Daniel Chugerman (August 8, 1912 – November 21, 1991), known professionally as Daniel Mann , was an American stage, film and television director.
55-410: Originally trained as an actor by Sanford Meisner , between 1952 and 1987 he directed over 31 feature films and made-for-television. Considered a true "actor's director", he directed seven Oscar -nominated and two Tony Award -winning performances, collaborating with actors like Burt Lancaster , Shirley Booth , Susan Hayward , Marlon Brando , Elizabeth Taylor , Dean Martin and Anthony Quinn . He
110-674: A career in acting, receiving a scholarship to study at the Theatre Guild of Acting . Here he encountered once again Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg . Strasberg was to become another of the century's most influential acting theorists and the father of method acting , an acting technique derived, like Meisner's own, from the system of Konstantin Stanislavski . The three became friends. In 1931, Clurman, Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford (another Theatre Guild member) selected 28 actors (one of whom
165-408: A correlation of 97% between autism and absolute pitch, with a 53% correlation in non-autistic observers. However, the converse is not indicated by research which found no difference between those with absolute pitch and those without on measures of social and communication skills, which are core deficits in autistic spectrum disorders. Additionally, the absolute pitch group's autism-spectrum quotient
220-795: A director and is known for his excellent ear for dialogue. Most of Mann's films were adaptations from the stage ( Come Back Little Sheba , The Rose Tattoo , The Teahouse of the August Moon , Hot Spell ) and literature ( Butterfield 8 , The Last Angry Man ). Mann died of heart failure in Los Angeles , California , in November 1991. He is buried in the Jewish Cemetery Hillside Memorial Park . He had three children with his first wife, actress Mary Kathleen Williams: Michael Mann, Erica Mann Ramis and Alex Mann. Erica Mann Ramis
275-554: A distinct characteristic of method acting. Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of doing", which was the foundation of his approach. Born in Brooklyn , New York City, Meisner was the oldest child of Hermann Meisner, a furrier , and Bertha Knoepfler, both Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Hungary . His younger siblings were Jacob, Ruth, and Robert. To improve Sanford's health during his youth, his family took
330-439: A fixed key and play it from memory on their instrument, but they are not required to sing. When tested, these students did not succeed in singing the memorized Suzuki songs in the original, fixed key. Musicians with absolute perception may experience difficulties which do not exist for other musicians. Because absolute listeners are capable of recognizing that a musical composition has been transposed from its original key, or that
385-476: A giggle as she moved away from his touch. The goal of the Meisner technique has often been described as getting actors to "live truthfully under imaginary circumstances." Perfect pitch Absolute pitch ( AP ), often called perfect pitch , is the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone . AP may be demonstrated using linguistic labelling ("naming"
440-554: A label for the frequency (such as "B-flat"), and exposure to the range of sound encompassed by that categorical label. Absolute pitch may be directly analogous to recognizing colors , phonemes (speech sounds), or other categorical perception of sensory stimuli . For example, most people have learned to recognize and name the color blue by the range of frequencies of the electromagnetic radiation that are perceived as light ; those who have been exposed to musical notes together with their names early in life may be more likely to identify
495-518: A note), associating mental imagery with the note, or sensorimotor responses. For example, an AP possessor can accurately reproduce a heard tone on a musical instrument without "hunting" for the correct pitch . The frequency of AP in the general population is not known. A proportion of 1 in 10,000 is widely reported, but not supported by evidence; a 2019 review indicated a prevalence of at least 4% amongst music students. Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of these abilities, achieved without
550-564: A pitch is being produced at a nonstandard frequency (either sharp or flat), a musician with absolute pitch may become confused upon perceiving tones believed to be "wrong" or hearing a piece of music "in the wrong key". The relative pitch of the notes may be in tune to each other, but out of tune to the standard pitch or pitches the musician is familiar with or perceives as correct. This can especially apply to Baroque music , as many Baroque orchestras tune to A = 415 Hz as opposed to 440 Hz (i.e., roughly one standard semitone lower than
605-550: A predisposition for learning the ability or signal the likelihood of its spontaneous occurrence. Researchers have been trying to teach absolute pitch ability in laboratory settings for more than a century, and various commercial absolute-pitch training courses have been offered to the public since the early 1900s. In 2013, experimenters reported that adult men who took the antiseizure drug valproate (VPA) "learned to identify pitch significantly better than those taking placebo—evidence that VPA facilitated critical-period learning in
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#1733202396565660-478: A reference tone: Absolute pitch is distinct from relative pitch . While the ability to name specific pitches can be used to infer intervals , relative pitch identifies an interval directly by its sound. Absolute pitch may complement relative pitch in musical listening and practice, but it may also influence its development. Adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in
715-511: A rehearsal process, delving into one's past memories as a source of emotion was only a last resort and that the actor should seek rather to develop the character's thoughts and feelings through physical action, a concentrated use of the imagination, and a belief in the "given circumstances" of the text. As a result, Meisner began to focus on a new approach to the art of acting. When the Group Theatre disbanded in 1940, Meisner continued as head of
770-482: A single line of dialogue, told to turn away, and instructed not to do or say anything until something happened to make them say the words (one of the fundamental principles of the Meisner technique). The first student's line came when Meisner approached him from behind and gave him a strong pinch on the back, inspiring him to jump away and yelp his line in pain. The other student's line came when Meisner reached around and slipped his hand into her blouse. Her line came out as
825-429: A tone language, even those with little musical training, are observed to sing a given song with consistent pitch. Among music students of East Asian ethnic heritage, those who speak a tone language fluently have a higher prevalence of absolute pitch than those who do not speak a tone language. African level-tone languages—such as Yoruba , with three pitch levels, and Mambila , with four—may be better suited to study
880-506: A trip to the Catskills . While there, however, his brother Jacob contracted bovine tuberculosis from drinking unpasteurized milk and died shortly thereafter. In an interview many years later, Meisner described this event as "the dominant emotional influence in my life from which I have never, after all these years, escaped." Because he was unable to cope with feelings of guilt relating to his brother's death, for which his parents blamed him,
935-439: A way that superficially resembles absolute pitch. Some people have been able to develop accurate pitch identification in adulthood through training. Scientific studies of absolute pitch commenced in the 19th century, focusing on the phenomenon of musical pitch and methods of measuring it. It would have been difficult for the notion of absolute pitch to have formed earlier because pitch references were not consistent. For example,
990-524: A word in the same absolute pitch (within a quarter-tone) on different days; it has therefore been suggested that absolute pitch may be acquired by infants when they learn to speak a tonal language (and possibly also by infants when they learn to speak a pitch-accent language ). However, the brains of tonal-language speakers do not naturally process musical sound as language; such speakers may be more likely to acquire absolute pitch for musical tones when they later receive musical training. Many native speakers of
1045-436: Is microtonal or whose frequencies do not match standard 12-tone equal temperament. It is also possible for some musicians to have displaced absolute pitch, where all notes are slightly flat or slightly sharp of their respective pitch as defined by a given convention. This may arise from learning the pitch names from an instrument that was tuned to a concert pitch convention other than the one in use (e.g., A = 435 Hz,
1100-512: Is evidence of a higher rate of absolute pitch in the autistic population. Many studies have examined pitch abilities in autism, but not rigidly perfect pitch, which makes them controversial. It is unclear just how many people with autism have perfect pitch because of this. In a 2009 study, researchers studied 72 teenagers with autism and found that 20 percent of the teenagers had a significant ability to detect pitches. Children with autism are especially sensitive to changes in pitch. Absolute pitch
1155-563: Is higher among those who are blind from birth as a result of optic nerve hypoplasia . Absolute pitch is considerably more common among those whose early childhood was spent in East Asia . This might seem to be a genetic difference; however, people of East Asian ancestry who are reared in North America are significantly less likely to develop absolute pitch than those raised in East Asia, so
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#17332023965651210-416: Is more common among speakers of tonal languages , such as most dialects of Chinese or Vietnamese , which depend on pitch variation to distinguish words that otherwise sound the same—e.g., Mandarin with four possible tonal variations, Cantonese with nine, Southern Min with seven or eight (depending on dialect), and Vietnamese with six. Speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages have been reported to speak
1265-482: Is not a prerequisite for skilled musical performance or composition. However, there is evidence that musicians with absolute pitch tend to perform better on musical transcription tasks (controlling for age of onset and amount of musical training) compared to those without absolute pitch. It was previously argued that musicians with absolute pitch perform worse than those without absolute pitch on recognition of musical intervals; however, experiments on which this conclusion
1320-531: Is the widow of director Harold Ramis . Sanford Meisner Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997) was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique . While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre , his approach differed markedly in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory ,
1375-522: Is typically no keener than that of a non-absolute ("normal") listener. Absolute pitch does not depend upon a refined ability to perceive and discriminate gradations of sound frequencies, but upon detecting and categorizing a subjective perceptual quality typically referred to as "chroma". The two tasks— of identification (recognizing and naming a pitch) and discrimination (detecting changes or differences in rate of vibration)— are accomplished with different brain mechanisms. The prevalence of absolute pitch
1430-459: The Paris Opera convention of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as opposed to the modern Euro-American convention for concert A = 442 Hz). Concert pitches have shifted higher for a brighter sound. When playing in groups with other musicians, this may lead to playing in a tonality that is slightly different from that of the rest of the group, such as when soloists tune slightly sharp of
1485-971: The ISO standard for concert A), while other recordings of Baroque pieces (especially those of French Baroque music) are performed at 392 Hz. Historically, tuning forks for concert A used on keyboard instruments (which ensembles tune to when present), have varied widely in frequency, often between 415 Hz to 456.7 Hz. Variances in the sizes of intervals for different keys and the method of tuning instruments also can affect musicians in their perception of correct pitch, especially with music synthesized digitally using alternative tunings (e.g., unequal well temperaments and alternative meantone tunings such as 19-tone equal temperament and 31-tone equal temperament ) as opposed to 12-tone equal temperament . An absolute listener may also use absolute strategies for tasks which are more efficiently accomplished with relative strategies , such as transposition or producing harmony that
1540-737: The Meisner/Carville School of Acting on the Caribbean island of Bequia . Students from all around the world came every summer to participate in a summer intensive with Meisner. The Meisner/Carville School of Acting operated on the island and, beginning in 1985, also in North Hollywood. Meisner split his time between the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and the two school locations. In spring of 1995, The Meisner/Carville School of acting
1595-1055: The Playhouse, this founding member of The Group Theatre developed and refined what is now known as the Meisner Technique: "To live truthfully under given imaginary circumstances." The Meisner Technique is a step-by-step procedure of self-investigation for the actor now widely recognized as one of the foremost acting techniques taught today. Notable students and alumni of The Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner's instruction include: Dylan McDermott , James Caan , Steve McQueen , Robert Duvall , Gregory Peck , Diane Keaton , Jeff Goldblum , Tony Randall , Sydney Pollack , David Mamet , Connie Britton , Brian Geraghty , Leslie Moonves , Sherie Rene Scott , Chris Noth , Tucker Smallwood , Mary Steenburgen , Betsy von Furstenberg , Allison Janney , Jennifer Grey , Ashlie Atkinson , Christopher Meloni , Alex Cole Taylor , and many more. In 1983, Meisner and his life partner James Carville founded
1650-467: The acting program at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, at which he had taught since 1935. In teaching he found a level of fulfillment similar to that which he had found in playing the piano as a child. At the Playhouse he developed his own form of method acting that was based on Stanislavski's system, Meisner's training with Lee Strasberg, and on Stella Adler's revelations about the uses of
1705-489: The adult human brain". However, no adult has ever been documented to have acquired absolute listening ability, because all adults who have been formally tested after AP training have failed to demonstrate "an unqualified level of accuracy... comparable to that of AP possessors". While very few people have the ability to name a pitch with no external reference, pitch memory can be activated by repeated exposure. People who are not skilled singers will often sing popular songs in
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1760-472: The boundaries of musical pitch categories vary among human cultures, the recognition of octave relationships is a natural characteristic of the mammalian auditory system. Accordingly, absolute pitch is not the ability to estimate a pitch value from the dimension of pitch-evoking frequency (30–5000 Hz), but to identify a pitch class category within the dimension of pitch class (e.g., C-C ♯ -D ... B-C). An absolute listener's sense of hearing
1815-591: The correct key, and can usually recognize when TV themes have been shifted into the wrong key. Members of the Venda culture in South Africa also sing familiar children's songs in the key in which the songs were learned. This phenomenon is apparently unrelated to musical training. The skill may be associated more closely with vocal production. Violin students learning the Suzuki method are required to memorize each composition in
1870-744: The difference is more probably explained by experience. The language that is spoken may be an important factor; many East Asians speak tonal languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, while others (such as those in Japan and certain provinces of Korea) speak pitch-accent languages, and the prevalence of absolute pitch may be partly explained by exposure to pitches together with meaningful musical labels very early in life. Absolute pitch ability has higher prevalence among those with Williams syndrome and those with an autism spectrum disorder , with claims estimating that up to 30% of autistic people have absolute pitch. A non-verbal piano-matching method resulted in
1925-638: The faculty of The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and continued as the Director of the Acting Department until his retirement in 1990, and served as Director Emeritus until his death in 1997. In 1928, The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre opened its doors. The first class of only nine students had the privilege of being taught by theatre luminaries Martha Graham , Louis Horst , Laura Elliott , and Agnes de Mille . Over his years of teaching at
1980-542: The familiarization of the equal-tempered C-major scale . Most of the absolute listeners that were tested in this respect identified the C-major tones more reliably and, except for B, more quickly than the five "black key" tones, which corresponds to the higher prevalence of these tones in ordinary musical experiences. One study of Dutch non-musicians also demonstrated a bias toward using C-major tones in ordinary speech, especially on syllables related to emphasis. Absolute pitch
2035-562: The group, while Meisner was among the first instructors to teach at the studio. However, by 1951, after Kazan moved to Hollywood to focus on his directorial career, Strasberg became the group's artistic director. In the following years, many students of the Actors Studio became well known in the film industry. Strasberg's later insistence that he had trained them distressed Meisner enormously, creating an animosity with his ex-mentor that continued until Strasberg's death. In 1935, Meisner joined
2090-403: The highlight of his career. Meisner is the author of the book Sanford Meisner on Acting (Knopf Doubleday 1987), considered by some to be an indispensable tool for contemporary actors. Meisner's two marriages, to Peggy Meredith (née Meyer) and Betty Gooch, respectively, ended in divorce. Meisner, who was bisexual, spent the remainder of his life with partner James Carville. In 1970 Meisner
2145-425: The imagination. Today that approach is called the Meisner technique . It was during these early years at The Neighborhood Playhouse that Meisner was briefly married to the young actress Peggy Meredith, who appeared in several Broadway productions. The Actors Studio was founded in 1947 by two ex-Group Theatre actors Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis , and Cheryl Crawford . Strasberg initially had not been asked to join
2200-441: The note C. Although it was once thought that it "might be nothing more than a general human capacity whose expression is strongly biased by the level and type of exposure to music that people experience in a given culture", absolute pitch may be influenced by genetic variation, possibly an autosomal dominant genetic trait. Evidence suggests that absolute pitch sense is influenced by cultural exposure to music, especially in
2255-446: The note known as 'A' varied in different local or national musical traditions between what is considered as G sharp and B flat before the standardisation of the late 19th century. While the term absolute pitch , or absolute ear , was in use by the late 19th century by both British and German researchers, its application was not universal; other terms such as musical ear , absolute tone consciousness , or positive pitch referred to
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2310-413: The rest of the ensemble to stand out or to compensate for loosening strings during longer performances. Absolute pitch shows a genetic overlap with music-related and non-music-related synesthesia / ideasthesia . They may associate certain notes or keys with different colors, enabling them to tell what any note or key is. In this study, about 20% of people with absolute pitch are also synesthetes. There
2365-410: The role of absolute pitch in speech than the pitch and contour tone languages of East Asia. Speakers of European languages make subconscious use of an absolute pitch memory when speaking. Absolute pitch is the ability to perceive pitch class and to mentally categorize sounds according to perceived pitch class. A pitch class is the set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart. While
2420-400: The same ability. The skill is not exclusively musical. Physically and functionally, the auditory system of an absolute listener evidently does not differ from that of a non-absolute listener. Rather, "it reflects a particular ability to analyze frequency information, presumably involving high-level cortical processing." Absolute pitch is an act of cognition , needing memory of the frequency,
2475-556: The students who studied with Sanford Meisner were nominated for or won Academy Awards. Though he rarely appeared on film, he performed in Tender Is the Night , The Story on Page One , and Mikey and Nicky . His last acting role was in the season one episode of the television medical drama ER , titled "Sleepless in Chicago". Actor Noah Wyle worked with him and referred to the experience as
2530-458: The true and false moments in their acting. After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in 1923, Meisner professionally pursued acting, which had interested him since his youth. He had acted at the Lower East Side 's Chrystie Street Settlement House under the direction of Lee Strasberg , who would play an important role in his development. At age 19 Meisner heard that the Theatre Guild
2585-443: The very end. Throughout his career, Meisner worked with, and taught, students who became well known. Sydney Pollack and Charles E. Conrad served as Meisner's senior assistants. The technique is helpful not just for actors, but also for directors, writers, and teachers. A number of directors also studied with him, among them Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer , and writers such as Arthur Miller and David Mamet . At least 37 of
2640-712: The young Meisner became isolated and withdrawn. He found release in playing the family piano and eventually attended the Damrosch Institute of Music (now the Juilliard School ), where he studied to become a concert pianist. When the Great Depression hit, however, his father pulled him out of music school to help with the family business in New York City's Garment District . Meisner later recalled that his only means of enduring long days spent lugging bolts of fabric
2695-627: Was "way below clinical thresholds". Absolute pitch might be achievable by any human being during a critical period of auditory development, after which period cognitive strategies favor global and relational processing. Proponents of the critical-period theory agree that the presence of absolute pitch ability is dependent on learning, but there is disagreement about whether training causes absolute skills to occur or lack of training causes absolute perception to be overwhelmed and obliterated by relative perception of musical intervals . One or more genetic loci could affect absolute pitch ability,
2750-640: Was Meisner) to form the Group Theatre . This company exerted an influence on the entire art of acting in the United States. Meisner summered with the Group Theatre at their 1936 rehearsal headquarters at Pine Brook Country Club in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut . Meisner, along with a number of other actors in the company, eventually resisted Strasberg's preoccupation with affective memory exercises. In 1934, fellow company member Stella Adler returned from private study with Stanislavski in Paris and announced that Stanislavski had come to believe that, as part of
2805-532: Was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent a laryngectomy . After that operation he lived for nearly three more decades, until February 2, 1997, when he died in his sleep at the age of 91 at his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. Meisner's unusual techniques were considered both unorthodox and effective. Actor Dennis Longwell wrote of sitting in on one of Meisner's classes one day, when Meisner brought two students forward for an acting exercise. They were given
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#17332023965652860-499: Was hiring teenagers and, after a brief interview, was hired as an extra for They Knew What They Wanted . The experience deeply affected him, leading to the realization that acting had always been his life's ambition. He and Strasberg both appeared in the original Theatre Guild production of the Rodgers and Hart revue The Garrick Gaieties , from which the song " Manhattan " came. Despite his parents' misgivings, Meisner continued to pursue
2915-407: Was nominated for several accolades, including two Palme d'Or , three Directors Guild of America Awards and a Golden Bear . Mann was born in Brooklyn , New York, the son of Helen and Samuel Chugerman, a lawyer. He was a stage actor since childhood and attended Erasmus Hall High School , New York 's Professional Children's School and the Neighborhood Playhouse . He entered films in 1952 as
2970-619: Was then succeeded by The Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts , a theater company and school in North Hollywood established by Meisner, James Carville, and Martin Barter. Graduates from Meisner's 2-year program could audition for the company. The company became a fixture on the Los Angeles theater scene for several years after Meisner's death. Meisner attended every rehearsal and every performance until
3025-512: Was to entertain himself by replaying, in his mind, all the classical piano pieces he had studied in music school. Meisner believed this experience helped him develop, at age twenty, an acute sense of sound akin to perfect pitch . Later, as an acting teacher, he often evaluated his students' scene work with his eyes closed and his head dramatically buried in his hands. This trick was only partly for effect, he explained, because it actually helped him more closely listen to his student's work and pinpoint
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