MALIK ARSHAQ
MEGHAN KHARSYNRAP
PI CH
PERFECT: THE PREQUEL
It's the semi-finals of a group music
competition and the keyboardist is absent
without notice. There are 5 minutes to go
and the teacher has to prep 20 kids to start
without any signal. What's worse? The
harmonies! Altos, Sopranos, Bass and
the Tenor boys and girls are struggling
to find a note that fits the song let alone
have hum together. The audience falls
silent as they watch with tepid gasps.
Someone is snickering to the other
saying "how hard can it be? They just
have to sing right."
But "singing right" is actually very hard to
do. The situation could have been diffused
if all the singers could identify the note
they had to sing without the reference of
an instrument. But then they'd have to have
'Absolute pitch' and that's a skill that cannot
be taught.
Absolute pitch or perfect pitch is the auditory
anomaly wherein you can reproduce a sound
you've heard without needing to use an
instrument or a hint. Most people don't realize
how hard this is. If someone asked you to
sing a middle C, we're unable to. We're stuck
asking ourselves if we can remember what the
Middle C even sounds like, even if we've been
playing an instrument for years. Adding to
this even if we did get a note as a reference it
would be impossible not to sing up or down to
find other notes, as opposed to someone who
is pitch perfect who JUST KNOWS what an
F sounds like at different frequencies. Think
of it this way, some pitch perfect people can
identify the note of whales humming, a car
honking, the chimes of a shop, or even metal
dishes clanging together. Imagine having
a friend who would casually mention that
he/she doesn't like cars that honk in D at a
particular frequency. 1 in 10,000 people are
pitch perfect. These people can tell you the
key of music they've heard for the first time
or reproduce the tune of the song days later.
They can name tones or chords, identify the
key of a piece, name frequency of a pitch or
identify the pitches of an everyday sound.
You could try to test if you're pitch perfect too.
Record yourself singing your favourite songs
and compare your version to the original.
Maybe the sound you've recreated and the
actual song are not on the same key, you could
even be way off. But If you're getting accurate
results and singing on the right key without
any help or hints you could possibly have
perfect pitch. I tried to test myself using songs
from Disney movies. I hadn't listened to any
Disney songs for a couple of days which made
them the perfect choice for the test. However
when I compared my version with the actual
piece I always sang a little lower than the
actual song.
But we should note that those with perfect
pitch aren't physically different from us, our
systems and auditory abilities are the same.
The only difference is that their analysis of
sound is different, they analyze frequency
better. Perfect Pitch is an act of cognition.
It's a mundane function for them, and often
goes unnoticed. It's as cool for them as it is for
people to see colours: Not. That. Cool.
Can it be acquired? No. But the good news is
you can achieve something similar to some
extent, via Relative pitch. A skill wherein you
identify tones by using the distance between
them, singers happen to use this skill a lot. All
in all there’s no denying perfect pitch is quite
extraordinary but if you’re happy belting
out a tune like nobody’s business it shouldn’t
matter anyway.
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
23