Demystifying Perfect Pitch with Elizabeth West Marvin

What is perfect pitch and why do some people have it when others don't? How does it work and is it possible to learn it? In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth West Marvin (Eastman School of Music, and an author of the Musician's Guide series of textbooks) answers these questions and more.

Links:

Elizabeth West Marvin's Faculty Page at Eastman

Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis 

Marvin, Elizabeth West. Absolute Pitch Perception and the Pedagogy of Relative Pitch

Ross, Gore and Marks. Absolute pitch: music and beyond

Van Hedger, Heald and Nusbaum. Absolute Pitch May Not Be So Absolute

Show Notes:

00:20 Introductions

00:50 Guest introduction: Dr. Elizabeth West Marvin

03:20 What is perfect pitch?

04:28 Is absolute pitch (AP) the same thing as perfect pitch?

05:20 How did you become interested in studying absolute pitch?

06:55 Working with students with absolute pitch in an aural skills classes

08:40 How do people acquire absolute pitch?

10:25 Do animals have absolute pitch?

11:10 Can you train young children to acquire perfect pitch? (Eguchi Chord Identification Method)

13:04 Vowel colors/overtones and absolute pitch

14:40 What's the relationship between absolute pitch and timbre? Are there people who have absolute pitch for only a particular instrument?

16:18 Can I acquire absolute pitch as an adult?

19:28 How common is it to have a musician who has absolute pitch who did not begin study at a young age?

22:27 To what degree is AP valuable as a musician?

24:53 What is relative pitch (RP)?

26:33 Is there a relationship between AP/RP and choosing a solfege system (relative vs phenomenological systems)?

29:56 Why does absolute pitch change with age?

31:00 Ross, Gore & Marks's research on two kinds of AP: Heightened Tonal Memory (HTM) vs Ability to Perceptually Encode (APE)

33:27 How do people with AP and RP hear differently from each other?

36:50 What can people with AP and RP learn from each other?

40:08 Latent AP/AP without musical training

41:45 AP as a continuum and not a binary

43:50 What research is being done now on AP?

46:55 Van Hedger, et. al., research on flexibility of AP

48:57 Can you talk a bit about the Musician's Guide series of textbooks that you've authored?

55:35 Thank you and wrap-up

 

Transcript

0:00:21.9 David Newman: Welcome to Notes from the Staff, a podcast from the creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.

 

0:00:35.1 Gregory Ristow: Hi, I'm Greg Ristow, founder of uTheory and Associate Professor of conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory.

 

0:00:41.5 DN: And I'm David Newman, and I teach voice and music theory at James Madison University, and I do programming and content creation for uTheory.

 

0:00:50.1 GR: Our topic for today is perfect pitch, and joining us to help demystify it, is special guest, Dr. Elizabeth West Marvin, professor of music theory at the Eastman School of Music. Dr. Marvin's research interests are broad and encompass especially the areas of Music Cognition and Music Theory Pedagogy. She's known to many of us as a leading author for the popular Musician's Guide series of theory a