Learning fast and accurate absolute pitch judgment in adulthood
7 comments
·February 13, 2025dr_dshiv
I wonder if they combined this with Valproic acid, which supposedly can help adults learn perfect pitch https://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-...
d1sxeyes
Interesting. Word of caution though, valproic acid is teratogenic, and should not be taken by anyone who may become pregnant. The linked article suggests it could be a “wonder drug” to enable learning, but there are also downsides to taking it.
pazimzadeh
Yeah, until they figure out how to target it to your ears/brain/whatever I would not take something that wipes your body’s epigenetic slate
zx2c4
> By the end of the training, they learned to name an average of 7.08 pitches (ranging from 3 to 12) at an accuracy of 90% or above and within a response-time (RT) window of 1,305–2,028 ms.
That doesn't actually seem very promising, or at least useful at all. It still seems way less useful than my accurate and near instantaneous relative-pitch. What could I do as a musician with 2 seconds of latency to be wrong some amount of the time.
pazimzadeh
Pretty sure you don’t lose your relative pitch, and the better you are at relative pitch the better results you’ll have anyway
neuralkoi
I don't understand (I am not a musician). This was an 8-week training program (21.4h). How long have you spent perfecting your relative pitch?
Is this type of training more beneficial to do first rather than recognizing intervals?