What actually is perfect pitch ...

... – and how do I get it?

Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM

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‘Q: How do you tell if someone has perfect pitch? A: They’ll tell you.’

If you have perfect pitch – or ‘absolute’ pitch – you can sing or play any note on the spot, with no former guiding note.

Only about one in 10,000 people have it, so if you do have the knack – go you.

via GIPHY

OK, so how do I get perfect pitch?

Some people believe you can only have ‘true’ perfect pitch by being born with it. According to Brady (1970), Ward and Burns (1999) and Levitin and Rogers (2005), “training that begins after the age of nine very rarely leads to [perfect pitch], and there are no known cases of an adult successfully acquiring it.”

But there is also evidence that you can develop perfect pitch without having a mystical, innate ability. A study carried out a few years ago at the University of Chicago tested a group of students with varied amounts of musical experience, before and after a period of pitch recognition training.

The students showed significant improvement after the training, and those tested a few months later had retained the ability to recreate the notes, without any reference.

So, with the correct training, it is perfectly possible for adults to learn to have perfect pitch. If you fancy giving it a try, a good place to start would be A LOT OF PRACTICE.

> Do you have perfect pitch? Take our test!

Oboe player. Picture: Getty

And what about relative pitch?

Relative pitch is a bit different, in that it allows you to identify a note by comparing it to a reference tone. It is a lot more common among musicians, and can be as simple as asking a musician to play an ‘E’, while giving them an ‘F’ as a reference.

It can also mean you are able to recreate certain notes in the scale, simply by being frequently exposed to them. For instance, if you’ve played in an orchestra and have the sound of that concert ‘A’ ringing in your ears, you might be able to recreate that note and use it to find your way around the whole 12-tone scale.

Picture: Getty

Which musicians and singers have perfect pitch?

Some of the greatest classical composers, including Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Handel all had perfect pitch; and it’s not so rare in the pop world either.

Mariah Carey has it, as did Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby. Charlie Puth, for all his current popularity, was supposedly bullied at school for having perfect pitch. He told The Independent: “I found out that I had something 0.5 per cent of the population has, a type of perfect pitch, where I can hear notes and play them back right away.

“It was mostly verbal, like name-calling and such, the verbal stuff was massive amounts of discouragement like, ‘how could you remotely think you could make it in this industry?’, but I didn’t listen, because I knew I was pretty dope.”

Charlie Puth. Picture: Getty

But despite the general feeling of awe that surrounds perfect pitch, it isn’t all that helpful to see it as a measure of musical ability (no offence, of course, to Charlie Puth).

It does make a pretty impressive party trick, though:

What advice do you have for a young composer?

We've worked out John Williams' secret ...

... to starting a great melody, and it's unbelievably simple

Is this John Williams' secret ingredient? . Picture: Getty Images

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Do you want to know the secret to writing a world-class melody? If John Williams’ music is anything to go by, it comes down to one really simple thing…

Would you believe us if we said that John Williams used the same compositional trick in his melodies for Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Superman and Indiana Jones?

We're here to tell you he does and it all stems from one central idea: the tonic – dominant interval. That's the leap from the first note of the scale to the fifth. Call it a I-Vor perfect fifth interval if you prefer.

Tonic (I) and Dominant (V). Picture: 8notes

Using the I-V relationship is nothing new when it comes to writing music, it’s one of the fundamental melodic relationships in Western harmony. However, John Williams uses this interval as the backbone of many of his iconic melodies.

He doesn't just use the I-V interval as a part of the melody, he uses it as a tool to catapult us right into the juicy bit of the tune. Picture the harmonic interval as a slingshot, if you will.

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So, with this sophisticated analogy in place, let's take a look at the music to see how the magic happens.

Star Wars

Picture: John Williams / Classic FM

The Star Wars theme is probably the most famous music to ever be used in a film, so John Williams was clearly doing something right here. Even the introduction of brass fanfare triplets is iconic, but the music really gets going when the melody hits.

The up-beat triplet motif is followed by two sturdy I-V minims (half notes, if you're American). Williams uses this as springboard into the rest of the phrase, and into the rest of the score, in fact.

Jurassic Park

Picture: John Williams / Classic FM

For all those Jurassic Park fans reading, you’ll know that this music comes at the point when we catch our first glimpse of the island. Not only is there a sudden key change at this point, but the epic theme is put straight in front of us, no frills, no introduction. So it's no surprise that John Williams uses a I-V jump to get the melody going.

There is something else is going on in the melody here, too. Williams uses two consecutive perfect fifth jumps: first from B flat to F and then from C-G. Instead of reading this as a I-V and II-VI, using a quick tonicisation, John Williams treats the ascending sequence as two I-V jumps.

Superman

Picture: John Williams / Classic FM

John Williams is a fan of a fanfare (see what we did there?), and his score to Superman is no exception. With triplets and blazing brass in abundance, we get the feel of the superhero from the very core of his score.

Does the music seem familiar? Look beyond the dotted rhythm and where the melody goes after the I-V jump, and the beginning of this phrase is almost identical to the Star Wars theme. Williams, however, takes the music in a completely different direction after his signature I-V interval.

E. T.

Picture: John Williams / Classic FM

The E. T. Flying Theme opens with a perfect fifth jump, but this is far more lyrical than any of the previous examples. So how does John Williams adapt the same melody to sound completely different here?

It's all in the instrumentation – the melody sits atop tremolo violins, fluttering flutes and sky high scalic runs that instantly set the scene of the famous flying scene.

And unlike many of his other scores, John Williams begins by giving the melody to the strings. Gone is the fanfare and heavy brass; this melody is lighter than air.

So there you have it – some of the world's most famous film score melodies are built around that heroic jump from tonic to dominant. What comes after, well, that's another story.

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Why are orchestras arranged the way they are?

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM

2K

How come the flutes are always hidden behind the violins? And why can’t the tubas sit right next to the conductor and soak up a bit of the orchestral limelight which is totally snapped up by the strings anyway?

When we think of the ‘traditional’ layout of an orchestra, we think of the violins directly to the left of the conductor and the violas in the centre, with the woodwind and then the percussion behind them. Then, the cellos and double basses are usually placed to the right of the conductor, with the brass section behind them.

Loud wind together at the back, quieter strings together at the front – seems logical, right? 

Well, until around 100 years ago, this format didn’t exist. In fact, the second violins used to be seated opposite the first violins, where the cellos normally are.

This seating plan helped support the ‘antiphonal’ – or conversational – effect in the strings, which 18th and 19th-century composers like Mozart, Elgar and Mahler often wrote into their music. Listen out for it in the finale to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 ‘Jupiter’:

But then in the early-mid 20th century, Leopold Stokowski came along and changed the game. Best known for conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stokowski thought the previous layout didn’t provide the best sound projection, so he radically experimented with different seating plans.

“On one occasion, he horrified Philadelphians by placing the winds and brass in front of the strings,” says Courtney Lewis, music director of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. “The board was outraged, arguing that the winds ‘weren’t busy enough to put on a good show.’

“But in the 1920s he made one change that stuck: he arranged the strings from high to low, left to right, arguing that placing all the violins together helped the musicians to hear one another better. The ‘Stokowski Shift’, as it became known, was adopted by orchestras all over America.”

With regard to volume, it makes sense to put all the violins together at the front. An orchestra has 20 violins and two tubas because tubas are a lot louder than violins – so with the same logic, violins should also be put at the front so they can be heard.

There’s also something to be said for the visual beauty of putting violins at the front. The sweeping motion of twenty violin bows moving together in unison is rather pretty – and you could argue it would be a shame to change that.

But after years of watching pretty unified violins, is it time conductors channelled their inner Stokowski, and changed up the seating plan again? Then, perhaps, the tubas could finally enjoy some time in the spotlight.

Just don’t forget to bring your earplugs…

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Five years ago ...

... Andrea Bocelli got married in a dream ceremony in Tuscany

Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

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On 21 March 2014, the legendary Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli married his long-term partner and manager, Veronica Berti, in an enviably stylish ceremony in Tuscany.

Five years ago, Bocelli and Berti (detective show, anyone?) got married in the port of Livorno, Italy, which also happens to be the most beautiful place in the world. Here are all the gorgeous photos.

1. Look. Just look at how stunning this is.

   

   Livorno, Italy. Picture: Getty

2. Andrea, arriving with the rest of his impeccably dressed family

   

   Andrea Bocelli arrives at the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. Picture: Getty

3. Veronica, waving to the crowds and looking impossibly chic

   

   Veronica Berti arrives at the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. Picture: Getty

4. Escaping the paps

   

   Veronica Berti at the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. Picture: Getty

5. Arriving at the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. How do we get married here, please?

   

   Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. Picture: Getty

6. Some guests, mingling in the lovely sanctuary

   

   Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti’s wedding. Picture: Getty

7. Only the prettiest corsages for the Bocellis.

   

   Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti’s wedding. Picture: Getty

8. The big moment

   

   Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti. Picture: Getty

9. They’re married!

   

   Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti. Picture: Getty

10. Time to get sprayed with champers

    

    Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti. Picture: Getty

11. Awww.

    

    Andrea Bocelli and Veronica Berti. Picture: Getty

12. Leaving the Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero in a suitably flashy vehicle.

    

    Sanctuary of Madonna di Montenero. Picture: Getty

    Well, wasn’t that lovely. Happy anniversary to the Bocellis.