Perfect/Absolute Pitch

[Dave Shore]

Just a real quick question guys - have any of you ever witnessed a person with 'perfect pitch'?

As in "The ability of a person to identify or sing a musical note without the benefit of a known reference".

I know it is definately understood/reported to be 'real' and not just a myth. And there are many people through history who were said to have had it (eg. Hendrix).

But it has always just sounded a tiny bit far fetched for me.

Have any of you actually ever been in the same room as someone who has demonstrated perfect pitch?

Thanks.

[jkhuri44]

yo dave,

in reference to perfect pitch....its really important to underline that perfect pitch is no different than being able to tell the difference between colours....red blue green yellow...etc

the only real difference is we are taught one from a young age, and the other....is left until we are old enough to join turtlerock to ask about it. :P

also note, any one that plays a fretless instrument is almost required to have this sense, or at least a hieightened sense of notes, and pitch...t THHHINK (not too sure)

the other point to keep in mind is that alot of music is passed down as an aural tradition...ie. "listened" and "learnt by listening"....lots of arabic music and other ethnic musics and such are learnt by listening to it, and imitating it. These "listening" skills are at the heart of developing something closer to perfect pitch.


Perfect pitch is pretty much just developing the ear to another level.....that level which you are able to "hear" the emotion behind a note...ie. D is darker than C....E is more hopeful than F, etc etc....

I am actually waiting for my Perfect Pitch Training Course to arrive in the mail actually....ill let you know how good it is...if you're interested in becoming pitch perfect yourself. Alot of the training is listening to repeated playing's of the same note and SINGING it out loud to yourself....and just internalising its "Feel" and "emotion"....

PS. when i was studying classical music analysis at the Conservatorium, there was a blind jazz pianist that could transcribe parts of John Coltrane's, Intersteller Space....if you've ever heard that...you would be scratching ur head....and a famous guy to note....Steve Vai is also infamous for transcribing Zappa's "the Black Page"...thats what landed him his gig as Zappa's guitarist :P

[Chinagraf]

You need to be careful not to confuse relative pitch with perfect pitch. I personally don't believe perfect pitch can be taught, it is something you are born with. Relative pitch is learnable and is closer to what you get from the 'perfect pitch' courses. Most good musicians have developed relative pitch to a degree and most composers/arrangers have it pretty well down, at least the good ones who can write a whole arrangement without ever checking a note. When i was studying orchestration this was the aim, to be able to write pieces for whole orchestras without ever checking the notes on a keyboard.
But this is all still relative. Most non fretted instruments are played in relation to left hand positions (1st poaition, 2nd position etc) and finger positions, so you don't need perfect pitch to play a fretless bass or a violin etc, but you do need a good sense of relative pitch to get the correct intonation.
I can tell the pitch of most sounds I hear, rounded to the nearest note, but I know my brain references them all to an E below middle C and then works out the relative interval. This is because I began guitar as a kid and the E is so ingrained in my brain. It's still not perfect pitch though.
IMHO having real perfect pitch would send you nuts because everything you hear would be a note and the dischordance of all the everyday sounds combining would send you nuts, like a life full of fingernails down a blackboard.
Something I do notice is short bursts of pitch intervals in spoken voices. Particularly in females, who seem to speak more melodically than males.

PS I'm not having a go at what your saying J, just that I disagree with the people who claim their courses are teaching 'perfect pitch'. They are teaching relative pitch IMHO.

[Dave Shore]

Yes - I have Relative Pitch (to a very small degree) as I guess, most people who play instruments for long enough inevitably pick up.

I was specifically talking about Perfect Pitch. China, sounds like you pretty much have a version of it - that is, if with no reference point at all you can hum an E. Even though you reference all notes to the 'E in your head', it's still pretty amazing that you've been able to burn that E note into your brain ;)

JK - yes definately let us know how your course goes!! You can be our guinea pig that proves/disproves 'Learned Perfecct Pitch' once and for all!

[astrovic]

I always thought "Perfect pitch" was marketing speak for what China described as relative pitch. A friend of mine, who is pretty darn good at identifying any note/chord/melody anywhere anytime, explained to me how he does it and his description was the same as China's. The speed at which he could do it (pretty much instantaneously) makes you think he has something better than being able to pick intervals quickly.

But in my short time studying music, during the aural training I was amazed at how quickly you can improve your relative pitch. It's like running, everyone can do it but some start off pretty fast and can go faster, while others (like me) start off pretty slow and can go faster. Anyone can improve, depending on how much effort they put into it.

[Linear]

Hi,

I wouldn't boast that I have perfect pitch by any stretch - however I can tune a guitar perfectly without a tuner, simply because I know what an open 'E' sounds like on a nylon string guitar. I can even hear what an 'E' sounds like in my head, which I guess that comes from playing for over 22 years...

I don't think perfect pitch is anything you're born with - any more than being born with the ability to tell blue from green from orange, it's the same sort of thing. You just learn in time to know what something sounds like. If you play a tunable instrument, just keep practicing tuning it without a tuner, and eventually you will memorise the pitch, tone and timbre of an open 'E' (or whatever note you need to tune from) - I always tune a guitars top 'E' first, then relatively tune all the other strings. I hate tuners, they are annoying.

Chris

[Chinagraf]

Yes...I vote JK for Guinea Pig! :)
Like Chris says, I've been playing guitar for about 30 years so it's not that hard to hear an E in your head after that long. I too hate tuners, and most don't do stretch tuning so they never sound right once you play higher or in a different key.
Interestingly enough there has been work done that continues, leaning towards the porbability that actual perfect pitch (absolute pitch) is actually genetic.

[jkhuri44]

in addition dave,

i think it also depends on "how badly" you want it....that is, getting better at developing good pitching....

i want it pretty bad, just like everythig i put my mind to....if you start sitting down to a course, and ur not that keen, you might walk away thinking its a load of crap....but if u stick to it and put in the practise...youll prob discover it works, etc.

[Chinagraf]

Yes...I vote JK for Guinea Pig! :)
Like Chris says, I've been playing guitar for about 30 years so it's not that hard to hear an E in your head after that long. I too hate tuners, and most don't do stretch tuning so they never sound right once you play higher or in a different key.
Interestingly enough there has been work done that continues, leaning towards the probability that actual perfect pitch (absolute pitch) is actually genetic.

[rick]

i know a violin player who has the gift / curse , for a party trick you can tap anything that makes a noise and he can play that note on his violin immediately or for instance knock a chair over onto a kitchen floor and he can instantly play the same notes and intervals and timing as the crash of the chair onto the floor on the violin .
and he thinks its a musical curse not a gift because everything becomes that much harder to be involved with if you think you are the only person who is in tune and in time .

he is not a fun guy

[Ausrock]

Geezus, that sound like someone (a violinist) I knew many years ago.

I was taught to tune a guitar as a kid when I first started learning back in '62 and never thought much about it until I bought a tuner in the early '90s and was surprised to find my guitars were already pretty well in perfect tune.

[jkhuri44]

"Yes...I vote JK for Guinea Pig! :) "

well....i've been learning how to sing for about a year now.... with the intention of recording in about a month.....

and during that time....i picked up a 12cd vocal instruction program....which...was *insert expletive*.....: (

the "said" perfect pitch course is affiliated with that same course....

so...lets hope its not a farce!!! hahaha


*goes online to return singing cd's.....

[mickeyb]

Yes, Mark Isaccs (pianist etc).
His other party trick was for anyone to hit any combination/s of notes and he could tell you exactly what was played.

[Mark Bassett]

Check out a book called Musicophilia.

[chris p]

Musicophilia - I reading it now, as it happens.

Great factoid - humans have twice the brain space devoted to music as they have to language. Tells us something is goin' on.

[jkhuri44]

yea...

we've been musical beings ...even before language....
ie. as chimps, or whatever we were, we used to imitate animals around us, etc etc...much like birds do...

probably coz we've been around singign longer than we have been speaking, biologically explains the size difference...

i think that brain space is getting smaller though...and that part of the brain sorta looks like an Apple now..for some reason....*sniggers*