienced this and thinks about this, but then it just turned into an extended remix of the original party trick that made me want to learn more of his experience.
Hi Rick. New to your channel. I suppose I have been ghosting you but I finally subscribed. Love your content. Little about me, I am 57 years old and finally decided to get over my fears of failure and bought a takamine, epiphone dove and a fender telecaster fmt hh . I am still catching up on your videos, so if I missed this please forgive me. I would love to see an episode about under rated country players like Steve Warnier, Jerry Reed , Don Rich and others. Thanks for your time and I am happy to have found you.
All the best 👍
Great video!
I dont have perfect Pitch, but somehow I also remember the tones halfstep.
I used to play 100 years old piano as a kid, and always thought that was the reason that happen to me. Thanks Rick for all the amazing Interviews! Hope you come one again to Berlin!
Hey Rick, as good as Pierre is with his aural skills, your son Dylan is still the one that completely amazes me!
This is very relatable, I seem to use very similar mechanisms to what Pierre describes and can relate to his panic with identifying notes in complex chords. I also have his "remembering pitches flat" issue, and I think Charlie Puth probably has it too, as he often reproduces notes a bit flat. Although it often isn't really noticed until notes start sounding a full semitone sharp, I reckon a gradual sharpening of pitch perception may start when we're very young.
Excellent as always. I really enjoy your clips & interviews as I speak the same language & also have pp. A great example of practical applied theory & aural training in action. I'd also add the shape changes on piano help to master this as we all have the same hand, wrist, arm & shoulder positions that help contribute to finding the chord / inversion much quicker once you know how it all fits together. My musician friends & I lovingly call some of those poly chords (especially with sharp 5's & 9's) demolished chords! Keep up the great work Rick, cheers from Australia 🇦🇺
Would've loved to have heard a discussion on the music of Lyle Mays.
Great stuff as always Rick, hope you and yours are all good, all the best from UK.
We used to do this at the store I worked at for our customers. Its very similar for me to how Pierre hears the notes. Theres a familiarity with the notes. I cannot however pick out as complex of chords as him Lol
Just saw CNN did a article about you Rick! Congrats on all your success
This was a fun experiment. From someone watching who couldn’t carry a tune with a wheelbarrow, this subject has always fascinated me
We're in the same wheelbarrow!
Thanks for having Pierre on. I love his Lyle songbook even though I can't play a lick of piano. I try to channel Marc Johnson or Bill Frisell on those tunes.
Great video Rick!
My mother has perfect pitch. 🙁 Bummer I didn’t inherit this amazing gift!
She is not a show-off by any means, but she does sometimes joke around with friends or relatives with comments like….”your doorbell notes are C and E”
(or whatever the actual notes were); or if she hears you honk the horn on your car then tells you the notes.
She can listen to a song on the radio and then sit down and play the melody/chorus/bridge on the piano (and not just single notes, but she will play the song with fully developed chords - often times improvising to make it sound the way she prefers).
She has a hard time, putting into words how she does it - but says things like “I hear colors, but it’s more than that….I can’t quite put it in to words.”
She can compose a song directly from her head to the paper without the aid of any instrument(s)….and she has commented from time to time how a certain piece of music just ‘would not sound right’ if written and performed in a different key. It is indeed astonishing.
I have childhood memories of practicing the piano in the living room, and when I would make a mistake playing a chord, and then tried again but still wrong, she would call out to me from the kitchen and say things like: “You need an F sharp there!”
I wonder sometimes if individuals with perfect pitch hear and enjoy music with a little extra richness and depth that most of us cannot perceive.
I think we all probably agree that analogies are never perfect….but sometimes I think about the idea of how it would be for someone who was born and grew up with eyesight that could only see in black and white, (and gray tones in-between black & white)….but then suddenly and miraculously could see in color! - how crazy, amazing, and wonderful that would be for the person!
🤔 I wonder what the experience might be like if suddenly our ability to hear, perceive, and enjoy listening to music suddenly changed from the way most of us hear now, to having perfect pitch perception.
Very interesting, because based on the specific examples you give, one might wonder if perfect pitch could instead actually be a potential * hindrance * to the enjoyment of music...i.e. an inverse correlation of how the majority of us seem to derive instinctive pleasure from hearing notes (chord progression, melody, dissonance to consonance, etc...) without really knowing what those notes are. Similarly, I am in admiration of virtuoso musicians who are said to have no formal understanding of music theory but I wonder therefore what impact their natural abilities might have on the way their brains process and enjoy music? Is there a chance they hear music in a more intellectual, left-brained, less emotional way than others? Could this by any chance even be a prerequisite for becoming a world-class musician? Concentration notwithstanding, a lot of musicians who blow me away also often seem to display rather unemotional facial expressions while they play, unlike, say, me when I'm listening to them! 🙂Same thing for rhythm: do top-notch drummers or percussionists get the same feeling as us from a groovy beat, the structure of which they have a clinical understanding of, while us relatively untrained listeners get carried away by it, often without much insight into its precise structure? 🤔
@@nicknelson9450 - Good comment.
So……the only “negative” to my mother’s experience performing - she has said that an out-of-tune piano is a bit difficult to play.
This is a great depiction of absolute pitch. Would love to have been able to articulate this ability this well growing up.
I’m either half sharp or half flat when I attempt to sing!😂😎 Love your show Rick!
It's like looking in the mirror 😁 (In other words, me too)
The chord at 7:44 kinda sounds like that cluster chord in The Rite or Spring
Pierre’s ears are crazy! Awesome video
❤🙏🏻
the issue i have with perfect pitch, is how its defined. what people call perfect pitch i see as a combination of skill, intellect, and natural ability to hear and produce a specific note. the muscle memory to know where that note is on an instrument requires a large amount of effort to learn, and is something you cannot be born knowing. since your voice is the only instrument your born with i imagine a proper test of ones natural ability to comprehend unique tones would require hearing and producing a note on an instrument including your voice and without mistake, slide, bend, vibrato, ect. but also include being able to hear a single note, and name a song that uses that note and reference that moment ("its the first note of this song"/"thats the same chord in another song") in this case then also restricting relying on patterns by not allowing to 'find' the note on an instrument before answering.
i also believe the idea that some people are tone deaf is misrepresented and over exaggerated considering that a real tone deaf person would also not be able to hear and understand expression in speech, such as the upward inflection in a question, something humans are keen on understanding, supporting the notion that everyone could learn music with enough time and effort, even if against their will.
-TLDR consider this: you hear the 1st note in a song, and before the 2nd note you immediately think and call out the name of a song. as long as the song you named does use that as the 1st note, to that i propose to be plausible proof of perfect pitch.
I know this is absolutely NOT the point of the video, but putting Pierre's astonishing perfect pitch aside, I also find it amazing how close the digital keyboard sounds to the real acoustic piano. Technological progress marches on. Hats off to today''s engineers.
Derek Paravicini, an autistic savant, has an insane level of perfect pitch, possibly the greatest in the world. He can play 10-note chords instantly upon hearing them and when faced with more than 10 notes in a chord, e.g. an 11-note chord, he just rolls it. He can also play a piece after hearing it once. His memory capacity for music seems unlimited. The connection between perfect pitch and musical memory is very interesting.
Many of the greatest pianists and keyboardists were known for having prodigious memory in addition to perfect pitch. Gould, Richter, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov, Hofmann, Horowitz, Liszt, and Mozart to name a few. It is generally agreed that Bach very likely also had absolute pitch and there are clear indications that his memory was prodigious as well.
Most people on the spectrum have an amazing talent for music and perfect pitch. I know three of them (who play together in a great band).
glad to see you Rick posting videos like this one 👍
I knew a guy years ago who could do this, just one note at a time though. I didn't think much of it at the time but now I realize what a talent he had.
We had a singer for years who would start singing some the songs we performed before anyone would hit a note and he'd be right on key.
He didn't play any instruments though which seems kind of odd.
It's awesome learning more about what I have. Thank you for this video, Rick!
On hearing a chord: "There's panic" - lol, that's a life well lived :)
pierre is fluent! super impressive
Pierre's book of Lyle's compositions is incredible! His perfect pitch must have made it a bit easier to compile!
Dude is amazing