Just wanted to see what people thought of the matter!!

I've got perfect pitch and at times I wish I hadn't!!! It's great for aural and sight-singing but when a choir goes slightly flat or i'm given music in a different key to what it's performed in it drives me mad!!

I know I should consider myself lucky to have it but at times I wish i could turn it on and off!!!

You rightly say it's a mixed blessing.

By all means carry on this thread, but thought you might like to see what people have said before about perfect pitch - it's a pretty regular topic, unsurprisingly given this is a music forum!

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=6662&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=4745&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=4506&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=3304&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=2590&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=1684&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=558&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=363&hl=
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=364&hl=

Somebody's just written a book about it and apparently only 1 in 10,000 people have it. They're not all musicians, either. As you say, there's very little advantage in it for a musician because it makes transposing very difficult, and if music's being played slightly below or above concert pithc, ditto.

The best thing to have is good relative pitch, and excellent intonation.

What I really covet is the ability to extemporise on the piano to a virtuosic level. It must be absolutely wonderful to be able to do that - just sit at the piano and knock out any tune by ear, and play it beautifully. To play like Teddy Wilson - mmmm!!!

Violinia

There's lad at school who can play entire sonatas on the piano without once seeing the music.

My friend has perfect pitch and I've asked her how she knows it's an A she's tuning to and she says she just "knows". It must be perfectly normal to her, but I find it weird!

It's possible that no-one will believe me, but you can teach yourself to have perfect pitch. I did it when I was doing my A-levels (in despair at ever being able to do the aurals - in those days you had to transcribe an atonal melody, don't know if you still do). I know other people who've done it too. (I even got some way towards teaching my mum!)

First I learnt where an A was, by carrying round a tuning fork - think of what you think an A is in an idle moment, then check against the fork. Eventually it 'sticks'. Then you go through a phase of working out what different notes are in relation to the A (I found D the most useful one to go for next, because as a fifth it sounds 'right' - then you have 2 reference points). Eventually you don't need to refer things back to A at all, you just get a feel for what they're like on their own.

It's not foolproof, and if I have a cold or something I can get a semitone out, but it's usually pretty accurate. It has the advantage that if a choir I'm in is transposing something, or if I'm listening to a period recording, I can make myself 'forget' what the true pitch should be.

Someone might say that that's not really perfect pitch, just good relative pitch, but it works like perfect pitch for me. My theory is that people who have had perfect pitch their whole lives just went through the process described above (or a similar one) at a very young age, so it seems natural to them.

I seem to remember something from a good few years back where a Russian pianist was playing in a concert in this country, and as the A is tuned slightly higher (I think) in Russia, the concert piano he was playing on over here sounded flat to him and really put him off so he requested it to be tuned up to the Russian A, with the unfortunate consequence that it was now out of tune with the orchestra (although some instruments managed to tune up slightly, obviously some couldn't - so the orchestra was out of tune with itself too!) So in this case, definitely a curse (I bet the audience thought so too!!!) And I think this was a true story!

It also reminds me of the joke about the accompanist who was accompanying a singer who couldn't sing very well in tune - the audience could see him (the accompanist) getting more and more frustrated until finally he threw up his hands in despair and cried: "I transpose eet up, I transpose eet down, and all the time she sings in zee cracks!!!!"

that's interesting. Following a bad bout of flu a couple of years ago I had partial blockage in one ear, and I was convinced for a day or two that someone had found the "transpose" facility on my Clavinova.

Really worrying - and a relief when things sounded normal again.

Is it only advantageous for, say, an orchestral player to have perfect pitch? Or can solo pianists "use" this skill too?

I wouldn't say I have perfect pitch, just a very good pitch memory. If you name me a piece, I can sing the first phrase in key (obviously a piece I know...), and say, "the first note is a G..... Eine Kleine Nachtmusik starts on a G which is...." and work it that way. I can ntell if a piano is sharp or flat, but that's because I can remember what the true pitch is. Saying that, my clarinet is always sharp, so If i actually tune it to A = 440Hz I panic that I'm flat. That is a pain!

The strings peri at out school says she wishes she could turn it off though! We went on a music residential and she said to me "I was rudely awakened by the shower this morning." and I replied "That creaking is quite loud isnt it!"
the she said "But it's an F#!", and I was like " Is that so bad?" and she said "YES!! It's a flat F#, not F# but not yet F! It breaks my ears! Oh I'm so nerdy!"

My teacher, as good as he is, just cannot sightread even simple pieces on my piano because its in flat pitch. He calls it a curse so I suppose it probably better to have 'good relative pitch' like Kate and Claire

I understand Perfect Pitch to be an enhanced ability to detect a particular frequency of sound. If this is this the case, it is something one is born with and cannot be learned. Clearly a reference point is needed and therefore each musician will relate to the frequency of the notes he is accustomed to hearing. I have perfect pitch and, on the whole, I'm sure it is an advantage. I have only experienced one problem when I had to tune my violin down a semitone to match an out of tune piano. I found it quite impossible to play.

I think it IS different from "real" perfect pitch - but possibly more useful, as you can conveniently forget it if necessary. Whereas someone with perfect pitch can't, and will struggle. I suspect those who have gone through a similar process as a child are those who end up with perfect pitch that they can choose to ignore (I agree, one can learn that, it's a case of having very good relative pitch and learning to remember pitches - it eventually will become automatic) whereas those who do genuinely have a superior pitch sense for some reason have the more absolute but possibly less helpful version... if that makes sense!

It is possible to have perfect pitch for a transposing instrument, so it's not a case of automatically being able to hear 440htz and say "oh it's an A" at birth, because one's pitch sense obviously has to be married to an understanding of music to SOME degree, but I think there are people who have an absolute pitch which will allow them to differentiate between pitches incredibly accurately and automatically, though actually it probably isn't always or even most of the time a blessing unless all the music and all the musicians around you are perfectly pitched!

In one of the earlier threads about it, someone gave an example of a person who could, if you played a random bunch of notes all together on the piano would be able to pick out and name each one individually... I could well be wrong but I'd think that would be tough to do with just pitch memory and good relative pitch?

I wish i had perfect pitch. One of my teachers heard a drill drilling, and immediatly said - OO - ITS A DRILL IN Db. I was dead jealous, I want to tryt and learn perfect pitch. Is it really helpful, or unneeded??

I'm not really sure how you get it, whether it's from birth or you pick it up. I always knew the starting note from hymns so I suppose it just happened! None of my family are musical so I can't use that excuse either!!

It's great to check tuning when you're playing solos but if something's out of tune that really throws me. All I can think about is the out-of-tune instrument instead of relaxing and enjoying the music.

It's a hinderence when you're asked what note the toilet flush is!!!

It's great fun though showing off occasionally and telling someone the humming or whatever noise they can hear is an Eb for example and then going and proving it on then piano!!!!!

But this 'born' thing doesn't make sense, sorry. You're not *born* knowing that 440 hertz is called 'A'. You have to *learn* that it's called A. What's the difference between learning it as a tiny child and learning it at age 17? Only that in the former, you don't realise you're learning.

Maybe I'm being misleading because I said that I referred everything back to A at first. I think this was only a short-cut process, to speed things up: I think if I wanted to, I could have carried around a tuning fork to A and learnt that, and then carried around a tuning fork for B and learnt that, etc etc.

I could do it, Sarah, sorry! I really think that this distinction that is being made between 'relative pitch' and 'perfect pitch' is a false one. They're not separate things, at the most they're on a continuum. (Anyway, what is 'pitch memory' but perfect pitch anyway?!)

I have perfect pitch, but is there anything you can use it for besides:
- sight singing without a reference note
- figuring out keys
- figuring out melodies
- naming notes
- aural exercises
- ...
?

My friends find it quite amusing... they often joke about me being a jukebox because they sometimes hand me a piece of music and tell me to sing it.
And we're about to have a school carnival, and they said I should sit at a booth and sell notes for 5 cents apiece.
Silly.

Really? 1 in 10,000??? But I don't agree on the fact that there's very little advantage in it for a musician. It really helps in composition and arranging, so you don't have to go to the piano to try it.

I think I have perfect pitch, but I must say that not everyone who has perfect pitch can immediately do everything: sing without needing a starting note, recognize tones without any reference, and so on. I can distinguish easily from one note on the piano to another without any reference, but sometimes it's more difficult on unfamiliar instruments (like this afternoon I was just trying to compare the pitch of the traditional instruments of the gamelan, and that was difficult by just hearing). And I can't sing perfectly, either. Maybe because I've never been trained in singing during my life.

Oh absolutely - obviously you're not born knowing that 440htz = A, as I said in another post - and of course, it would not explain those who have perfect pitch at other frequencies because that's the usual A in their country, or those who have it on a transposing instrument (ie concert pitch A they hear but know it by whatever it is written as on their instrument.) The pitch sense has to be married with an idea of A = whatever, and obviously people with no musical training, however well they can remember and differentiate pitches, will not know the note names or how the notes relate to each other unless they have learned, although I guess most people with any musical inclination will notice that notes at the octave sound alike in some way even if they don't know why.


Hey, don't apologise - it's encouraging to hear that someone can learn to do that. All notes played together? Even if they were a totally random selection across the keyboard? Anyway it's just a theory, I don't claim expertise!

I do think that there must be some difference however - some differentiation - because some people can "turn off" their perfect pitch, others cannot, and I have read about people who have perfect pitch within a range of a few hertz - ie very slightly sharp or flat will not phase them, and others who will be sensitive to even A = 440 vs A =442, and can either adjust or cannot. Some people with perfect pitch, if they are reading from music but singing in a different key - ie it's been transposed but they're reading from the same music - will

By the way - pitch memory is what I would describe it for someone like me who can pitch or identify an A (circa 440) fairly reliably, but I would have to "work it out" for another note, and would have no problems reading a transposed part, and would be hard pressed to tell something was sharp or flat without a reference. ie, if you ask me to pitch an A, I'll be spot on to very close, but if you play a note that's somewhat sharp or flat and TELL me it is an A, then unless I am very sharp that day or have recently been playing (ie I just came from practice or a rehearsal) then I probably wouldn't notice, and if you handed me a piece of music and told me to sing it, I would not automatically start on the right note all of the time - though I might if I knew the piece very well (ie had pitch memory for how it started) or if it started on an A or on a . I would say, I have good pitch memory for A, (but not infaillable) but I certainly don't have perfect pitch. I also have very good relative pitch - ie I can sing and identify intervals, I know what the relationship between notes should be - so I can sing/play in tune. But if you played me a random piece such as the A Level atonal thing and told me to transcribe it, I wouldn't be able to just do it automatically - I'd probably make a good effort, but I doubt I'd be totally accurate. Whereas the guy in our class who had perfect pitch could do it first time.

DGA: you don't need to have perfect pitch to be able to compose away from the piano - good relative pitch will work just as well.

If you have listened mainly to European style music, I'm not surprised you had difficulty with a gamelan. No gamelan would have all its notes coinciding with those of a Western instrument, because their intervals are not the near harmonic ones that work with bowed strings and blown wind. Gamelans use two different scales, a five-note one called slendro and a seven-note one called pelog. Each is optimised for the timbres of the instruments that use them. Gamelan tuning is a favourite example for the psycho-acousticians who wish to demonstrate that acoustic consonance and dissonance depend upon timbre.

I agree with Claire21

I'm trying to train myself to remember what A sounds like and D as well.

But I always thought to myself - why do people only refer to musicians as having perfect pitch?/people who can play instruments? why them only?

Yeah I think the same. Perfect pitch can be good in most cases but annoying in others.

I was trying to do that, because the gamelan was about to play with an ordinary electronic keyboard, and using my perfect pitch (sorry if it seems a bit arrogant) the player kept playing B minor and F# major chords. The pentatonic slendro scale is used (or something like that-the numbers 1-5 are used to indicate notes in place of letters), I soon discovered that the notes were tuned to B, C#, D, F# and G. But still I know that they're can't be compared directly to the European tuning.

I have to disagree on this DGA - I think that's exactly the sort of thing someone who has perfect pitch would be able to do - pick up a note to start without being given a note by someone else.

You are not born knowing 440hz is called 'A', but then again you are not born knowing that the colour green is called 'green'. You are however born (unless you are colour blind) with an ability to see the difference between red and green without reference to a colour chart. Learning the colour names just gives you the ability to express what you can already see. I think it's the same with perfect pitch, although perhaps some people who can hear the differences between notes never learn the note names through lack of musical training to express what they are hearing.

I have a reasonable pitch memory-if you play me a scale on a piano I can usually tell what scale has been played. However that just comes from having played them , in the same way that you recognise tunes. I did however run into problems when I started clarinet. I always experience a severe sense of disorientation when playing scales- to such an extent that on many occasions I actually feel nauseous! The only way I have been able to partly overcome this is by NOT thinking about what scale I am playing in terms of its name and contents and hence sound on a piano, but by imagining the tonic, once I've played it ,as a "floating" note and building the scale by sound alone without thinking what notes I'm playing! Needless to say my clarinet scales aren't very good! I also have trouble playing pieces that are in A where there is a frequent return to the tonic at the start of phrases-again the ears expect one sound but get another-it makes me feel sick! It only happens in A presumably as its a note whose concert sound I know.

I would be interested to hear from any other players of transposing instruments out there. Do you suffer in a similar way ?

I should think if it's bad enough that it makes you feel ill, you must have something approaching perfect pitch!

No- I would be unable to identify single random notes on a piano unless I made a scale out of each one or I would have to pitch an A in my head & work it out from there or be given a reference note. Even then there would be no guarantee of getting it right! I am just able to remember the sound of scales on an instrument in C having learnt these first as each one has a unique "feel" to it. It's no different to remembering a tune! It's a matter of memory not innate recognition. I can play most pieces on a clarinet without any of the problems that scales cause. If I had perfect pitch I imagine it would be a nightmare!

Hmmm, that's really interesting! We're very complex creatures, aren't we?

William A. Sethares reported, in his book "Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale",* his investigations during 1995 of the tunings and spectra of some gamelans, include one that had been made only the year before. One of the genders (the lead metallophone in slendro tuning) of the Gamelan Kyai Kaduk Manis had the following frequencies in its central octave:

. . . Hz . . nearest note name
1 . 279 . C sharp
2 . 320 . E half flat
3 . 367 . G one third flat
4 . 420 . A flat
5 . 480 . B half flat

You will see that only one interval is less than a tone and that one is still more than a semitone. The slendro tuning of another gamelan that he listed was similar. Of course, all gamelan tunings are individual (Benjamin Britten visited Indonesia, and it was reported that he could tell where he was at night by listening to the tuning of the local gamelan), but I am surprised that one had a slendro tuning with two semitones, even approximate ones, in it. Perhaps it was recently built to fit in with the Western tuning of the keyboard.

* Springer-Verlag, London, 1998, ISBN 3 540 76173 X

Clarissa, I'd say you have what I would call 'latent perfect pitch' - you could have 'perfect pitch' if you worked at it. This is precisely what I'm saying about it being on a continuum - you're very far along the continuum towards what most people are calling 'natural' perfect pitch. And I would say there IS NO SUCH THING as 'innate recognition', it is *always* memory; it's just whether you're aware of it being memory or not.

Incidentally, I'm an oboist, but I can't play cor - the transposition drives me nuts. And that's from someone who most people seem to be saying doesn't have perfect pitch but 'just' good pitch memory. (I still am not convinced there is a difference!).

Claire, you did say at one point that you were able to "ignore" your perfect pitch when something was out... maybe I misunderstood?

I did, but only if the difference is a semitone or maybe a tone. Any more than that is tricky. The other day I was listening to a CD of harpsichord music with a score, and the harpsichord was tuned a tone lower - *that* was hard but I could just about do it if I concentrated.

Cor anglais is right out - it's just impossible to 'think in' the note when I'm preparing to play, and then get a totally different one coming out. I'd be happier to have to learn different fingerings and read the notes at pitch, like an alto recorder!

Ahhh I see! That's really interesting. I find it fascinating how different people find different things possible/completely impossible with perfect/good/whatever pitch. I actually totally agree about the alto recorder, I don't find it a particular problem switching between the two fingerings wise, but it annoys me playing the clarinet that it isn't in C! though I would have at best good relative pitch and the ability to (usually) pitch an A with some degree of accuracy. I have read of some perfect pitch people (ppps?lol) that they find it easier when it's a bigger gap... I wonder why people find such different things either easier or just impossible. We are (as I commented before) incredibly complex creatures, aren't we?

I find it fine having perfect pitch apart from anything with white noise. I cannot bear the computer or the fridge or even sitting in an aeroplane - the constant 1 note drives me bolistic - Id rather have someone singing at full volume in my ear - at least the note might change

Oh you too! I thought I was the only one suffering!
The low notes of heavy lorries get to me too - even though they do vary a bit. Really get inside my head - and my other half doesn't notice them so thinks I am - odd. My friends and neighbours are very polite but I'm sure they find me some kind of freak who is just over-sensitive to any kind of noise.

When I was a child I was told I had perfect pitch, but if I did I seem to have outgrown it .

I used to have very sensitive hearing, and used to cry and block my ears around vacuum cleaners, washing machines or when being driven over "loud" road surfaces. I always used to sing songs in tune, in the key I'd heard them, which was very annoying if I couldn't reach a note - I had no clue how to sing the song a few notes higher or lower. If anything was played very slightly out of tune, I would feel nauseous. Completely wrong notes weren't such a problem - just if the note was correct but not quite in tune. I had no musical training, so could not have told you which note was which, etc.

When I was about 11-12 I started managing to switch key when singing so that I could reach all the notes in a song. I also played around on a very out of tune piano and sang with a choir (which was probably also fairly out-of-tune) - still had no idea of note names or how to read music, though. By the time I started officially learning music a year or two later I had totally overcome any pitch-ability I might have had. Don't know where it went . I can still remember the pitch (sound) of certain songs I know well - particularly those I heard a lot as a child - but I couldn't tell you off-hand the note names as I never learned those at the time. If I don't try too hard, I can normally sing a note on demand (especially if it's A or C), but as soon as I start thinking about it I lose confidence and start second-guessing myself. All in all, this is no use to me whatsoever .

This reminded me of something that used to happen when I was very small. I'm older than you, and we didn't have lots of noisy appliances when I was little - although I can remember loathing the vacuum cleaner.

But before I was at school - around the age of 3 or so I guess, my mother and I used to go for a walk down a long hill to the "Penn Road shops". From time to time coming up this long hill would be heavily laden lorries carrying sand. They used to frighten me enormously, and I would cover my ears and scream (how logical is that!) to keep out the noise. I'd see them coming a distance away; they were slow and would take an age to get to us, and I would dread them getting closer and closer. Gosh - hadn't thought of that for years!

It must be very frustrating for you knowing that you had something like perfect pitch at one time, Fred.

Ditto - it isn't just you guys. Buzzing, hissing, white noise type noises, I find them all incredibly hard to ignore. I don't understand how people can sleep with electrical equipment in their rooms, let alone turned ON... horrible!

Fred, that must be frustrating. I can sing A on demand but like you I tend to second guess myself!

I am very sensitive to loud noise in general - even someone who talks very loudly can get to me on a bad day. Partly it's to do with the ME though I think. At A Level one of my French teachers had a particularly loud and piercing voice, I had to concentrate sometimes not to cringe away from her when she was talking to me - what i really wanted to do was curl up in a corner and stuff my fingers in my ears, but when you're 17 teachers react badly to that for some reason...

Most of the time I can do that, but that doesn't mean I never make mistakes! Sometimes I do something stupid, like mixing up the color of one note and the other

Ah...you could be right, I think. My guesses weren't too far from that, right?

However, I must remind you of the types of gamelan found in Indonesia. That person who tried to measure the precise tuning could had only tried a few types of gamelan, while we know that there are dozens of different gamelan "formations". And the gamelan is tuned right when it's being made, so if there are a few accidents in heating, the tuning could differ slightly. Actually, I'm part of the Sundanese Degung Gamelan, and the tuning could differ even more. I did notice that number "5" wasn't exactly as high as B; it seemed rather off-tune, but I still really think that number "1" and "2" are the notes G and F#.

My aural lecturer has perfect pitch.

His advice for getting around it was to change clefs and key signatures.

For example: If you want to get to concert pitch (we'll assume here that the key signature for all my examples is C major and the clef is treble clef)

Written for D instrument -- Alto clef gets you into conert pitch

Written for Db instrument -- Alto clef

Written for Bb instrument -- Tenor clef

Written for A instrument -- Soprano clef

Written for G instrument -- Baritone clef,

Written for F instrument -- Mezzo-soprano clef

Written for E intrument -- Bass clef

Written for Eb instrument -- Bass clef

in my experience as a cathedral chorister and musician
A is the easiest and most common note to know i think,

FAFAWEWASA

I have pretty good relative pitch I guess; when i hear something i 'see' the notes in my head, but autotransposed into a 'nice' key (ie, c or g) if that makes sense. as in, when i hear soemthing I'd be able to play it straight off, but transposed into a key I like. and at the same time, 'feel' notes in my fingers (in a flute position) which often results in me doing a strange airflute (like airguitar, only with a flute)/humming kind of thing when i hear seomtihng, without noticing it argh.


but for 'proper'perfect pitch i remember this test:

perfect pitch test

I lost patience after a bit but if you have perfect pitch you should be able to do that ^^ ?