I have no musical knowledge so bear with me.
How can people hear a note played or a word sung and this to themselves “oh that’s an A flat” or something along those lines. Or how can they identify that they are not singing the right note and know how to modify it to get to the correct one?
What about tuning instruments. How can someone do that by ear and just know that it’s in tune?
The mind boggles!
In: 10
We don’t know why, but we think it is because of practice from when we are very young.
But, for an ELI5, think of it like naming colours.
Colour is a spectrum, a range. From black to white. Just like music is a range from really low to really high.
But, not many people can tell the difference in colour shades. Not many people can look at a wall and say “classic cream” or “almond white”, which are both white colours.
So, using those two whites as my example to relate it back to musical pitch:
– Someone with no experience with notes, will just tell you if the note was high or low pitch. A complete guess for the note itself.
Just like someone who has no experience with paint will just tell you it’s white. Obviously not dark enough to be black or grey or purple. It is white. It could be beige or a light cinnamon, but they may still say white.
– Some people can have something called relative pitch. This is where they have a pitch they have trained themselves to know. Like an E or a D sharp (the first two notes in fur elise, or the first two notes in the toccata and fugue). So, they can identify notes from there pretty well.
Just like someone who can tell you if a shade of green is too dark or too bold or too faded or whatever. They have a reference point in their mind for what they want. They can visualise how dark an emerald green is, and how light a peridot green is, and how faded an olive green is. They can see a lime green colour and immediately tell you it isn’t teal by relation to the other colours they already know.
– Some people have perfect pitch. This is different to relevant pitch as they can tell you the exact frequency of the note. If it is microtonally flat or sharp. If the note is E but not a perfect E, they will hear the note and know if it is slightly off pitch or really close to half way between E and F. It is unknown how people have perfect pitch. We don’t know if you’re just born with it or if you have the ability to do it and you need to practice when you’re young, or if you are born with the ability and you can train it up in your mid thirties.
This is like when someone can tell you if the pain you got is almond white, without comparing it to a chart or any other white or colour. Just see a solat of it on a palette and immediately say that it was almond white. Soecifically that shade, without comparison.
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