If me and my friends dont have "perfect pitch" does that mean we are not going to succeed musically?

Please reply asap.

No. Many of the world's greatest musicians and composers did not have perfect pitch. It just means you have to work a bit harder at the aural tests than someone that does!

If you did have perfect pitch you'd probably find it very difficult to play transposing instruments as one can get confused when the note that one plays isn't the same as the note that one hears: without perfect pitch this isn't a problem.

Perfect pitch is meant to be really rare - I've neer met anyone with it and loads of my friends are musical, and manage just fine , some being on grade 7 or 8. So don't worry! I bet most people on this forum aren't perfect pitch (I'm certainly not!!) the only thing you need to be good at is relative pitch, for example sight singing in grade 5+ aural (you might know already I realise) which is when you get the key chord and the tonic note, and are then asked to sing a tune that is put in front of you whe you have been givn these notes.

So don't panic about it, it won't make any difference when you take your exams whether you have it or not!

Hope this helped!
Anna
xxxx

Hi..

Just because you dont have perfect pitch, it doesn't mean you won't succeed musically. Apparently the person who wrote the soundtrack for the movie Gladiator can't read a note of music. He does all his composition on computer. Look how successful he is and he can't read music!! I have perfect pitch and it is a great advantage. You know you can learn how to get relative pitch which is more or less the same thing as perfect pitch.

Good luck with your music studies!

no!!!it doesnt!!

I have the complete opposite of perfect pitch-nowhere near any pitch!!!

Nat

Same here, I feel so embaressed doing aurals, I mean I end up making up all the singing and stuff. I mean for the melodic memory bit at grade 7 I ended up somewhere around the dominant note instead of the tonic.

The funny thing is, I seem to be able to tell that, does this hint at a secret talent I don't know about??