It is hard to imagine a good athlete without strong muscles and excellent physical training, good speaker without the ability to speak beautifully and speak freely in front of the public. So a good musician is inconceivable without a developed musical ear, which includes a whole range of abilities necessary for successful composition, expressive performance and active perception of music.
Depending on the musical characteristics, there are different types of musical ear. For example, pitch, timbre, modal, internal, harmonic, melodic, interval, rhythmic, etc. But one of the most inexplicable is still absolute pitch. Let's see what this mysterious phenomenon is.
The name of this type of hearing comes from the Latin word absolutus, which in translation means "unconditional, independent, unlimited, perfect". Perfect pitch refers to "the ability to determine the exact pitch of a sound without relating it to another sound whose pitch is known" (Grove's Dictionary). That is, absolute pitch allows, without tuning, without comparison with any “standard” of pitch, to instantly, and most importantly, accurately recognize and name the pitch of audible sounds.
Interestingly, the concept of absolute pitch appeared only in the second half of the 19th century. And since that time, scientific minds have been trying to find the answer to the question: “where does a person get such a unique ability?”. Researchers put forward a variety of hypotheses about the origin of absolute pitch. However, there is still no clear answer to this question. Some scientists consider it to be an innate (and also inherited) acoustic-physiological ability, which depends on the anatomical features of the hearing aid (more precisely, the structure of the inner ear). Others associate absolute pitch with special mechanisms of the brain, in the cortex of which there are special formant detectors. Still others suggest that absolute pitch is formed due to strong sound impressions in very early childhood and well-developed "photographic" figurative-auditory memory, especially in childhood.
Absolute pitch is a rather rare phenomenon even among professional musicians, not to mention ordinary connoisseurs of musical art, who may not even know that nature has awarded them this rare gift. Determining whether you have absolute pitch or not is quite simple. To "diagnose" this ability, experts use the piano, on which you will be asked to identify and name a particular sound. But in order to cope with this task, you must at least know the names of the notes themselves and how they sound. Therefore, as a rule, absolute pitch is detected in early childhood: in children at about 3-5 years of age, usually after getting acquainted with the names of musical sounds.
Absolute pitch is especially important for such musical professions as a conductor, composer, performer on instruments with a non-fixed tuning (for example, stringed instruments), because it allows you to more subtly perceive the pitch, more precisely control the system. Yes, and for an amateur musician, the presence of absolute pitch will not harm: the selection of chords to familiar melodies, of course, is much easier for owners of absolute pitch.
But along with undeniable advantages (primarily for professional musicians), this unique ability also has its disadvantages. IN certain cases absolute pitch can also be a real test, especially for those who are familiar with the basics musical literacy. You sit, for example, in a restaurant during a romantic date. And instead of enjoying the conversation or the scent delicious meals under the quiet background of the sounding music, cherished notes periodically “swim” in your mind: “la, fa, mi, re, mi, salt, do…”. Not everyone in such a situation is able to “turn off” and focus their attention on the interlocutor.
In addition, it is difficult to find a worse torture for an absolutist than listening to an inspired performance of a work by those who are “absolutely deaf”. Indeed, with such abilities, a person not only hears the exact pitch of the sound, but also absolutely accurately determines falseness, the slightest deviations from the correct standard sound. One can only sincerely sympathize with the absolute during the concert sounding of the joint playing of poorly tuned instruments (especially strings) or uncoordinated "dirty" ensemble singing.
By and large, it doesn't really matter if you have absolute pitch or not. But if you decide to devote yourself to music, and maybe even become a first-class professional musician, then a good ear for music you are vital. Its development should henceforth become a purposeful and regular action for you. To help in this difficult matter, classes on special discipline- solfeggio. But musical ear develops especially actively in the process of musical activity: during singing, playing an instrument, selection by ear, improvisation, composing music.
And most importantly, friends, learn to listen and understand music! With love and reverence, listen to every sound, sincerely enjoy the beauty of each consonance, in order to continue to give happiness and joy from communicating with music to your grateful listeners!!!
22.01.2015 20:56
is the ability to accurately identify the pitch of any sound without resorting to comparison with sounds of known pitch.
Composer Camille Saint-Saens grew up as a child prodigy. At the age of two and a half, he found himself in front of the piano. Instead of pounding at random, he pressed one key after another and did not release it until the sound died down. Grandmother taught him the names of notes, and then decided to put the instrument in order. During the work of the tuner, little Saint-Saens was able to name all the notes, hearing them from the next room. These people are said to have absolute pitch.
Such descriptions make us perceive this skill as something unattainable and magical... Our review of facts and research calls for abandoning such pathos.
Absolute pitch research
The history of absolute pitch began in the 17th century, when an equal-tempered musical scale with 12 steps and a fixed tuning fork (pitch standard) were introduced into circulation. Its first documented owner in the 18th century was W. A. Mozart, whose hearing was described as "true", "excellent". The term " absolute pitch"was introduced in the second half of the 19th century, and closer to the 20th century, scientists began to closely study the phenomenon itself. To date, many interesting patterns, connections and effects associated with absolute pitch have been discovered, however, in scientific world there is no consensus on the exact nature of this phenomenon.
In his work "Zonal nature of pitch hearing" (1948), N. Garbuzov, on the basis of his experiments, suggested that absolutists perceive sound frequencies in clusters, correlating frequency bands with a 12-step tempered scale. They do not need a special subtlety of hearing to differentiate frequencies within these clusters, only a special quality of perception of each of these zones. The width of the zones, according to Garbuzov, depends on the height of the register, timbre, sound volume, individual characteristics and mental state of a person.
Phenomenon absolute pitch psychologist Diane Deutsch has been studying in detail for more than 30 years. At the 138th meeting of the American Acoustic Society in 1999, together with colleagues, she presented the results of a study of the dependence of absolute pitch on the presence of tonality in the native language (Deutsch, Henthorn, Dolson, 1999). Most of The peoples of Southeast Asia, Africa, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas speak languages in which the meaning of a word depends on the height of the pronunciation of syllables. These languages are called tonal or tone languages. From infancy, native speakers of such languages develop sensitivity to pitch, which is necessary for understanding and reproducing their native speech. As a result of the experiment, native speakers of Vietnamese and Chinese reproduced words from mother tongue on the same note they spoke them on a few days ago. The deviation did not exceed 0.5-1.1 tone for the Vietnamese and 0.25-0.5 tone for the Chinese! Deutsch considers this proof that absolute pitch is not innate, but acquired.
Some statistics from a study among students of two conservatories, in the USA and China (Deutsch, Henthorn, Marvin, Xu, 2005). The students were divided into three groups online testing, where they were asked to correctly identify about 20 notes sounded. Chinese students showed a significant lead over American students who speak only non-tonal languages. According to the test criteria, in the group of students who started studying music at 4-5 years old, about 60% of Chinese and 14% of American students had absolute pitch; in the group of those who started at 6-7 years old - 55% of Chinese and only 6% of Americans; in the group who started at 8-9 years old - 42% of Chinese and none of the US. Importantly, this study showed a direct correlation having absolute pitch from an early age of learning music.
A Canadian study (Bidelman, Hutka, Moreno, 2013) comparing musicians and non-musicians with native tonal language proved the influence of language on musical ability, confirming their two-way close relationship. Tasks for the accuracy of determining the pitch, musical perception and general cognitive abilities (eg, fluid intelligence, working memory). Cantonese-speaking people showed results comparable to those of musicians, in contrast to English-speaking people who did not study music.
The auditory system of absolutists functionally and physically does not differ from non-absolutists. The difference is in a different algorithm for processing sound information cerebral cortex (Gregsen, 1998): precise definition pitch requires a base of frequencies in the human memory, as well as establishing correspondences between sound ranges and note names, because one note corresponds to an interval of frequencies, albeit a small one. Thus, absolute pitch can be a direct analogue of our ability to recognize colors, speech sounds, or other artificially discrete perceptual systems. In the same way that most of us have learned to recognize and call visible light from 450-495 nm wavelength "blue", people who were introduced to notes and their names in early childhood are likely to be able to identify, for example, the note DO ( Takeuchi and Hulse 1993).
According to the results of a three-year study in 2002-2005, aimed at finding genes associated with the presence of absolute hearing, Dr. Jane Gitscher (Jane Gitschier) from the University of California, having recorded a high probability of possessing such hearing in relatives, suggested that such genes do exist. . Although, perhaps, this is a universal human ability, which largely determines its development by the level and type of musical influence that people experience in a particular culture. The collected data showed that the phenomenon of absolute pitch turned out to be an excellent illustration plasticity of our auditory system, as well as a model for studying the interaction of genes and nurture in the developing brain.
Is it possible to develop absolute pitch?
So far, there has not been a single confirmed case of an adult achieving true absolute pitch. As we have already mentioned, the period of early musical development in childhood is critical. But don't give up.
If you want to hear melodies as sequences of notes, then you need to regularly and steadily develop all the components of musical ear. When you learn to hear the difference between sounds, at least up to a semitone, and remember the name of a sound of any pitch, then you can safely claim that you have developed pseudo-absolute pitch. There are many people who have achieved this result. There is no miracle here, but only hard work to acquire the desired skill.
You may need pseudo-absolute pitch in the following cases:
- start singing in the desired key without prompting and not "slide" when singing a capella;
- determine if your instrument is tuned correctly (the tuning can be shifted higher or lower);
- check whether you take notes correctly when playing instruments with a non-fixed system (strings, brass-winds).
However, each of these situations can be handled by a person with well-developed relative hearing.
Is absolute pitch important for a musician?
Fact of presence absolute pitch mistakenly perceived as a guarantee of developed musicality. However, it is found in mediocre musicians, in tuners of musical instruments and in people who are not interested in music at all. Thus, this ability is not exclusively musical. Many animals and birds have absolute pitch, for which the ability to distinguish pitch is necessary for life.
According to the way of perception, the pitch of musical ear is divided into:
- absolute(perception by individual notes);
- relative(perception through the distance between sounds).
It is appropriate to recall what kind of praise people shout, inspired by the excellent performance of music? If we generalize the enthusiasm, then we will understand that the outstanding musician skillfully uses ALL of his abilities. Even with wonderful relative pitch and a sense of rhythm, a person does not become talented musician. These aspects of the musical ear only allow us to divide the fabric of the work into components for a deeper understanding of it. They do NOT compensate for the lack of artistic imagination, artistry, the ability to work with your voice or instrument, and other important qualities!
TO musical art seeks to join a lot of people, if not on professional level, then at least amateur. However, this cannot be done without the presence of hearing. Absolute refers to one of several kinds musical ability and causes a lot of controversy about the nature of its formation. Is it possible to develop it? Let's try to figure it out.
General and special abilities
General abilities, without which it is impossible to even begin music lessons, are musical memory and healthy psychomotor skills. Musical memory refers to several types of memory that allow, in one form or another, to memorize and reproduce musical works- by ear or visually remembering the location of notes on the keyboard, visually “photographing” the musical score, etc.
The core of musicality also consists of:
- modal feeling, which allows a person to distinguish between the emotional coloring of music and its harmony;
- musical and auditory ideas about the height of sounds, the nature of their reproduction, the order of movement (this also includes the ability to reproduce what is heard by ear);
- perception of rhythm and the ability to work in a given rhythmic pattern.
Special abilities include those required for a particular performing activities(for example, a violinist has a number of requirements that are different from the requirements for a vocalist or pianist), as well as the abilities necessary to carry out composing activities.
General and special abilities are not limited to the above components, moreover, the boundaries between these two groups are not entirely clear.
Types of musical ear
Musical-auditory representations are also called musical hearing in another way. There are several varieties of it:
- External (perception of music in real time) and internal (the ability to reproduce music in the imagination).
- Absolute (the ability to absolutely accurately recognize and reproduce individual sounds and melodies) and relative (the ability to build a melody or scale based on modal connections and harmony).
- Harmonic (perception of polyphonic chords and parties) and melodic (perception of monophonic melodies).
What is absolute musical pitch
In turn, absolute ear for music is divided into 2 categories: passive and active. Passive - this is when a person can accurately name the pitch of the reproduced sound, recognize the taken chord, or even name the notes that make up the melody. A well-developed active absolute ear allows a person to accurately reproduce a given melody, scale or chord.
Absolute ear for music refers, in theory, to general musical abilities, because musical-auditory representations are in this category. However, researchers are conducting heated discussions about this classification.
Firstly, it would be wrong to attribute absolute pitch to general abilities, because relative pitch is more important for any type of musical activity - the ability to build relative modal connections (this is what musicality is understood to be). Absolute pitch is a unique phenomenon. At the same time, its presence does not indicate a person's ability to understand music, but rather indicates a good auditory memory, which accurately captures musical information. Therefore, some researchers argue that absolute ear for music refers to special abilities. Again, it has not yet been established whether this ability is innate or acquired.
How to do an ear test
A test for the presence of musical ear is passed by students before enrolling in a music school, students before entering a School of Music etc. For people planning to play music professionally, such checks are a common thing. However, in order to turn music into a hobby, you also need to make sure that you have the ability. How to test your ear for music at home?
This does not require sophisticated methods - just complete a few simple tasks with the help of a partner.
Task number 1
It is advisable that the person taking the test should stand with their back to the instrument. The partner must take an arbitrary note on the keyboard. The subject is given a couple of seconds to remember its sound. Then the assistant should play the notes one by one, randomly, and the subject should recognize among them the note that he keeps in memory. The test should be repeated several times.
Task number 2
If the person who is taking the test knows the name of the notes, then you can try the same technique: the partner takes an arbitrary note - the subject sounds its name.
Task number 3
An ear for music also implies a good perception of rhythm. The assistant should tap a certain rhythmic pattern on a hard surface with a pencil, which will last 5-7 seconds. The subject must repeat it exactly.
It may not be possible to complete a thorough ear test the first time - this is normal even for people who have hearing. But if with multiple repetitions the number of correct answers is less than 20-30%, then most likely the ear for music is absent or very poorly developed.
How to develop absolute ear for music
Since absolute ear for music belongs to the still poorly studied sphere of human abilities, with a great desire, you can still try to develop it: even if the test was passed unsatisfactorily, this is not a guarantee that a person has no inclinations at all. Performing systematic exercises for the development of hearing can finally clarify the situation: confirm or refute the result of the first listening.
Exercises for the development of absolute musical ear
When the development of musical ear is carried out, exercises should be chosen to begin with the simplest. When they are mastered, you can complicate tasks. You will need an assistant for the training.
Exercise #1
The exercise as a whole repeats exercise No. 1 from the ear test. The only difference is that this time, when the student makes a mistake, he needs to be told the correct answer and once again be allowed to remember the sound of the note, as well as its name (if he knows Pedagogical research has shown that reporting the correct answer improves the results of further exercises by 25- thirty%.
Exercise #2
When the previous exercise is mastered, it is worth moving on to a more complex option - musical dictation. For him, you need to take the simplest melody - from a textbook for the 1st grade of a music school.
For the first dictation, the partner should slowly, observing the size and all the pauses, play only a few measures, and the subject should record the melody by ear with notes. From the melody, you can increase, try to write more complex dictations. Checking and working on errors is a mandatory component of this exercise.
Conclusion
An ear test can tell you a lot, but not everything. Some test subjects are too anxious, and this prevents them from showing their full potential.
However, if you have decided to develop an ear for music, you need to understand that doing the exercises should become, if not a daily activity, then at least 3-4 times a week. With non-systematic exercises, the result will be difficult to achieve, and in some cases it will have to wait years. The development of an absolute ear for music is not an easy task, it is necessary to arm yourself with patience.
Surely many have heard the expression "absolute pitch". In everyday life, it is often attributed to people who are well versed in music, musical notation, with outstanding vocal abilities. However, being a top musician does not automatically mean perfect pitch. Moreover, only a few percent of the world's population can boast of this gift.
Mysterious Phenomenon
Absolute ear for music is one of the rare phenomena, whose status is difficult even to determine. Is it the result of some natural factors Or a physiological (hereditary) feature? The result of the unique development of the individual or the consequence of the influence of the social environment (family, society)? Or complex combination all factors? This is a mystery, even after centuries of study, shrouded in twilight.
Presumably, most babies have this gift, but rather quickly it is “overlapped” by other skills that are more important for survival. The main question, due to which the element of mystery arises, is the following: why in the same upbringing environment, under the same conditions for musical development, one of the children develops absolute pitch, while the other does not?
Statistics
Over the years of deep research, scientists have accumulated rich statistical material. It turned out that absolute pitch is formed exclusively in childhood, moreover, precisely in preschool, during the period of dominance of involuntary mastering of skills. This fact is unanimously confirmed by all researchers of absolute pitch. At the same time, the formation of a rare skill requires, as mandatory condition having a child in the family musical instrument, whose pitch is fixed. For example, keyboards, a number of wind instruments (bayan, accordion) and others. The reasons for this, presumably, lie not so much in the field of the psychology of human abilities, but in the psychology of individual differences (differential psychology).
An absolute ear for music steadily retains its status as a phenomenon as an outstanding, exceptional phenomenon in a certain respect. This is due to its relatively low prevalence. According to researchers, 6-7% of professional musicians and no more than 1% of all music listeners have absolute pitch.
Definition
Absolute pitch is the ability of people to determine "by ear" the absolute pitch of sounds. Musicians with this gift remember the absolute pitch scale of the 12-semitone octave scale. They are able to accurately determine the pitch of any sound without outside help. In turn, absolute pitch is divided into:
- Passive - the ability to match the pitch of an audible sound.
- Active - the ability to reproduce a given sound with a voice (the owners of "active hearing" are an absolute minority).
There is also the concept of relative hearing - not an innate, but a learned skill, when people are able to correctly determine the pitch with the help of "tips" (an object of comparison, such as a tuning fork).
The development of absolute pitch: pros and cons
For more than a century there has been a debate about whether this rare natural ability can be developed and trained. Theoretically, this is possible, because under the influence of some factors it is formed in children. However, critics of teaching methods argue that there is no mass “influx” of musicians trained in absolute musical pitch.
IN different time different people methods of artificial acquisition of absolute pitch were invented, which were not widely used in practice for a very simple reason: they were not in demand among professional musicians. By general opinion, absolute pitch, although it greatly facilitates the implementation of musical activity, but does not guarantee its success, and sometimes even complicates it. In addition, numerous reliable facts indicating that not all famous musicians had absolute pitch confirm the thesis that this ability is not mandatory or decisive.
Moral aspect
And yet, the problem of absolute pitch claims to be eternal, since it consists in dividing all members of the musical community into two “camps”: people who have a gift and those who do not. This confrontation cannot be avoided.
In other words, the possession of absolute pitch is not the subject of a conscious choice, but a kind of "blessing from above." At first glance, people who have a relative ear seem to be disadvantaged: in comparison with the “absolutes”, they need the help of a tuning fork or any other source of sound standards. In addition, when performing one or another operation related to determining the pitch of sounds, the “absolutes” demonstrate unconditional superiority, which cannot but affect the self-esteem of the owners of relative hearing.
The most striking consequence of this situation is the formation of a kind of professional inferiority complex in persons with relative hearing. This happens despite the widespread assertion that a highly developed relative ear is quite consistent, and sometimes even more effective in the implementation of musical activity.
Scientific approach
Musical ear today is considered differentially in the following gradation of levels: melodic, harmonic, tonal, polytonal, modal, internal, orchestral, polyphonic, rhythmic, physical (natural), singing-intonation, subtle, sharp, absolute, choral, opera, ballet, drama , stylistic, polystylistic, poetic, ethnic and polyethnic (absolute pitch).
Composers, conductors, folklorists, the first violinist of the orchestra, arrangers, piano and organ tuners have it. Many researchers agree that absolute ear for music is a product that has concentrated on the basis of versatile natural phenomena, human genetics. It should be developed by capturing the voices of nature, the singing of birds, the cries of animals, and even man-made (industrial) sounds.
How to develop absolute pitch
Whether it is possible to develop 100% hearing by training is a moot point. Usually people who achieve good results are called the owners of pseudo-absolute pitch. It is advisable to develop talent in preschoolers if they are capable of music. It has been proven that for a full-fledged perception of music, the most favorable time is childhood, when the basics are perceived in the family from parents musical culture, the ability to perceive, understand, feel, experience musical images is brought up.
Models of the development of absolute pitch
Several development models are practiced in Russia. They are based on two principles of controlling intonation and hearing:
- oral (according to the text);
- associative (according to notes).
The mastering process boils down to the fact that at each lesson the whole scale with words is sung, then each student sings it at recess, on the way home, after doing homework, at leisure. He has it in his head all the time. When basically the text of the model is fixed in memory, which is not difficult by analogy with poetic texts songs, the text is sung in breakdown in the most various options. In the future, the key should be changed and try to sing the text in a new key, as a result of which the student begins to operate, modulate in any keys.
Regular chanting exercises develop an inner ear for music. The student begins to hear and determine what sound is emitted - mi, sol, fa, la, etc. By analogy with what composers, folklorists, ethnographers, conductors with absolute pitch have been taught.
History lessons
What is a person with absolute pitch capable of? In history, there is a case that happened to the great L. Beethoven. It so happened that his physical ear disappeared while conducting a work at a concert, but an absolute, inner ear for music helped, which helped the composer to be able to conduct symphony orchestra(310 musician participants).
Physical deafness did not prevent another opera composer - N. S. Dagirov (operas "Aigazi", "Irchi-Cossack", in collaboration with G. A. Gasanov "Khochbar", ballet "Partu Patima"), who did not hear the productions of his monumental works, but who felt and perceives them with internal absolute hearing. With the loss of the physical, inner hearing does not disappear. A person with absolute pitch will be able to syntonate accurately enough, display, beat the rhythm as close as possible to what he heard.
Conclusion
Seeing, memorizing, writing down, learning to catch and hear the music living around is the goal and task of the absolute pitch development model, first in preschool, then in school education and education. The development of musical ear into absolute leads to a differentiated perception of timbres-voices of folk, symphonic, jazz and other groups. After all, the main goal human society on Earth is the study and improvement of the surrounding life in space and time on a new round of the spiral of evolution.
D. K. Kirnarskaya
Perfect Pitch
Possessors of absolute pitch, or, as musicians call them, absolutes , cause many white envy. Ordinary people with good relative hearing recognize the pitch of sounds. compare them: if you do not give them a standard for comparison, then they will not be able to name the given sound, which any absolutist can easily do. The essence of this ability is not fully disclosed, and the most common version boils down to the fact that for the owner of absolute pitch, each sound has the same definite face as a timbre: just as easily as ordinary people they recognize by the voice of their relatives and friends, distinguishing timbres, absolutists "recognize by sight" each individual sound.
It is likely that absolute pitch is a kind of "super-timbre" hearing, when the distinction of timbres is so subtle that it affects each individual sound, which is always slightly thinner and lighter than the neighboring sound, if it is higher, and also barely noticeably "darker" than the neighboring sound. if below it. A group of American psychologists led by Gary Krammer experimented with absolute musicians, non-absolute musicians, and non-musicians. The subjects were asked to distinguish sounds different instruments. All people recognize timbres very well, so it is not surprising that all the subjects did an excellent job. But absolutes responded much more confidently and faster than their fellow musicians or non-musicians. This means that absolute pitch includes a timbre element or even as a whole, as many psychologists believe, is an ultrafine offshoot of timbre pitch. Some self-observations of musicians support a "timbre version" of the origin of absolute pitch. Composer Taneyev recalled: “A note for me had a very special character of sound. I recognized her just as quickly and freely by this certain character of her sound, as we immediately recognize in the face of a familiar person. The note D already had, as it were, a completely different, also quite definite physiognomy, by which I instantly recognized and called it. And so are all the other notes.
The second popular version about the nature of absolute pitch emphasizes not the moment of timbre sensation, but the moment of super-memory to the musical height. It is known that an ordinary person can remember the pitch of a given sound for one and a half minutes - after a minute and a half he can sing this sound or recognize it among other sounds. Musicians have a stronger memory for musical pitch - they can produce a sound even eight minutes after they heard it. Absolutes, on the other hand, remember the pitch of sounds for an indefinitely long time. Psychologist Daniel Levitin believes that perfect pitch is just a long-term memory.
Absolute pitch can be active or passive. Passive hearing allows you to recognize and name the pitch, but if you ask such an absolutist to “sing the note in F”, then he is unlikely to sing it instantly and accurately. The owner of active absolute hearing will do this without difficulty, not to mention the fact that he can easily recognize any sound. In discussing the nature of active absolute pitch and passive absolute pitch, researchers find a place for both timbre and pitch versions of its origin. Many believe that passive recognition of sounds is based on timbre absolute pitch, and the possibility of their active reproduction is based on pitch. The question of the nature of absolute pitch still remains open, but no matter what absolutes memorize - timbre, pitch, or both, they are extremely rare, one out of a thousand people has absolute pitch.
Professional musicians while studying in music schools, schools and conservatories constantly perform a lot of auditory exercises: they write musical dictations, sing from notes, guess chord sequences by ear. During the work of a conductor, choirmaster, singer and in the most different types musical activity, the ear facilitates a lot and often serves as a convenient help. Colleagues of happy absolutes sometimes set themselves the goal of mastering absolute pitch, developing it, even if by nature they do not have absolute pitch. In the course of many hours of training, fanatics eventually develop the coveted absolute pitch and use it for some time, at least in passive form. But as soon as they stop training, the absolute pitch they had won disappears without a trace - the skills gained with such difficulty turn out to be very ephemeral and fragile.
Infants, who are already prone to manifestations of absolute pitch, can learn it even in active form. Psychologists Kessen, Levine and Vendrich asked mothers of three-month-old babies to inspire them with a special love for the note "fa" of the first octave. This note is convenient for a child's voice, and when the babies hooted on their note, the mothers had to remind them every time "fa", as if to prompt this particular pitch. After forty days of training, twenty-three babies, participants in the experiment, hummed together on the note "fa" - they managed to remember exactly this height and they no longer strayed from it. After some time, when the meaning of this special love for “fa” did not become clear, and the mothers ceased to endlessly remind this particular note, the babies switched to their usual cooing. So finished my short life barely broken absolute pitch. From many such trials and errors, both with infants and with adults and children, the researchers made a preliminary conclusion about the lack of education of a real, lasting and not requiring additional work active absolute hearing. The reason for all sorts of fiascos in trying to acquire absolute pitch is due to its genetic origin, confirmed many times.
Neuropsychologists also consider perfect pitch to be an innate and genetically determined quality. A group of neuropsychologists led by Gottfried Schlaug focused on research on the left hemispheric planum temporale, which is slightly enlarged in all people compared to the corresponding section of the right hemisphere. This department is in charge of sound discrimination, including the distinction of phonemes, and, as already mentioned, a certain increase in this brain device of the “speaking person” was formed in chimpanzees 8 million years ago. However, on closer examination, it turned out that absolute musicians have even more planum temporale than all the others. Homo sapiens, and even more than non-absolute musicians. “The results of the study show,” the authors write, “that outstanding musical ability is associated with an exaggerated left hemispheric asymmetry in the brain regions involved in musical functions.”
Judging by the data of neuropsychologists and geneticists, absolute pitch as an ultra-high ability of sound discrimination and auditory memory is not brought up and developed, but is bestowed from above. “Abandon hope, ye who enter here!” one should write not on the gates of hell, but in the solfeggio class, especially zealous teachers who captivate gullible students with promises to develop absolute pitch in them. However, a more important question is different: does a musician need this gift of fate, is absolute pitch such a valuable quality, without which it is difficult for a musician to do? Since absolute pitch was brought to public attention, many almost anecdotal stories have been collected about it, telling about the incredible human auditory abilities. But these quasi-anecdotes do not bring absolute pitch closer to music, but move it away from it, reinforcing doubts about its usefulness as a purely musical quality, and not a curiosity of nature, which has a very indirect relation to the art of music.
Absolute hearing works in automatic mode, fixing everything that hits. Absolute pianist Miss Sauer's dentist distracted her from her discomfort by asking questions about what note the drill was buzzing on. Just like the young Mozart, who knew how to name the sound of a glass filled with water, the note on which the clock ticked and the creaking of doors, Miss Sauer distinguished the pitch of all sounds in general. Once, while learning the piece, she heard an uninvited accompaniment in the form of the sounds of a neighbor's lawn mower, which buzzed on the note "salt". From now on, whenever Miss Sauer performed this ill-fated piece, the sound of a lawn mower on the same note was awakened in her mind, and the concert piece was irrevocably ruined. Miss Sauer's colleague, the Reverend Sir Frederick Usley, professor of music at Oxford University, also had a legendary perfect pitch. At the age of five, he told his mother: “Just think, our dad blows his nose on “fa”. At any age, he could determine that thunder rumbles on G and the wind blows on D. At the age of eight, listening to Mozart's famous G-minor symphony on a hot summer afternoon, young Sir Frederick claimed that what he was actually hearing was not G-minor at all, but A-flat minor, located a semitone higher. It turned out that the boy was right: the instruments were so hot from the heat that their system slightly increased.
Says a lot about ancient origin absolute hearing, even more ancient than human speech. People sing and play the same melodies at different pitches, the same music often sounds either higher or lower. IN musical creativity Relative hearing dominates, for which absolute height is not important performed music, A sound relations. Not so with birds: they sing their "music" at the same pitch, memorizing not so much bird melodies as the absolute pitch of the sounds included in them. This set of sounds is for them a sign, a signal, but not an artistic message. Dolphins do the same, making sounds of a certain height, where each frequency acts as a certain sign-signal. Animals forced to communicate over long distances use the frequency of sound as its most stable characteristic, not subject to distortion. From ancient times, the frequency of sound vibrations transmitted information in a storm, and in snow, and in rain, cutting through forests and oceans and overcoming all sound interference. In some species of animals, absolute pitch was thus formed, capable of distinguishing several commonly used frequencies and using them.
The works of the Englishman Sargent shed light on many phenomena associated with absolute pitch. He argues that almost every person could become an absolute if he began to study music in early childhood. His survey of one and a half thousand members of the English Society of Musicians shows that there is a definite connection between the time of the beginning music lessons and absolute hearing. Absolute pitch is dying out due to the fact that the same music, when it sounds in different keys, is perceived as practically the same; if this phenomenon, which musicians call "transposition", did not exist, then absolute pitch could be preserved. To suggest such a thing would be, however, a complete fantasy - singing as the basis of music-making could not live without the performance of the same melodies either by a soprano, or by a bass, or by a tenor. All data - both the phenomena of absolute pitch in animals (musicians sometimes call absolute pitch “canine pitch”), and the ease with which infants perceive the absolute pitch of sounds - makes us think that absolute pitch is not at all the highest achievement of human hearing, as is sometimes believed, but on the contrary , an auditory rudiment, a vanishing shadow of the evolutionary process, a trace of the auditory strategy of our distant ancestors. In ontogeny, child development, reflecting phylogenesis, historical development, one can clearly see how absolute pitch, having barely begun, dies off without receiving practical reinforcement: it is not necessary either in music or in speech, and being unclaimed, this rudiment calmly dies off as it once disappeared from people animal tail.
Among the advantages of absolute musicians, the so-called “color hearing” is often referred to, when musical tonalities seem to the perceiver as if colored, colored, and steadfastly evoke certain color associations in memory. Rimsky-Korsakov considered the key of E major "blue, sapphire, brilliant, nocturnal, dark azure" thanks to the prompting of fellow composers. Glinka wrote the choir "Darkness of the night falls in the field" in this key, and Mendelssohn used this key for the overture "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and for the famous "Nocturne". How was it possible to avoid “night and dark azure” associations here? In F major, Beethoven laid the foundation for the "Pastoral" symphony, connected with the life of innocent shepherds and peasants in the bosom of nature, and this tonality in the composer's community began to naturally gravitate towards green. E-flat major Rimsky-Korsakov and Wagner were associated with water - the first with Ocean-Sea Blue, and the second with Rhine Gold, although Rimsky-Korsakov could boast of absolute pitch, but Wagner did not. This further strengthens the idea that “color hearing” is a historical and cultural phenomenon, not connected with absolute pitch. Scriabin also gravitated towards color associations of keys, but like Wagner he did not have perfect pitch.
Comparison of absolute musicians with non-absolute musicians emphasizes their fundamental equality in the main: both hear and fix sound relations and remember the pitch of sounds, but use different strategies at the same time - where the absolute does not think and does not compare, acting instantly, there the non-absolute achieves the same with minimal effort, but with the same result. Except when it is required to tune the instrument with an accuracy of a few hertz or recognize a false sound. So is it worth envying the absolutes, and how to interpret this gift of nature, knowing about its rudimentary origin, and also that some great composers, including Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Scriabin, did without absolute pitch.
The very phrase "absolute pitch" suggests something perfect, the highest, unattainable. This name reflects public reverence for absolute pitch, if only because of its very low prevalence. The very fact of possessing absolute pitch is already suggestive of ultra-high musicality. However, even an approximate review of the facts and views of specialists forces us to abandon such reverence. “Absolute pitch is not a panacea,” writes Ms. Sauer, who knows how to find out what note drills and lawnmowers are buzzing on. “He is only what you can do with him and how you can use him. One does not automatically follow from the other.
A few statistics are in tune with these chilling tirades. If the total number of absolutists in the world is about 3%, among students of conservatories in Europe and America it is already 8%, then among Japanese music students there are already 70% absolutists, probably due to the fact that Eastern languages are genetically closer to tonal languages, and the auditory capabilities of Asians are generally higher. Isn't that why it's complicated classical music Europe so quickly gained popularity on Far East that the auditory resources of these peoples are extremely large compared to Europeans? It is easy for them to perceive the global sound constructions of sonatas and symphonies, since their hearing is very perfect. However, the percentage of outstanding musicians among Asians is by no means greater than among Europeans. Absolute pitch all over the world is possessed by quite ordinary musicians, and just piano tuners, and even people who are not at all music lovers and not interested in it. “Having absolute pitch in no way makes you a good musician,” writes Dr. – It does not mean that you understand musical relationships, it does not indicate a sense of rhythm, it simply means that you have perfect pitch. Many people think it means something much more.”
At the same time, among the outstanding musicians, the number of absolutes is very large. On the peaks musical Olympus at the height of Mozart-Bach-Debussy and the like, non-absolute pitch is a big exception. The same can be said about outstanding performers of the rank of Richter-Stern-Rostropovich. In a special study of outstanding cellists, it was noted that 70% of them are absolute players. There is a certain discrepancy: on the one hand, absolute pitch and musical talent are clearly connected, and among the geniuses of music, a non-absolute is as rare as a white musician among the black titans of jazz. At the same time, absolute pitch does not guarantee even tolerable musical abilities: the possession of absolute pitch, apart from the absolute pleasure of recognizing the door of one's home by its unique creaking, does not promise any other pleasures.
Even a superficial analysis of the auditory capabilities of the great ones can bring some clarity to the mythology of absolute pitch. “When I was two and a half years old,” recalls the composer Saint-Saens, “I found myself in front of a small piano that had not been opened for several years. Instead of hitting randomly, as children usually do, I played one key after another and did not release it until its sound died out completely. Grandmother explained the names of the notes to me and invited the tuner to put the piano in order. During this operation, I was in the next room and amazed everyone by naming the notes as they sounded at the tuner's hand. All these details are known to me not from other people's words, since I myself remember them perfectly. In this description, it is not at all surprising that absolute pitch manifested itself so early - it always wakes up early; surprising and not that the child so confidently called all the sounds, only once hearing them - this is absolute pitch. It is amazing that the love for music awakened early in the child, when he listened to the sounds with such attention, with such unprecedented interest, perceiving the piano as his interlocutor, who must be listened to, and not as a toy that must be beaten so that it responds with offended strumming.
Absolute pitch is rudimentary in its origin, it is an atavism, but among gifted musicians, on the one hand, and among ordinary "tuners", on the other hand, it is preserved according to different reasons. Outstanding musicians are gifted in terms of hearing not only with absolute pitch, their general high musicality, their sensitivity to the meaningfulness of sound enhances all sound-distinctive abilities, including absolute pitch. It does not die in the mind of an outstanding musician, because it is included in the context of other auditory data, among which there is necessarily an excellent relative pitch: an outstanding musician equally freely uses both absolute pitch and non-absolute pitch, if necessary.
Absolutes, which can be conditionally called "tuners", are essentially non-musicians. Their absolute pitch is just a vestige preserved as a curiosity of nature. Sometimes in a family of musicians, this rudiment is delayed because the child is overloaded with sound impressions, his hearing aid is working in an enhanced mode. In addition, the children of musicians have a hereditary tendency to preserve absolute pitch. However, in all such cases, the tendency to maintain absolute pitch does not come from within the consciousness, from within the awakening musicality, and as a result, a dead absolute pitch arises, which can push one to choose musical profession- the recognized fetishism of the phrase "absolute pitch" will play its treacherous role here. The seeming ease of mastering the basics of the profession will obscure the bitter truth from such a “pseudo-talent”: nature did not endow him with a real creative gift, but only a surrogate in the form of absolute pitch.
Even if absolute pitch and its preservation are caused by internal reasons, and the child is indeed endowed with excellent intonation pitch, a good sense of rhythm, and even a remarkable relative pitch, all these qualities taken together do not mean that musical talent is evident. These properties of hearing are operational properties that allow one to successfully dissect musical fabric, understanding why it is designed this way and not otherwise. But these properties of hearing do not yet mean that the absolute player has at least a small fraction of musical fantasy, imagination and artistry. It is still very far from the requirements that society imposes on gifted performers and composers. In addition, in the musical profession, it is quite possible to get by with a good relative pitch, which once again warns society against excessive enthusiasm about the magical properties of absolute pitch. Its rudimentary origin and fundamentally conscious, reflex nature once again emphasize that the concept of "absolute pitch" is just another myth. To believe in it or not - everyone chooses for himself.
