Absolute pitch is also called fixed pitch and absolute sense of sound. This is a feeling that some people have this feeling about the actual pitch of any sound they hear without any pitch hints.

Relative pitch is the feeling that ordinary people use a certain sound they hear first as the standard, and then distinguish sounds by the relationship between intervals or scales.

The discrimination rate of people with absolute sense of sound is above 70%, and that of people without absolute sense of sound is below 40%. Research shows that one in ten thousand people has an absolute sense of sound! There is nothing absolute in the world, only relativity. Einstein's theory of relativity mentioned this. So it is relative to say that some people have the so-called "absolute sense of sound". For example, the piano is deliberately tuned to a wider high and low range, but it is within the range of relative harmony and non-pitch. Some piano master claimed that he could recognize Hertz accurately, which is a very subjective statement. The standard sound has a specified value and cannot be imposed on it by people's subjective consciousness. Whether the absolute sense of sound is innate talent or acquired training is still a mystery, because there are examples to refute any statement! But the role of genetic factors has not been ruled out.

Spatial theory

One of my thoughts: Why do some people need a sound as a contrast when listening to the sound, while a few people can hear the pitch without any help? There is a reason for the quantitative change to qualitative change. Take the piano as an example. The piano is a musical instrument with twelve equal rhythms. It accurately cuts the sound area, and the height of each sound has a hertz number. However, it should be noted that the accuracy of these sounds is different for different pianos. For example, the "La" of each piano may be close to the international standard sound on high-quality pianos. Sometimes there may be a big deviation on a poor piano! Therefore, the height of the "pull" in each piano is different. In this way, we can think that all "La" are around and near the international standard sound, forming a "La" area, and the boundary of this area should be roughly from the left quarter to the right quarter of the international standard sound (equivalent to a semitone range, excluding pianos with poor pitch). Of course, this is not a clear standard.

I want to describe that the above means preparing for the following. We usually say that people who have an "absolute sense of sound" are very sensitive to every range of this range, because they often play their familiar instruments since childhood. This sensitivity has a process from quantitative change to qualitative change. When the sensitivity of this person's ear reaches the range of the left quarter to the right quarter of a certain standard pitch just mentioned, this person is considered to have an "absolute sense of sound". When listening to the sound, he will unconsciously put the sound in his heart to judge which area it belongs to, and naturally say the pitch of the sound without any external reference. This reference depends on the inner system. If the sensitivity does not reach the upper half degree, it will form a crisscross of various regions, and this person will not be able to determine the area in his heart where he hears the sound. Will not form an "absolute voice", so naturally a standard voice will be given as the object. The more interlaced the internal sound areas, the more.

This can also explain this situation:

1) People who have an "absolute sense of sound" can quickly identify the notes on the instrument, but they need to sing the pitch directly without giving the standard sound, which is not necessarily the same as the piano, but it must be close, because there is an area in the brain that is aimed at this sound!

2) When playing an inaccurate note on the piano, that is, the note that is not allowed in the blank area in the above picture, he can immediately recognize that the note is inaccurate and distinguish which note it is between.

Genetic theory

According to genetic theory, everyone is born with an absolute sense of sound, but in the music environment with relative pitch, with the growth of age, people naturally choose the most commonly used ability, and the absolute sense of sound gradually disappears. In other words, absolute sense of sound is a kind of physical existence ability. In human language and ordinary music activities, the relative sense of sound is more important, so the relative sense of sound developed from absolute sense of sound emerges outside. After language acquisition, the general people's absolute sense of sound disappears, while those who have been trained in music can associate the absolute pitch with the fixed roll call, and the absolute sense of sound is now exposed.

In this way, I have the idea that absolute sense of sound belongs to language ability and relative sense of sound belongs to spatial ability. Pushing down is that the absolute sense of sound belongs to the left brain management, and the relative sense of sound belongs to the right brain management! Neurology and anatomy believe that the human brain has time resolution and frequency resolution. The temporal resolution of the left brain is good at processing speech, because speech changes quickly and needs better temporal resolution when analyzing; The right brain is good at processing music, because analyzing music requires better frequency resolution. So obviously, the first one needs to be conveyed quickly, and the speed of distinguishing absolute sound sense is obviously higher than that of fixed sound sense, which is the reason! So the absolute sense of sound makes people smart and sensitive, and the relative sense of sound makes people rational! Players need absolute sense of sound, and composers need relative sense of sound!

Listening to music with a relative sense of sound means storing sounds in your brain and comparing them with each other. Listening to music with absolute sense of sound is like putting the letter ABC on each phonetic symbol. The area of the brain that temporarily stores and processes music is somewhere in the frontal lobe of the right brain, and the area that pastes letters is in the left brain!

1992- scientists found that when listening to music, people with absolute sense of sound have less nerve activity in this respect than ordinary people, and ordinary people only have relative sense of sound.

1998—— Scientists have reconfirmed this phenomenon and found that people with absolute sense of sound have more nerve activity in the area of the left frontal lobe responsible for pasting letters when listening to music.

2001-This is the most interesting finding: the right brain of people with absolute sense of sound is smaller than that of ordinary people. Perhaps the way of "putting letters on sounds" is used more than ordinary people, and the area of the right brain "temporarily storing and processing music" is used less, which will shrink!

I have done a long-term investigation and found the following two interesting information:

1) It is found that people who become piano master have an absolute sense of sound, except for a few who cannot be inspected! The most famous ears are Mozart, Gould, Holovitz, Agritz and so on!

2) Asians, especially Japanese and Koreans, have a very high proportion of absolute sense of sound! I guess it has something to do with heredity and the tone of mother tongue. A professor of Chinese Department once put forward the tone theory. For example, the four tones in China Chinese are fixed tones. Pay attention to them yourself. Of course, it is a unified dialect!

There are several kinds of absolute sense of sound:

1) Simple type: Children who have no concept of tone have an absolute feeling for sound. If the pitch of the instrument is not up to standard, it will be very uncomfortable. They simply can't accept interval hearings!

2)*** Conformal: A few people can wander between the absolute sense of sound and the fixed sense of sound, and only need to change their brains slightly when switching between the two senses. For example, I know that some schools in Taiwan Province Province are very good at cultivating absolute sense of sound, and they also attach great importance to it. Later, some of these students with absolute sense of sound went to Germany to study, and Germany paid more attention to the special training of relative sense of sound, so these people became * * * conformal!

3) Shape selection: Some people are only sensitive to their own musical instruments, while others can. Some people only remember some sounds of their instruments, while others are not very clever. So is the relative sense of sound!

abstract

The strangest thing is that adults cannot form an absolute sense of sound. Many people have done research in this field and tried to break through this point, but none of them succeeded! I think it is easy for children to cultivate the absolute sense of voice because there is a selection period when children do not form the concept of tone in their brains. At this time, what kind of sound sense is injected into the brain is of course formed with the development of the brain, and this selection period is closely related to the child's language development stage, that is to say, training a fixed sound sense is the most effective when the child learns to speak! Some people say that prenatal education has a great influence on intonation, but there is no strong evidence! At present, scholars in many fields are studying absolute sense of sound, because it is not only helpful to music, but also the key to developing human memory and opening the door to genetics!

But at least we can draw the following points from history:

1) Absolute sound perception is not absolute.

2) Absolute sense of sound can be improved by training in childhood, but it does not rule out that it is related to heredity.

3) There are differences in absolute sound perception.

4) If you want to be a performer and play to the profound realm of music, an absolute sense of sound is essential, and an absolute sense of sound of * * * is the best condition!