Mechanisms of absolute pitch: I. Acoustical beating

Abstract

Musicologists and philosophers have commonly attributed distinctive qualities to individual musical pitches, and absolute pitch (AP) possessors recognize and recall notes and keys with immediacy and accuracy, leaving little doubt that they are aware of such characteristics. Bachem proposed that these distinct tonal qualities underlie the rapid and accurate judgments that he identified as genuine AP, and he defined the qualities as tone chroma (TC). The TCs of notes and keys, and of notes separated by a musical octave ( pitch class) are frequently expressed in visual terms, and studies of synaesthesia, the association of intersensory stimuli, provide clues to the systematic variation of TC qualities. The historical literature relating to note and key characteristics is commonly overlooked in the study of AP, however, and the article seeks to address this problem. Long-standing conclusions are reviewed, leading to the hypothesis that TC sensitivity can derive from an awareness of variations in the acoustical beats that occur in the tuning of instruments to equal temperament and which are perceived with particular clarity in organ tuning. This acoustical hypothesis is supported by modern neuroscientific findings and was predicted by theoretical observations in the literature as long ago as three centuries. In a follow-up article, Thurlow and Baggaley discuss the role of synaesthesia-type judgments in musical skills not previously regarded as absolute: for example, a perfect touch capacity observed in keyboard players.

Mechanisms of absolute pitch: II. Pitch shift and perfect touch

“…In a pitch identification task, one of the oboists gave more accurate responses than the other, and described herself as “using kinesthetic imagery of the note that she thought she heard, replaying the note while imagining the fingering to see if it felt like the best fit to the sound” (post-experimental outcomes section). Reymore and Hansen conclude that this oboist has a previously unacknowledged ability that they describe as instrument-specific AP (ISAP)—a notion that recalls the hypothesis proposed in Part I of this article (Baggaley & Thurlow, 2022) regarding the nature of AP and TC in individuals who have/have not experienced music played on equal temperament instruments. The idea that pitch identification skills may fulfill the requirements of speed and accuracy of genuine AP on one or more musical instruments though not on others is not found to be universal in the Reymore and Hansen study, for only one of their two oboists provided data supporting the ISAP conclusion.…”

“…It is also debatable whether we can accurately describe any kind of pitch judgment as absolute if it can be shown to be enabled by reference to a cortical template of pitch qualities as accepted by researchers from Bachem (1937) to Levitin (2019). It is not proposed, however, that representations of TC underlying AP perception derive exclusively from acoustical variations of the type discussed in Part I of this article (Baggaley & Thurlow, 2022). The next section illustrates how musical pitch identification skill can attain levels of immediacy and accuracy comparable with genuine AP by means of sensitivity to kinaesthetic and tactile types of TC.…”

“…Absolute pitch (AP), the ability to make speedy and accurate identifications of musical notes and keys, has been a contentious topic since its introduction into the academic literature by Stumpf (1883). As indicated in Part I of this article (Baggaley & Thurlow, 2022), a growing consensus of opinion indicates that AP judgments are made possible by comparing incoming pitch stimuli with a cortical template of pitch qualities: “representations of pitch that are more stable and accurate than previously recognised” (Levitin, 2019, p. 372). Deutsch et al (1986) noted that non-AP possessors’ pitch identifications can display high levels of accuracy, which suggest that AP “may frequently be present in partial form” (p. 1351).…”

“…Even among scholars who do not deny that AP and synaesthesia are genuine phenomena, however, there is a tendency to dismiss them as irrelevant to the musical experience (Roederer, 2008) and, as demonstrated in Part I of this article, to overlook historical conclusions in the literature that do not support this view. Indeed, in many cases, the modern literature fails to acknowledge historical conclusions in general (Baggaley, 2016; Baggaley & Thurlow, 2022). In the musical perception literature, Révész (1954) argued that “(a)bsolute pitch has just as little to do with the aesthetic experience of music as has colour memory with the aesthetic evaluation of painting” (p. 106).…”

“…The systematic correspondence between these trends suggests that second-order acoustical beats are a basis for the tone chroma (TC) sensations proposed by Bachem (1937Bachem ( , 1948Bachem ( , 1950Bachem ( , 1955 as the basis for genuine AP, as opposed to the quasi AP that depends on the use of relative pitch, and also for types of synaesthesia (the association of intersensory qualities) involving tone-color associations. Part I of this article (Baggaley & Thurlow, 2022) has given a detailed description of this tuning process and of the tuner's perception of the beats, and concludes that the distinctive tonality characteristics generated by the traditional tuning process may be recognized by AP and non-AP claimants alike.…”