Perfect Pitch

Even if you don´t have a "perfect pitch" you can "nurture" yourself to hear what notes that fits where. After 2 years of playing I can now identify what scale notes( at least a pentatonic scale) fit in a song of unknown key. At least if the song is typical 12 bar blues with major, minor or 7:th chords.

I remember reading somewhere that everyone is born with perfect pitch, but that how much of that ability sticks depends on how much it is used by the age of about 3 or 4. After that, you can retrain it, but it won't come as naturally.

In a nutshell - some people just have it, but if you're not one of them you can still do it the hard way :)

I feel as my hearing gets worse so does my ear for tuning.
funny, I can tell when things are off.
to get them back on I use a tuner and relative tuning to retrain my ears.

as for perfect pitch...I threw a strike a few times. but never a no hitter. :lol:

I remember reading somewhere that everyone is born with perfect pitch, but that how much of that ability sticks depends on how much it is used by the age of about 3 or 4. After that, you can retrain it, but it won't come as naturally.

In a nutshell - some people just have it, but if you're not one of them you can still do it the hard way :)

You could always work on the relative pitch though. Not as useful, but still a good skill to have.

Perfect Pitch can be a severe handicap to a modern musician.

Most all music today is peformed on one of the equally tempered instruments. This means that 5ths aren't really 5ths. 4ths aren't really 4ths, in fact, the only intervals that are true are octaves.

For someone with perfect pitch nearly every note will sound wrong. Why? Because from the standpoint of perfect pitch, they ARE WRONG.

Moreover, perfect pitch does just about nothing in terms of making you a better musician. On the flip side, good relative pitch is essential.

i remember when i was a kid taking piano lessons, i became familiar with middle c. later, playing guitar, i felt a sort of restfull quality about g chords. now, my conscious brain and my musical brain seem to have separated a bit as entities, but i often find myself in the right key if i'm not thinkin too much.

Perfect Pitch can be a severe handicap to a modern musician.

Most all music today is peformed on one of the equally tempered instruments. This means that 5ths aren't really 5ths. 4ths aren't really 4ths, in fact, the only intervals that are true are octaves.

For someone with perfect pitch nearly every note will sound wrong. Why? Because from the standpoint of perfect pitch, they ARE WRONG.

Moreover, perfect pitch does just about nothing in terms of making you a better musician. On the flip side, good relative pitch is essential.I don't follow. Perfect pitch to me means that if you're walking down the street and hear 440hz, you know it's 'A' because it 'sounds like an A'. What people refer to as 'colour', but most importantly there's no need for a reference note.

My computer's cooling fan is usually G# (very handy for me as I tune down a 1/2 step) and I can sometimes tell if it's drifted a little before I pick the guitar up. It just doesn't feel right, but I can't describe it.

Either I don't get how temperament fits into that, I'm being dim, or there's more than one meaning to 'perfect pitch' :)

What he's saying is the same thing the people I know who have perfect pitch say, that sometimes this gift makes it impossible to enjoy music because you can always hear when something's off and, because of the way instruments are tempered, they are always slightly off. It has to do with physics and there's a great book called "Temperment" (which you can read about on our review page) that can explain it a lot better than I could try to.

Having perfect pitch, which is not something everyone has, is a gift that is good but it can also be a handicap. You can hear when things are slightly off and, if it's in your nature to do so, you can find a lot of music grating because of this slight off key nuance. It's kind of amazing (and admirable) that some people with perfect pitch can play instruments like the piano or guitar without fussing about the tuning every few notes or so.

Relative pitch, which can be developed with practice by just about anyone, will serve a musician perfectly fine.

And let's not turn this into an inane "what's better" discussion because it's rather silly to do so. Feel free to discuss pros and cons. Thanks.

Peace

In that case perfect pitch is not what I think it is :?

There's a bass note that really grates me in Megadeth's 'Ecstacy' at 0:30, held for 2 seconds. Could someone who knows they have perfect pitch and has the time to spare tell me if they think that's why it's irritating?

Hmm...I have perfect pitch in that I can tell what notes are being played, and I can also reproduce that note. However, I can't narrow it down to an exact pitch as to tell whether something is sharp/flat (without a reference point). If someone plays an E, for example, I can only narrow it down so much that it is within range of an E, but not exact on the spot.

Is this merely unrefined perfect pitch or relative pitch?

I am not an expert in these matters, but that sounds more like relative than perfect pitch to me. People with perfect pitch should be able to hear a note and say "that's the E and octave above middle C" or whatever it might be.

But, as you note and as has been pointed out by others here, relative pitch is a useful and helpful tool for any musician as it provides great versatility.

Peace

They are out there, but I've only met one person that claims to have perfect pitch (and I believe she may actually have it). She also was somewhat of a child prodigy, and went to Juliard as a pre-teen. Not that that engendered the perfect pitch -- more likely the other way around.

I don't have perfect pitch, but most pianos sound out of tune to me -- only good relative pitch is required to hear this.

^Alot of pianos sound out of tune to me also, that's why I won't tune my guitar to a piano.

I know a guy who I'm pretty sure has perfect pitch. He was setting up his bass amp, and was no where near an instrument when a teacher called out for an "E" to tune the guitar, and the guy sang the "E" by saying E. No one belived him, but they checked it against a digital piano and he was right. He is also the best bass player I've ever seen, he used to have to sit down at musical practice, and have his patch chord drag across half the stage, because he had that many songs, that he'd stand have to stand up for about 90 odd percent of the show.

It is rare, but apparently some places have a much higher occurance then the rest of the world.

I can reliably come out with the D in the middle of the bass clef by starting to sing the bass part of the common hymnal arrangement of "Joy To The World." I could probably come up with other notes in similar fashion, but that's one I've noticed.