Absolute pitch and approximation

Absolute pitch (sometimes called perfect pitch) is the ability of individuals to name pitches they hear, or to produce a tone in response to a given pitch name.

I recall years ago experimenting with a friend of mine, a composer/conductor/pianist who had a remarkably developed sense of absolute pitch. I sat at the piano, and plunked 6 or 8 keys. Almost without fail he named every last one of them, and was pretty good at noting their octaves as well. Another friend, a répétiteur (essentially a pianist or keyboardist who assists singers in learning their roles, and accompanies them in performances) was rather distraught because the orchestra tuning was "nearly a quarter-tone sharp".

Plantinga & Trainor ("Memory for melody: infants use a relative pitch code," Cognition 98 (2005): 1-11) write:

Historically, absolute pitch processing was of interest because some considered it to be a coveted musical ability. In fact, focusing on absolute pitch information may be a hindrance... Interestingly, monkeys and birds, which have not developed music and langauge, rely to a greater extent on absolute pitch than on relative pitch encoding... From this perspective, the ability to encode relative pitch ... is a more sophisticated ability than remembering absolute pitch.

How can that be, you might ask. Think of it this way, relative pitch is the ability to approximate, to see similarity across variation, to identify patterns despite differences. Absolute pitch can be seen in this regard as a distinct inability to approximate, or perhaps more precisely, an inability to shift focus in the process of attending to sound. This ability to shift focus, to find salience in different aspects of the same signal is essential to our abilities in the world.

An infant listening to fluent speech has a myriad of factors to abstract. Think of a common scenario of verbal correction. The other day, the following was to be heard in my house:

Wife (to #2): show daddy what you found.
Me (to #2): What did you found?
#1 (3;9): No, daddy. Not "what did you found"... what did you FIND!

Corrections like this occur all the time. A transcription fails to represent all the essentials however. What is the difference between written language and speech? The most prominent features that are lost are pitch and timing. An infant learning speech acquires not only words and their syntax, but the prosodic content as well. In corrections, what must often be foregrounded are these prosodic cues, in order to comprehend the intended message.

Ideally, we will have access to pitch in both absolute and relative terms. It has been documented (as Plantinga & Trainor note as well) that under certain circumstances just about all of us retain absolute pitch processing. If we hear a familiar song always performed at the same pitch level, we are likely to store that song in absolute terms. If we are asked to sing it, with no other cues, we are likely to begin on the right pitch. Often musicians lacking absolute pitch are known to have a similar ability only for their given instrument. (Sometimes, this skill is confusingly termed relative pitch). A guitarist or violinist may be quite able to tune their own instrument without assistance, but not be able to identify the same pitch when played on another instrument.

Cognitive flexibility is one of our finest skills, and one which we should cultivate in our children. When you correct your child's speech, pay attention to the various aspects of the signal that you are producing. Do you slow down or speed up at certain points? Where does the pitch change? Are you creating an accent on a given word? How do you mark this accent, by raised or lowered pitch, by increased amplitude, by tempo change, by breathiness or nasality?

The child must learn not only to understand the words in an utterance and their order, but also these prosodic cues. Hearing the same words, in the same order, but with altered intonational and timing contours will help the child learn to focus on these different aspects of the sound, aiding their ability to shift focus between them. Being aware of your signalling behaviors makes you more able to cater the signal for its intended effect.

With prelinguistic children, you can invent games that foreground these aspects. Say a phrase or sentence with a normal or unmarked intonation. Then alter it, emphasizing different words, or making a statement into a question, or a question into a request. You can also speak more quickly or slowly, with an even flow of time or a disjunct one. Playing with different accents can be fun as well. But bear in mind that you may be altering both the phonetic content as well as the intonational. So playing with accents might be best used after the child is familiar with the game.

Try to make eye contact, and if you can, get the child to watch your mouth as you speak. Bear in mind that your facial gestures are major cues as well. Raising or lowering your eyebrows, or closing your eyes, while silent, can serve as important cues to meaning.