“Look how easy it is!”

The main thing is really just believing you can do it. Plus the years of training required to acquire that belief. (Image by Harald Matern)

A young musician on TikTok recently posted a video explaining how to acquire something similar to perfect pitch if you don’t have it.

I don’t get why everyone makes such a big deal out of perfect pitch. It’s not a skill that you need to have as a musician. Kind of the equivalent of being able to identify the flavors of a dish without tasting it. A party trick.

But nevertheless, I kept watching. I wanted to hear what this woman would say.

Her advice was a little disappointing. What she suggested was use a specific song as a reference for a given key.

In other words, if you know a song is in the key of A, you can use your memory of that song to reliably pick an A out of thin air.

Which...only works if you have perfect pitch.

It’s true. I just tried it with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Born on the Bayou,” which I happen to know is in the key of E, and I was way off. The version I heard in my mind did not match the version that came through my speakers when I went to test myself.

I don’t think this is a skill that is going to get better (because I don’t think it’s a skill). After decades of musicianship, if I don’t have it by now, I’m probably not going to have it.

For me, this is a poignant metaphor for how difficult it is to share what you know in a way that helps people.

For instance, I can say that the secret to getting a group of kids to listen to you in the classroom is your expectations. If you expect them to listen to you, they will.

But how can I be sure that someone else can replicate this? And how would I help them do it if they were struggling? Maybe they need to “expect” harder? There’s nothing concrete to go on.

There are plenty of examples of this gap between one person’s method and someone else’s results. We confuse correlation and causation all the time. How many column inches in women’s magazines have been devoted to the most beautiful people in the world earnestly sharing their skin care routines? Sorry, I got news for ya: Gently splashing cool water on your face and then patting it try with a cotton towel is not going to make you look like a supermodel despite the fact that it seems to work for a gorgeous twenty-year-old. There might be some additional factors to acknowledge here.

I promise that teachers truly believe in the things they are sharing. They’re not trying to be shady. Even though I can’t grant you perfect pitch, I am truly convinced that I can teach you how to play music by ear. But that’s based on my track record of doing it, not your skills. That’s kind of arrogant of me. Maybe, if it doesn’t come easily to you, we would work on it for six months, and you’d get frustrated, and I’d still be convinced that you’re about to get the hang of it.

More recently, though, I’m starting to question my conviction around this kind of stuff. How can I truly know what someone else’s capacity is? And capacity isn’t everything. Just because someone has the potential to learn doesn’t mean they’re actually going to.

You can’t imagine how much it pains me to say that. It feels like a cop-out. And yet, it isn’t up to me. It’s up to the learner how much effort and time they’re going to put in. All I can do is facilitate. If they don’t want to make the uphill climb, that’s perfectly reasonable.

As I venture away from teaching familiar things in familiar settings (“Here, kid...let me introduce you to middle C”), I am still trying to keep things simple and boil them down to their essence. But there are so many more variables than I can control. I can never guarantee that something will be easy or straightforward for someone else. The best I can do is share what has worked for me while acknowledging that everyone has different circumstances.

That’s not very a flashy or compelling promise. In fact, it’s pretty boring. Maybe I can do better. I’ll keep working on it.