Perfect Pitch, how you have it, how does it works. Options

[JulieCSM]

I don't have perfect pitch but it's never bothered me - and I've always had excellent sightsinging - sang in a church choir from being 8 so that helped a lot. But then, do you miss it if you've never had it?

I have had a piano student for the last 4 years who does have perfect pitch and he is functionally blind so it's extremely useful when teaching him new stuff - I don't have to tell him what notes I'm playing and it has helped him enormously with being able to tell instantly what chords are, although I obviously had to teach him all the different variations of chords before he could recognise them.

He's doing Grade 6 now and has won cups in Festivals - not bad for only having played for 4 years!

[pianist_1210]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) So can you train for it?? I can only sometimes recongise what the randomly played notes are, but this is not 100% accurate (in fact, it's mostly not correct.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) ) I really want to have perfect pitch...

[pianist_1210]

Does it work if you keep remembering the note A?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)
Because have the pitch pipe and it can only give me A...
sometimes it worked for me but sometimes I ended up sing D instead... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
anyways it's fun to train yourself though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[lizbun]

I used to live in Japan, so I'm used to C(do), so I know the note C

[Dulciana]

I have perfect pitch, but can adjust a quarter tone - so that if something is slightly sharp or flat, I can 'tune in'. As a pianist, the major problem I have is if the piano is a semi-tone or more out. Because the notes I'm hearing aren't the notes I'm expecting - ie I play a C, but hear a B, I start accidently playing a C#. to make it sound right. Then I'm completely thrown!

My pitch is far from perfect, but I have a similar problem with an out-of-tune piano. If, for instance, the bass notes are slightly sharp, my left hand, on seeing a low G on the page, wants to head for F# - and, yes, I can be completely thrown too, and want to kick the dam thing! I've never been very good at playing by ear, but am a reasonable sight-reader - but the above illustrates that sight-reading as much "hand-ear" co-ordination as "hand-eye". I always thought it would be great to have perfect pitch, but on reading the entries from those who have, it seems to pose problems as well as have advantages.

Interestingly, as a child, when my mum was about to switch on the vacuum cleaner, I could always hum the "note" it played before she turned it on!

[sarah-flute]

Does it work if you keep remembering the note A?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)
Because have the pitch pipe and it can only give me A...
sometimes it worked for me but sometimes I ended up sing D instead... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
anyways it's fun to train yourself though. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

Yes, any note which you can internalise should work.

Interestingly, as a child, when my mum was about to switch on the vacuum cleaner, I could always hum the "note" it played before she turned it on!

I guess that's a good example of learned pitch memory (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[frederik]

Well, as you may have seen in some of the replies, perfect pitch isn't always 100% perfect.
I've read an interesting article in psychology of music (issue from january 2005?) that investigates the different (sorts of) misjudgEments that people - subjects who said they had perfect pitch - make, in different situations: those situations are for example the use of their own instrument, another instrument, or pure sine tones (apparently the most difficult to recognise). As far as I rememer only one person came close to scoring a 100%! I think there were some other interesting tendencies (and hypothesises about the reasons) in the results, for example concerning the issue of the own instrument vs. other instrumensts.

As for the ability to train perfect pitch: there is no real agreement whether or not you can train it, at least to a reasonably high level; I remember one psychologist who wrote that he only could train it a little by walking around with his tuning fork all of the day, and noticed that the ability went down rather quickly when he stopped the intense training... In contrast, the actual perfect pitch (as far as this existst, cf. supra) never fades...
The example of the Japanese on the other hand seems to show that it is trainable if you start it at a real early age. (On a personal note I can add that both me an my sister have perfect pitch to a fairly high degree, and as far as I know always have got it - I started playing the piano by imitating things I heard, and I always found the right note or key, as my father noticed). Perfect pitch is yet another theme where the nature-nurture debate comes up (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In several works or articles you can read that aprox. 1/10.000, or 0.01% of all people have perfect pitch, but several others say - in my opinion right so - that this is only a very, very hypothetical number:
Apart from the fact that there are not many studies done with a large number of subjects, there is the fact that many people may have a good (perfect) pitch hearing without the formal musical knowledge to express this.
One study tried to counter this problem with an original approach: they asked people to sing one of their favourite tunes, but before they started they asked the persons to imagine the original versions as accurate as possible. Then they compared this sung version with the original: they found that the persons in average weren't more then a semitone or whole tone off. Not bad, but on the other hand a whole tone or a semitone might seem quite a bit for someone with perfect pitch (though, again on the other hand, the investigation I first mentioned showed quite a bit semitone errors by some people claiming to have perfect pitch!)...
One weakness of this study, as has been pointed out, is that people could use indirect methods for their pitch positioning: probably they have sung the song with the record on, and maybe there is some muscular memory (or better: memory for the muscular tension)... And, as I can testify, actual perfect pitch in contrast doesn't need an indirect measurement: I can imagine or internally hear a reference A (though it can be some Hz off-pitch, of course).

As you can see, perfect pitch is an intriguing, and still far from completely understood thing!

all reactions on these thoughts or investigations welcome! (BTW: If you know any other interesting investigations concerning PP, please tell me so!)

bye,

frederik

[sarah-flute]

Thanks frederik that was really interesting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[cellocase]

Well, as you may have seen in some of the replies, perfect pitch isn't always 100% perfect.
I've read an interesting article in psychology of music (issue from january 2005?) that investigates the different (sorts of) misjudgEments that people - subjects who said they had perfect pitch - make, in different situations: those situations are for example the use of their own instrument, another instrument, or pure sine tones (apparently the most difficult to recognise). As far as I rememer only one person came close to scoring a 100%! I think there were some other interesting tendencies (and hypothesises about the reasons) in the results, for example concerning the issue of the own instrument vs. other instrumensts.

For me, I do sometimes get notes wrong, though it's rare. If I'm wrong, I'm generally a fifth out. I also tend to go a little flat, especially on a tuning A, because my piano at home has always been a little less than 440.

[hellokitty]

I can remember the pitch of the strings on a violin.

[sarah-flute]

Just been re-reading this thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(I actually think that in many ways it's more useful than perfect pitch, as not having transposition completely do my head in etc is quite nice - I'd hate to have to mentally transpose music while I sang, or if I was playing something in a different key from the written music!)....this sort of learned perfect pitch may be more useful, and certainly would cause fewer problems. I know at least one poster on here who has a learned perfect pitch that has become in effect real perfect pitch: I wonder if it's a case of some people having more or less a predisposition toward perfect pitch... so someone with a strong predisposition towards it, taught how you were, or who learned to tune to concert A for many years, would develop perfect pitch, whereas others won't develop it to such a sharp degree...

It's not the same as 'real' perfect pitch. I know when something is in a different key, for example, and I know what key it is being played in, but it wouldn't trouble me or make me feel sick.

I have a friend who seems to me to have a sort of latent perfect pitch - things sung in different keys to how they are written bother her, but she couldn't confidently produce you an A, or tell you "that's a G#".

For me, I do sometimes get notes wrong, though it's rare. If I'm wrong, I'm generally a fifth out.

That's interesting for me, especially with my realisation that when I try and pitch A and go wrong, I seem to end up on E or D a 5th up or down. I wonder if it's a string-instrumentalist's thing.

[maggiemay]

Just been re-reading this thread (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(I actually think that in many ways it's more useful than perfect pitch, as not having transposition completely do my head in etc is quite nice - I'd hate to have to mentally transpose music while I sang, or if I was playing something in a different key from the written music!)....this sort of learned perfect pitch may be more useful, and certainly would cause fewer problems. I know at least one poster on here who has a learned perfect pitch that has become in effect real perfect pitch: I wonder if it's a case of some people having more or less a predisposition toward perfect pitch... so someone with a strong predisposition towards it, taught how you were, or who learned to tune to concert A for many years, would develop perfect pitch, whereas others won't develop it to such a sharp degree...

It's not the same as 'real' perfect pitch. I know when something is in a different key, for example, and I know what key it is being played in, but it wouldn't trouble me or make me feel sick.

I have a friend who seems to me to have a sort of latent perfect pitch - things sung in different keys to how they are written bother her, but she couldn't confidently produce you an A, or tell you "that's a G#".

For me, I do sometimes get notes wrong, though it's rare. If I'm wrong, I'm generally a fifth out.

That's interesting for me, especially with my realisation that when I try and pitch A and go wrong, I seem to end up on E or D a 5th up or down. I wonder if it's a string-instrumentalist's thing.

I can identify with sometimes being a fifth out - and I'm not a string player. I've generally thought it's more like a strong sense of key (in my case) rather than full-blown perfect pitch.

[lizbun]

5th and octave are the two most easy ones for me. Don't know if it's the same wiht everyone else.

I can tell if a string on my violin isn't in tune with the other strings, and I can tell I'm not in tune when playing a piece. I wou't say I have PERFECT pitch though.

[sarah-flute]

Sounds like good relative pitch to me, lizbun (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[bobifier]

I sort of have what you might call almost perfect pitch. If you play a note on the piano, I can say what note it is nearest to, but I wouldn't know if it were a tad off.

On a string instrument, I can do the same to a lesser extent.

I can't just sing notes off the top of my head.