Pitch, and the hearing thereof

[telophase]

I came across this Adam Neely video wherein he pitch-corrected several classic songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxX2u8iggYI

It turns out that I cannot tell the difference. I first thought it was my speakers, so pulled it up on my phone and used my airpods, and still no difference. He mentioned a bonus video he put on the Nebula streaming service, which I ahve a subscription to. I called it up on my phone, and there was definitely a better sound quality, but still no difference.

I would occasionally hear something that was more or a warble which I think was the program doing the actual shifting, but not the pitch itself, I think, and I'd not have noticed that if I weren't trying to listen for it.

The video's divided into chapters, with the chapters linked in the description, if you want to skip to a specific song. He also interview his mom, who is a vocal coach, about the difference between singers today who grew up listening to pitch-corrected songs and singers of yester-year who grew up without that. (Spoiler: there's a difference. It's not bad, it's just a thing.)

Anyway, do any of you notice a difference? (yhlee, I'd be very interested in your experience! It's easy enough to skip around if you don't want to listen to the whole thing.)

Comments

[yhlee]

I'll take a listen but I have a two-hour call starting in three minutes so it might be a bit. XD

[telophase]

Cool, thanks! :D

[yhlee]

I can hear it, more easily with the Sinatra, but some of it is more obvious than others. Dan Shiovitz describes "perfect pitch" best - my brain automatically "rounds" to the nearest chromatic note unless it's REALLY off, so it's like all notes are assigned to one of twelve "buckets." There are apparently people with perfect pitch who can tell you how many cents/Hertz are involved but my pitch sense, learned on a piano, is simply not that accurate.

[telophase]

Wow, yeah. I have no idea if it's an innate brain thing or a symptoms of my slight hearing loss from age + listening to music too loud in my teens. XD

[thistleingrey]

I've dipped into the Led Zeppelin and Aretha Franklin segments--default laptop speaker, clothes dryer running in the next room--and I can hear differences without looking at Neely's on-screen display.

Not perfect pitch, ever, but I used to have fairly good relative pitch--fuzzier lately from lack of use.

[telophase]

I had to look at the display to tell which he was playing! XD

[thistleingrey]

:D
Some of it is subtle for me, and some of it feels Really Wrong, though I think oracne's comment indicates more dissonance than I pick up myself. FWIW some early-music exposure for me, too, though by far most of my not-random-radio-etc. is classical violin. Since Neely's remarks for the bits I heard are very blues/jazz focused, I wonder what someone intimately familiar with those domains would think....

[torachan]

I only listened to a few, but I couldn't really hear it.

[telophase]

I'm not the only one! :D

[oracne]

Ugh, that was nasty and I couldn't listen all the way through. "Pitch correction" using that program took out the actual music part most of the time. I mean, he kept talking about blue notes and bending notes and then just took those very important things away and left plastic.

I didn't expect that to sound as horrible as it did to me, lol!

It might be because I do a lot of early music? In which one uses a lot of different types of tuning and you get used to hearing what's appropriate for each case. Like...not forcing every single piece of music into a rigid metal box.

[telophase]

To be fair, he agreed that what he was doing wasn't GOOD. XD But it was a good way to show how much "incorrect" things are what make music and music style.

I'm just fascinated at the range from me, who can't hear the difference, to you, who can hear it like nails on a chalkboard!

[oracne]

I did hear his wincing comments, I just couldn't stand to listen! LOL. Apparently, I have a mutant power after all! And it is so super useful!