Lend Me Your Ears: The Unsung Importance of Tonal Memory
One summer evening in 2018 I was tuning my guitar for a music show. On a stool beside me sat a teenage musician, tuning her fiddle. She was a member of our four-piece traditional folk music ensemble. I was using a digital tuner that clips on to an instrument; when I was finished I asked the fiddler if she would like to borrow the tuner. Casually, she brushed off my request, explaining that she tunes by ear. I soon discovered that my fiddling companion had perfect pitch; formally known as absolute pitch (AP). I was thrilled; I had never met someone with such a skill. I asked her to turn her back to me, and played a D note on my guitar. I asked her what the name of the note was. She instantly responded with the correct note, and was able to repeat the task over and over again to my giddy amusement. I then gave her the names of random notes such as A or C# and listened as she hummed the correct pitches back to me. It was magic; this was the night that I recognized the importance of tonal memory. We should all familiarize ourselves with the concept of tonal memory in order to understand the vast differences in how people perceive sound and music, from individuals with relative pitch (RP) to those with AP and even rare faculties like synesthesia. By studying tonal memory, we gain a clearer insight into the absorption of sound within our memories, and realize what elements of sound become dislodged from our memories or go unperceived by our brains.
After experiencing my friend’s unusual faculty, I was bewildered. It was a paranormal talent; as if she was seeing through walls. You see, like almost every musician, I have relative pitch (RP), meaning I can identify a pitch only after comparing it to a reference note. To demonstrate this, imagine a musician with RP is tasked with identifying a specific unknown pitch (D for example) after being told only the note name. This individual must first be told the name of a reference pitch (C for example), and then (by simply counting up one note on the scale) they can deduce that the unknown pitch is a D. RP is the most common way of processing pitch. It works by Aristotle’s concept of recollection: “Acts of recollection, as they occur in experience, are due to the fact that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it in regular order” (Aristotle). The reference note resembles Aristotle’s notion of the “present institution” which allows us to “hunt up the series (of kineseis)” or search up and down the scale when we are recollecting a musical note (Aristotle). A very small subset of the population has amusia, commonly referred to as tone deafness. Such people cannot comprehend any difference between similar pitches. This results in off-key singing and out-of-tune playing. Some people with amusia are incapable of recognizing the melodies to familiar songs such as “Happy Birthday” (Karanam). Melodies are simply not processed into the memory.
AP can seem otherworldly, but there are no tricks at play. It is simply the ability to identify a note without the assistance of a reference note: a specialized proficiency in memory. Estimates of AP frequency across the world range from 1 in 1500 people to 1 in 10 000. (241, Schellenberg). These memory processing distinctions (AP, RP and amusia) have spawned within me a crisis of memory. Allow me to explain. Imagine an individual with RP accompanying an individual with AP on a forest stroll. They stop to rest at a river, when an eagle suddenly takes off from the top of a distant pine tree and produces a sharp cry. The man with AP internally associates the pitch of the eagle cry to its’ corresponding musical note name. Upon reflecting on this memory, the individual with RP will only remember the phenomenon of an eagle cry, but the individual with AP will be able to recall the specific pitch of the cry (an A# for example). Therefore, I (as a man with RP) cannot remember auditory occurrences as accurately as someone with AP.
Many famous musicians have been endowed with AP. It is very likely that Beethoven had AP, seeing as the famous composer was deaf by the age of forty-six and continued to compose music. Mozart was also known to have AP from a young age; an astonished observer wrote a letter in 1763 stating that “on hearing a bell toll, or a clock or even a pocket watch strike, he was able at the same moment to name the note of the bell or time piece” (O.E. Deutsch et al., 21). Mozart was six years old. The author of the letter appears to be impressed by the speed at which Mozart could recall the name of a pitch; yet for Mozart this would not seem notable. Mozart’s musical training combined with his endowment of AP made recalling a pitch an automatic procedure. Those with both musical education and AP can recognize “the pitch of a note no less immediately and directly than they recognize the color of a ribbon or the taste of an apple” (Schirrmann, 33). For an AP musician, every sound is perceived with a note value; when hearing a car horn they will immediately process the note value of the horn. It is as if individuals with AP get to know a hidden side of every sound they hear; one that the rest of us are deaf to.
Tonal memory generally describes the ability to recall a specific pitch. Those with RP and AP have the ability to remember tones, but individual capacities vary widely. Most people will be able to recall a specific note immediately after hearing it; yet with time, the ability to remember that note will fade. Some people are quick to forget; others will remember a tone indefinitely. A study done with children over a few days showed that the repeated learning of tones and their corresponding note names resulted in increased tonal memory (Schirrman, 33). The children would hear a note and be asked to reproduce the note thirty minutes later. With practice, their accuracy increased. There is debate as to whether children obtain AP through learning alone, or a combination of musical education and biology. It seems most probable that “AP is the consequence of interactions between genetic and experiential factors that influence the ability to form arbitrary associations, such as those between note names and musical pitches” (Schellenberg and Trehub, 249). To clearly recognize an ability for perfect pitch, one must have musical knowledge; at bare minimum knowing the basic musical scale. Therefore, it is likely that many individuals with AP never realize their ability. It also appears that children are the only ones who can develop perfect pitch. Of musicians who received music lessons before the age of four, 40% reported having AP, whereas only 3% reported learning AP at or after age 9 (D. Deutsch 201). There exist no cases of adults developing AP. Adults can only improve their tonal memory through the repetition of tones, which always wears off with time. For example, I have tried humming the tune to songs that I love in the key that I believe they are recorded in. I then play the actual song recordings to test my accuracy. My precision wanes drastically with songs that I haven’t heard in a while. How strange it is to think that I struggle to recognize the proper key of the songs I love. I feel a small pang of guilt, as if I’ve been listening improperly all this time. I have heard the pitches, but only the melody remains in my memory. What is so different between a specific pitch and a colour? I can instantly envision the colour of something I’ve seen, but specific tones I’ve heard become spectres, always ending up beyond the clutches of my memory. I wonder what else, apart from tones, I have rejected from my memory? Conversations come to mind. Of every fascinating exchange I’ve had I might remember a few snippets or a general take-away, but most of the words have been lost to time.
Luckily, it is much easier to remember the timbre of a voice. Timbre is what differentiates non-identical sounds when heard at the same pitch and volume. An example would be the difference between a fiddle and a piano when playing the same note. Interestingly, it is often described as the “colour” of a sound. Even the German word for timbre, “klangfarbe,” means “colour of sound.” I will discuss the confusing and complex marriage of colour and sound later in the essay. The timbre of a pitch sticks in the memory much clearer than the pitch value itself. For example, I can recall the sound of my grandfather’s speaking voice: warm and breathy with an Irish tenor’s lilt. Yet it would be bizarre to try and recall specific pitches that he commonly adopted (such as saying a certain phrase in a C pitch). Timbre is tied to our perception of others; perhaps that is why it sticks in the memory. I remember discovering an audio recording of an interview with my late grandfather one evening while I was searching the web. I realized that I had seen plenty of photos of him since his death, but I had not heard his voice for almost five years. The timbre of his voice elicited nostalgia and a rush of memories. Another interesting example of the importance of timbre is “baby-talk,” the altered way in which parents talk to their babies. Those who assume that “baby-talk” is simply speaking in a higher pitch would be surprised to hear that a study across ten languages has shown that mothers unknowingly change the timbre of their voice (Gajewski). The frequency of “baby-talk” across cultures suggests that it may serve some natural purpose. Research has shown that “changes in voice can help babies with learning language, engaging their emotions and highlighting the structure in language, so they can figure out syllables and sentences” (Gajewski). Therefore, timbre is a useful tool for memory development.
When it comes to tonal memory, the world is not an equal place. It turns out that language can play a huge factor in auditory memory skills. Tone languages, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese use tones to change the meaning of words. A vocal sound produced at a high tone can have a different meaning than the same sound spoken in a low tone. Some words are also produced with a rising or falling pitch shift. This means that young children from tone-language countries are exposed to tonal differences as they learn their language. Although the tones used to produce language do not have to be specific, speakers “tend to produce the tones of their language at nearly identical pitch levels when they read lists of words on different occasions” (Schellenberg and Trehub, 242). This is motor memory at work. There is evidence to suggest that those who speak tone languages have better tonal memory than those who speak non-tone languages. A study showed that Japanese children outperformed “Canadian children on memory for the original pitch level of theme songs from children’s television programs” (Schellenberg and Trehub, 243). There are a variety of external factors that can influence tonal memory and help cultivate AP.
But what about biological conditions? Many individuals believe that AP is something that everyone is born with. If this is true, adults with AP have not gained a skill; conversely everyone else has lost it. There is no evidence for this theory; yet there is evidence to show that everybody is born with a form of synesthesia: the perception of sense stimulation through actual stimulation of a different sense. fMRI scans of infant brains have shown that the “visual cortex is activated when auditory stimulation is given” (Takahashi et al., 2). The second most common type of synesthesia is coloured-hearing (seeing colours when one hears sound) (Takahashi et al., 2). Yet there are many other perceptions that can be induced from exposure to sound, including “tasting” a sound, as well as other bodily sensations.
A.R. Luria’s The Mind of a Mnemonist is an in-depth study of a man that Luria calls “S.” who has synesthesia amongst various memory abnormalities. S. saw colours and other phenomenon when he listened to tones. He would also experience “somewhat more complicated” phenomena when he “heard voices and speech.” (Luria, 22). The book is full of examples of S.’s unusual experiences, such as tasting “sweet and sour borscht” after hearing a sound, and even feeling a needle being “thrust into his spine” (Luria, 23). Luria tested S. and found that the links between specific sounds and experiences were consistent each time S. was exposed to the same sound, even over long durations. S. experienced music in a unique way, claiming to taste the songs on his tongue (Luria, 134). Conversely, S. believed that music in restaurants changed “the taste of everything” on his plate (Luria, 81). Earlier I discussed timbre as the “colour” of a sound. For S., this was a literally accurate definition. The way in which someone talked affected his perception in a multi-sensory way. S. describes the experience of buying ice-cream from a street vendor. Asking what kind of ice-cream she was selling, the seller responded that it was fruit-flavoured, “but she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn't bring myself to buy any ice cream after she'd answered that way” (Luria, 82). S.’s testimony seems to suggest that the vendor spoke in a rude manner which his brain interpreted as “black cinders”. It is interesting to think that S. may have associated sounds to moods to colours; one only has to look at mood rings to recognize the many fictional colour-sound associations that exist within culture. S.’s potential ability to associate sound to mood to colour reflects Aristotle’s notion of mnemonic locis, which “pass swiftly in thought from one point to another” (Aristotle). The sound causes a mood which causes the perception of a colour.
When I first read of S.’s baffling case of synesthesia, I reacted much in the same way as when I discovered that my fiddle-playing friend has AP. S. became superhuman to my non-synesthetic mind. And yet, upon finishing the novel I felt sympathetic toward his disposition. S. was constantly hyperaware of everything he experienced, and therefore had lost the “dividing line between imagination and reality” (Luria, 144). S. had unique struggles, such as constant lateness due to the time on clocks freezing in place. Individuals with AP can also run into similar problems. Music note names are deictic, as standard pitch (440hz) has changed over the years. In Bach’s day, there was no such thing as standard pitch. It varied from village to village. Therefore, something written in A minor in the 1700’s undoubtedly sounds completely different (pitch-wise) from our current A minor in standard concert pitch (440hz). So what problems can musicians with AP run into with regards to pitch? It varies, but here is an example of a potential problem. A trumpet player with AP who plays a C trumpet is tasked to play a B-flat trumpet. Trumpets come in two different tunings. The fingerings are the same for both kinds of trumpet, but the pitches that the fingerings will produce differ in tuning. So if a C trumpet player with AP plays an open note on a B-flat trumpet, they will attempt to play a C pitch (as they have memorized) but will hear a B-flat note. While the rest of the orchestra does not notice the tuning difference, the poor trumpet player has to transpose the entire piece in their head in real-time.
There is no consistency across cases of synesthesia; rather each individual’s experience is a deeply personal one. The famous Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was said to have synesthesia. Scriabin’s synesthesia seemed to only cause the sound-colour phenomenon. He saw “the tonality of F-sharp to be a bright saturated blue” while another Russian composer rumoured to have synesthesia, Rimsky-Korsakov, saw F-sharp “as an indefinite grey-green colour” (Peacock, 493). It is hard to say whether or not these men actually had synesthesia, or whether they were simply attempting to artistically correlate a mood with a pitch. Artists employing specific colours to try and evoke emotion is as old as art itself. During an orchestra practice, the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt apparently told the musicians to play a note “a little bluer if you please. This key demands it” (Révész and De Courcy, 124).
Although colour-sound synesthesia is a reality for a minority of people, many musicians have adopted the concept to assist in their artistic expression and elucidation of moods and ideas. By Liszt asking the band to play “bluer,” he may have been asking them to play softer and more melodic, to avoid coming across in a brash manner. The same strategy can be observed in the director-actor relationship, where a director often asks for a performance in a round-about way. For example, a director looking for an actor to make a performance of crying seem more intense might say “Imagine losing a loved one unexpectedly, and realizing that your last interaction with them was an argument” rather than “Give me more tears!” The director is helping the actor to realize the gravity of a dire circumstance by inviting them to relate to the character’s experience in the hopes of a more authentic performance. Perhaps this was Liszt’s intention with his use of the term “bluer.”
It is easy to become oblivious to a concept like tonal memory. We become so familiar with the way in which we interpret and remember sound that many of us rarely entertain the idea that many around us experience sound uniquely. Conditions like synesthesia demonstrate exactly how radical people’s listening experience can be, changing the entire concept of listening from an auditory experience to a multi-sensory experience. When I first saw AP in action, it was like a superpower to me. Upon acquiring knowledge of the vast diversity in human tonal memory, I realize that AP is simply one of many faculties that alter tonal memory.
Work Cited
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