In this article, we will talk about such a concept as ear for music and how to develop it.

So, ear for music is the ability of the brain to determine the pitch of notes and generally recognize notes; it has nothing to do with ordinary hearing. There is a misconception that there may be no ear for music. Surely you have heard from people: "I have no hearing."

So, every person has an ear for music, in some it is better developed in others worse.

The development of musical ear

The development of musical ear, it's not a myth. It is better to develop it from childhood, but this is also true for adults. If a person is able to learn new things, then the development of an ear for music will not become an insurmountable obstacle.

If a person has a well-developed ear for music, then he can distinguish notes, there is even such an exercise when a melody is played - you need to write notes by ear. But if the musical ear is poorly developed, then this is very difficult to do.

To check how developed an ear for music, you can use the following scheme. Several different notes are played, for example three, then one of these notes is played and you need to answer which note is this note, the first second or third.

The higher the development of musical ear, the easier it is to guess the notes. A person with a bad ear for music and one out of five notes will not guess, but with a good one, nine out of ten is easy.

Also, the criterion for the development of musical ear is the ability to distinguish the tonality of notes. There is a gap between notes, a semitone or a tone. As a result, the better this distance is felt, the better the ear for music.

Perfect Pitch- this is an opportunity not only to hear different sounds and distinguish notes, it is also the whole world inaccessible to the common man. There are not many creatures in nature that have such capabilities, and bats are among them in the first place.

Their absolute hearing helps them to see even in pitch darkness by means of emission and acceptance which, passing a certain distance, are reflected from objects and returned back. This phenomenon has been scientifically defined as acoustic vision, and is the idea behind the film about the blind superhero Daredevil, who, having lost one of his senses, developed the rest.

Why is this needed? Absolute hearing will give the one who owns it not only the ability to "see blindly", but also increase its sensory capabilities at times. Such a person would be extremely accurate, fast and intelligent as a result of constant processing of sound information. Everything is simple.

Development of absolute pitch

There are several techniques through which you can develop these abilities, and now we will talk about one of them. Not so long ago, the creator of the world of superheroes, Stan Lee, organized his own group to search for people with unusual abilities, he shot a full-fledged

As it turned out, there are people who can bend metal objects without having huge muscles. A person from whom a car can move without consequences. Samurai chopping a bullet from an air pistol in half with a sword, and many others. Among them, a man also stood out, blind from birth, but seeing the world no worse than any sighted. He can drive a car and even ride a bike on par with complete people, only occasionally making clattering sounds resembling clicks.

From this, it can be concluded that and a common person is able to develop absolute pitch if he trains day after day and deprives himself of sight for several hours by wearing an ordinary blindfold. Thus, soon the body gets used to using our brain and learns to use it no worse than visual images.

The bandage should be made of dense black fabric, best of all with special foam pads for the eyes. The ideal option it would be to use a special sleep bandage. At first, do not try to perform too complicated actions, just walk around the apartment or in the yard, identifying objects by sound echoes. In order to make sounds, you will have to choose the method that is best for you: you can use a stick, a cane or click your tongue, as you prefer.

The development of musical ear in children

By the way, the same technique will help develop in a child. If excluded from music lessons(be it violin, piano or guitar) factor of vision, the child's brain will begin to adapt to the conditions external environment, which will improve not only musical ear, but also auditory memory, as well as the accuracy of sensory sensations.

Perfect Pitch Etymology.

Comes from lat. absolutus - unlimited.

Characteristics of musical ear.

The ability to accurately determine the pitch of sounds without relating them to other heard or sung sounds that have a known pitch. The accuracy of absolute pitch is greatest in the middle registers and the smallest in the extreme ones. Most often appears in preschool and early childhood school age.

With passive absolute hearing, the pitch of the audible sound is correctly determined, but it cannot be reproduced by the voice according to the given name;

With active absolute hearing, sounds can be named and reproduced according to their pitch.

It differs from pseudo-absolute pitch.

Psychological Dictionary. THEM. Kondakov. 2000 .

ABSOLUTE PEAR

(English) absolute pitch,perfect pitch) - the ability to correctly determine (name) and reproduce with the voice the pitch of individual sounds without correlating them with other sounds whose pitch is known.

A. s. - is not absolute development musical ear in general, and special shape perception of sounds. Persons without A. s. under certain conditions can recognize the pitch well, for example, by comparing a given sound with the highest or lowest sound own voice(the so-called pseudo-absolute pitch). Persons with A. s. can recognize and correctly name musical tones without auxiliary pitch relationships and "inner singing".

According to the researchers, the determination time pitches in people with A. s. much shorter than those who do not have this ability (from 0.4 to 0.7 s for the first and a few seconds for the second). Accuracy A. s. maximum in the middle registers and minimum in the extreme ones.

Distinguish between passive A. with, when the subject correctly determines the pitch of an audible sound, but cannot reproduce it with his voice according to a given name, and active A. with, when he can both name and reproduce sounds according to their height.

A. s. usually found in early school, sometimes at preschool age.

Big psychological dictionary. - M.: Prime-EVROZNAK. Ed. B.G. Meshcheryakova, acad. V.P. Zinchenko. 2003 .

See what "absolute pitch" is in other dictionaries:

ABSOLUTE PEAR- ABSOLUTE HEARING, the ability to recognize A. the pitch of an audible sound. This A. s. differs from relative hearing, the owner of which correctly recognizes the intervals between audible sounds, that is, their relative position in the scale, but not in ... ... Big Medical Encyclopedia

absolute pitch- musical talent, musicality, hearing Dictionary of Russian synonyms. absolute pitch n., number of synonyms: 3 musical talent (3) ... Synonym dictionary

ABSOLUTE PEAR- see Art. Hearing music... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

absolute pitch- (music) - hearing, immediately, directly determining the height of any tone. Big Dictionary foreign words. Publishing house "IDDK", 2007 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Perfect Ear- the ability to accurately determine the pitch of sounds without correlating them with other heard or sung sounds that have a known pitch. Most often appears in preschool and early school age. Absolute Pitch Accuracy ... ... Psychological Dictionary

Perfect Pitch- Absolute hearing ability to determine the absolute height musical sounds. It is expressed in the ability to determine the pitch ( musical note) of any given sound without resorting to comparison with sounds of a known pitch. Most often ... ... Wikipedia

absolute pitch- see Musical ear. * * * ABSOLUTE PEAR ABSOLUTE PEAR, see Art. Musical ear (see MUSICAL HEARING) ... encyclopedic Dictionary

ABSOLUTE PEAR- (auditory memory), a term for a person's ability to tonal perception, and more specifically the ability to recognize the pitch of each tone, i.e. the frequency of these sound vibrations. Often absolute or quasi absolute pitch are ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

absolute pitch- (auditory memory) a term for a person's ability to tonal perception, and more specifically, the ability to recognize the pitch of each tone, i.e. the frequency of these sound vibrations. Often absolute or quasi absolute pitch are ... ... Russian index k English-Russian Dictionary in musical terminology

absolute pitch- absoliuti klausa statusas T sritis švietimas apibrėžtis Įgimtas gebėjimas skirti ir atkurti muzikos garsų aukštį. Absoliuti klausa ypač reikalinga pasirinkusiems dainavimo specialybę. atitikmenys: engl. absolute ear; perfect ear vok. das absolute… Enciklopedinis edukologijos žodynas

Books

• Absolute musical ear. Essence, nature, genesis, method of formation and development, Berezhansky Pavel Nikolaevich. This book gives scientific explanation the phenomenon of absolute hearing. Analysis of the results of previous studies and the author's own theoretical and experimental work led to ... Buy for 498 rubles
• Absolute musical ear. Essence, nature, genesis, method of formation and development: a textbook. 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, Berezhansky P.N. This book gives a scientific explanation of the phenomenon of absolute pitch. Analysis of the results of previous studies and the author's own theoretical and experimental work led to ...

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 absolute musicians perceive audio frequencies 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 peoples South-East Asia, Africa, as well as 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 their 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 speakers Chinese 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 name visible light with a wavelength of 450-495 nm "blue", people who were introduced to notes and their names in early childhood are likely to be able to identify, for example, the note C (Takeuchi, 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 among mediocre musicians, among tuners musical instruments and 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!

Online game "Absolute Rumor"

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The first 33 questions from this list. The entire list of 55 questions (from 34 to 55 chips with a musical staff) is presented in full version of this game included in the program.

Alexey Ustinov, 2011-12-30

Game updated 2013-11-30

Teacher's comment

Absolute musical ear - the ability to determine the pitch, regardless of other tones, i.e. without comparing sounds with each other and, as a result, assigning a note name to this sound. The nature of this phenomenon has not been sufficiently studied in the circles of musicologists and, apparently, therefore, it is represented by different points of view. But it is even less familiar to practitioners. At the same time, the skill of "absolute musical ear" constantly remains in the focus of both interest and controversy among almost all musicians. It is generally accepted that all string players (violinists, cellists) have such an ear, but this is not so! On the contrary, it seems that the pianist does not need it at all - however, those who have this skill say that it helps a lot, for example, when reading scores ... Another often discussed question is whether it can be developed, or is it something is it inborn?

What to do with a child who easily picks up any melody and does not want to look at the musical text at all? How to develop ear for a student who knows musical symbols well, but can play false notes, memorizes them and the teacher cannot help him by any means?

One day my second-grade student asked me to play for him Gennady Sasko's piece "Blues", which is quite complex in rhythm, with a passage at the end. Played it three times... and in the next lesson he played the Blues without notes and at the same tempo as the piece sounded. The case with this boy was for me an example of my incompetence in working with a gifted student with absolute pitch... There were not many children with absolute pitch in my teaching practice. And most often these children did not finish music school. From the very beginning, they could memorize and play pieces by hand, "by ear", but reading a complex text caused them resistance and, as a result, they lost interest in learning.

In other words, the skill of "absolute pitch" is not something separate in the learning process, unambiguously positive or negative. Both the presence and absence of it require additional attention from the teacher and a special approach to the student. And yet, this skill is highly desirable!

In order to help my students, and not to repeat the mistakes of my youth myself, now I use the method of Maltsev S.M. - the author of a comprehensive methodology for teaching piano playing, as well as solfegging, synchronous with piano playing. This method helps me to identify children with well-developed hearing already in the first year of education and constantly work with them by reading music from a sheet.

Most students and those who want to master the wisdom of music, easily learn and play their favorite melodies on the piano or guitar, still need to develop their ear. And the game "Absolute pitch" is an excellent tool for this. It is suitable for all ages.

Small children, who cannot even read, will guess the right answer from the pictures. (Only they need help - first play the game NOTES - PICTURES so that the child gets acquainted with the notes hidden in simple words: HOUSE, TURP. In the same place, he will get acquainted with the sound of notes.).

Older kids and adults will discover when they play that they HAVE perfect pitch and that this skill is developing - tested!

Of course, someone might say that there are no semitones (more precisely, a full chromatic scale) in the game. Yes, the game only includes white piano keys, i.e. in fact, we are in a major (DO) or minor (LA) fret ... Someone may note that the steps of the fret and intervals play a role here ... Absolutely right! But, start with simple tasks, achieve confident recognition of these notes, and you will take a big step in improving your musical ear. Believe me, you will get great pleasure when you find out that you identify the name of the note by ear!

Krivopalova L.N.
Piano teacher, Palace of Creativity for Children and Youth, Tomsk
01.05.2011

The Virartek team expresses its gratitude to Lyubov Nikolaevna Krivopalova, who took an active part in the creation of this game and in its testing. THANK YOU! Good luck to you and your students!