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Posted

I'm curious - how many of you here have perfect pitch?

For those who don't know, perfect pitch or absolute pitch is the ability to recognize a note that's being played without any reference.

I don't have it personally and it's something that's been bugging me for a while... I mean, I listen to music everyday, I've been playing music since a very young age, both alone and in orchestras/harmonies, so I've been surrounded by music for as long as I can remember, but I still can't identify notes by ear. Some people have this ability naturally, others don't and scientifics still don't have solid evidences about the cause of this.

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Posted

My sister plays the piano and has perfect pitch. One of my uncles plays the violin and has perfect pitch.

I've never really received any musical training, so I have no idea whether I have it or not. Probably not though. :)

Posted

I haven't been blessed with that ability. It's something you just can't train. I can get close by a 3rd interval more or less, but never the right note, if I hit it, it's just pure chance. I still remember with hatred the music dictations in my elementary school days. If the teacher didn't give a reference... :palm:

Posted

I think it's an interesting discussion, because what we want as audiophiles is a good reproduction of live sound, but if most of us can't even discern if a pitch is right or not, or if a melody has been transposed, we're already loosing quite a bit of "fidelity".

Posted

I've heard that a great number of people who do have it also have a difficulty enjoying listening to music, for them its analogous to mathematics. Almost a synaesthesia type of effect.

Posted
I've heard that a great number of people who do have it also have a difficulty enjoying listening to music, for them its analogous to mathematics. Almost a synaesthesia type of effect.

Shenanigans! I have no difficulty enjoying music and I have perfect pitch...or do I... :rock:

Posted

Having the ability to know which note you're hearing has nothing to do with the ability to enjoy music, or know if what you're hearing sounds like what it's supposed to.

Posted
Having the ability to know which note you're hearing has nothing to do with the ability to enjoy music, or know if what you're hearing sounds like what it's supposed to.

Do you have perfect pitch? If not, how can you know it doesn't affect the enjoyment of music?

Posted
Perfect pitch is just the ability to identify what notes you're hearing. Whether you enjoy those notes is a separate issue.

I agree with what you're saying, but I'll continue to play the devil's advocate. ;)

Let's say we were talking about art instead of headphones. You could probably enjoy a painting even if you didn't know the colors, but a good part of the fun is in the analysis of the painting in question. Why would it be different for music?

Posted

I enjoy art without knowing how to identify each hue exactly. That's what perfect pitch is, in color terms.

You can analyze what's going on in a musical piece without being able to identify individual notes as you listen.

Posted
I enjoy art without knowing how to identify each hue exactly. That's what perfect pitch is, in color terms.

You can analyze what's going on in a musical piece without being able to identify individual notes as you listen.

I share pretty much the same point of view, I'm just being annoyed because perfect pitch is something that possibly can't be learned even if you really want to. It's quite frustrating in fact. My relative pitch is pretty good though so I guess I'm not missing much, but I'm still jealous of those with perfect pitch. :P

Posted
I've heard that a great number of people who do have it also have a difficulty enjoying listening to music, for them its analogous to mathematics. Almost a synaesthesia type of effect.

yes, I know a number of people like this, it's quite common, so my audiologist says.

Posted
So the problem is over-analysis, not perfect pitch.

I do not have perfect pitch, but I have pretty good relative pitch.

nope, not over-analysis, just that many recording or sound reproduction systems are off-pitch or introduce pitch issues, hence the annoyance.

edit: perhaps I disagree with the term over-analysis. It's an innate/subconscious analysis, not an purposeful analysis.

Posted
I think it's an interesting discussion, because what we want as audiophiles is a good reproduction of live sound, but if most of us can't even discern if a pitch is right or not, or if a melody has been transposed, we're already loosing quite a bit of "fidelity".

I don't care about reproduction of live sound. I want to listen to reproduced music that sounds "good". I definitely don't have perfect pitch.

Posted

IMO having perfect pitch is just having the ability to put a right name to a note, which is completely different to recognizing notes as different, being able to know if a piano is well tuned, recognizing instruments for their timbre and knowing if the timbre reproduction is right, acknowledging if a band is performing well tuned and playing in time.... For a musician can be handy having perfect pitch, but for the rest of human loving music, I find it quite irrelevant.

Posted
IMO having perfect pitch is just having the ability to put a right name to a note, which is completely different to recognizing notes as different, being able to know if a piano is well tuned, recognizing instruments for their timbre and knowing if the timbre reproduction is right, acknowledging if a band is performing well tuned and playing in time.... For a musician can be handy having perfect pitch, but for the rest of human loving music, I find it quite irrelevant.

True, but if you can't put a name to a note, it also proves that your hearing is not as focused and accurate as it could be, meaning you could do all the things you said even better if you had perfect pitch. At least, that's how I see it, but I might be wrong.

Posted

My mom has perfect pitch, and it does annoy her at times (she is a musician). She can tell you what pitch it is (A, B-flat, etc.) and also approximately how sharp or flat it is. Neither my twin brother or I have it, but we are/were both musicians as well. I have very good relative pitch, but apparently that can be learned.

Posted

Damn, I wish I can cite a reference, but my understanding is a large percentage of professional musicians (classical, etc) don't have perfect pitch; it isn't required.

Posted
IMO having perfect pitch is just having the ability to put a right name to a note, which is completely different to recognizing notes as different, being able to know if a piano is well tuned, recognizing instruments for their timbre and knowing if the timbre reproduction is right, acknowledging if a band is performing well tuned and playing in time.... For a musician can be handy having perfect pitch, but for the rest of human loving music, I find it quite irrelevant.
Thank you. That's what I was referencing when I said I had good relative pitch.
Posted
Damn, I wish I can cite a reference, but my understanding is a large percentage of professional musicians (classical, etc) don't have perfect pitch; it isn't required.

It's not required at all, my mom doesn't have perfect pitch and she's a professional violinist in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. There are plenty of her colleagues who don't have it either, but they all have incredible relative pitch at least.

I remember seeing a website that listed which great composers had relative hearing and which didn't.

Posted
True, but if you can't put a name to a note, it also proves that your hearing is not as focused and accurate as it could be, meaning you could do all the things you said even better if you had perfect pitch. At least, that's how I see it, but I might be wrong.

What if I had perfect pitch, but since I'm not musically trained, I don't know it?

Posted
What if I had perfect pitch, but since I'm not musically trained, I don't know it?

I guess you could just try playing notes on piano or a keyboard and if you can identify notes the same way you see colors, that means you have it. You don't really need to know the notes names, just try to see if you can remember the "texture" of the tones. Since I don't have it, I can't provide much more feedback about that.

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