An Insight into Pitch ID

Have you ever heard someone mention that they have "perfect pitch?" For those who are unfamiliar, a person with perfect pitch can be given the name of a certain note and then immediately sing that note. In chapter 5 of Sweet Anticipation Huron gives an in depth look at some of the nuances of this rare ability.


The Hick-Hyman Law of Learning states that a relationship exists between the frequency of a certain stimulus and the amount of time it takes you to process the stimulus.

Here's an example I came up with to explain this law. Think about when you get dressed in the morning. You open up your closet to reveal your many outfit possibilities for the day. Some clothing has been in your closet for years while other articles were purchased recently. The clothing that has been there for years you've seen every single day when you've opened your closet over the past years. You usually just gaze over this clothing without thinking about it. However, your eyes will probably be drawn to what you recently purchased. You are not used to seeing it in your closet because you haven't seen it as often. You will likely spend more time focusing the new outfit deciding if you want to wear it on the given day. The more new information, the slower the mental reaction time.

Experiment 1: Back to music.  A Japanese researcher named Ken'ichi Miyazaki found, in general, that those with perfect pitch could identify "white notes" more quickly than they could identify "black notes." (For the non-musical folk, these are two different types of notes on the piano- the white notes appearing more frequently).

Experiment 2: In a later experiment, researchers David Huron and Jasba Simpson found that, after listening to a large sample of music, the count of "white notes" appearing in music is greater than that of "black notes."

So now answer the question:
Why do people with perfect pitch identify "white note" tones more easily??
The answer to that question rests in the Hick-Hyman Law. Because music tends to use more white notes, white notes are more frequent so it takes the brain less time to process them than it does to process black notes.

I play violin the school orchestra. Before each rehearsal we start by tuning to the note "A." So we are always given the pitch of "A" before rehearsal so that we can tune. It is no wonder, then, that "A" is the easiest note for me to produce and recognize quickly! It appears frequently in my life. 

QUIZ!! If you were asked to hum a pitch (any random pitch) on the spot, you would probably think you were just humming "some random note." What factors went into the pitch that you thought you "randomly" hummed?? 


Answer: It would likely be the average note pitch of all the music on your iPod or portable media player!