Perfect Pitch

[longknife]

My foster father was a classically trained pianist who got into Big Band music with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in the 20s and 30s. He later worked at various movie studios in Hollywood before WWII.

I don't know what to call it but he drove me and his friends nuts when listening to music as he would always grimace and groan when the performers missed a note or chord.

He would go to the Hollywood Bowl to listen to the philharmonic orchestra and he would point out the exact musician who made a goof.

He could also hear a tune and sit down at the piano or the electric organ he had and play it chord for chord at the first try.

I learned to read music and sang in church and school choirs but never, ever had his gift.

 

[Crepitus]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

 

[SweetSue92]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

 

[SweetSue92]

Everyone please note that perfect pitch occurs in, at best, 1 in 1,000 people--perhaps as little as 1 in 10,000 people. I went to school with ALL MUSIC MAJORS and knew one person who had it. I work with music educators and none of us have it. It is very rare.

But thus far, two people here have claimed it when, best as I can tell, they have good pitch: they can hear and reproduce sound faithfully. That's great, but really it's not all that special in the music world. If you can't do that, you can't even be a musician, really.

That's why, when people say they have perfect pitch, most musician's eyes glaze over. And we say, "yeah uh-huh".

 

[SweetSue92]

My foster father was a classically trained pianist who got into Big Band music with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in the 20s and 30s. He later worked at various movie studios in Hollywood before WWII.

I don't know what to call it but he drove me and his friends nuts when listening to music as he would always grimace and groan when the performers missed a note or chord.

He would go to the Hollywood Bowl to listen to the philharmonic orchestra and he would point out the exact musician who made a goof.

He could also hear a tune and sit down at the piano or the electric organ he had and play it chord for chord at the first try.

I learned to read music and sang in church and school choirs but never, ever had his gift.

He had a musician's ear. It sounds like a very good one. Whether he had perfect pitch or not, I can't tell from what you have said here.

 

[Crepitus]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

 

[SweetSue92]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

 

[SweetSue92]

He is wrong that perfect pitch is equal to being able to label the key name as played. Perfect pitch is able to hear a note and being able to recreate it perfectly on key. There are those with perfect pitch that can’t read a note of music on paper. That was a truly bad example for his belief.

You are describing relative pitch or "playing by ear". It's pretty common for musicians to have this skill. Perfect pitch is being able to identify the key of a song just by hearing it or identify the exact notes of a chord by hearing it.

Yes, that would be about it. Musicians are often also trained in "sight singing"...so, if you are given an A, you can then find any other pitch from the scale from there and sing it. That can be strengthened and trained. Perfect pitch cannot.

 

[Crepitus]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

 

[sparky]

the thing is, Bach's tempered scale is inherently imperfect.....~S~

 

[SweetSue92]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

 

[Crepitus]

I suffer from perfect pitch, and did before I could read music. It's like an aural oscilloscope, I can hear the difference between two tones, even if one is only a memory, making it possible for me to reproduce it perfectly with my voice, by whistling, or with an instrument.

I do not automatically remember every note I have ever heard. I cannot pick up and instrument I am unfamiliar with and play a note. While I can tell you what key a song is in I cannot tell you if the 47th note is b-flat.

Auto-tune drives me insane.

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

I can match a pitch from memory, but college was 30 years ago and right now I couldn't pick a "c" outta the air. However I can whistle the 1812 overture from end to end. Minus the cannon shots of course.

 

[sparky]

can you pick out intervals Crepitus?

~S~

 

[SweetSue92]

That's not perfect pitch.

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

I can match a pitch from memory, but college was 30 years ago and right now I couldn't pick a "c" outta the air. However I can whistle the 1812 overture from end to end. Minus the cannon shots of course.

People with perfect pitch don't get rusty. Like you would not be unable to play a pitch pipe if you had one, unless you were incapacitated. They don't get rusty because the pitch pipe is in their head; it's not a skill they learned or had to practice. They were born with it. That's it.

What you're calling "perfect pitch" is simply accurate internal hearing. That is universal among musicians. Or they are horrid and should not (or can not) be musicians in the first place.

 

[Crepitus]

You may call it whatever you feel like, it doesn't change it.

Have a nice day.

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

I can match a pitch from memory, but college was 30 years ago and right now I couldn't pick a "c" outta the air. However I can whistle the 1812 overture from end to end. Minus the cannon shots of course.

People with perfect pitch don't get rusty. Like you would not be unable to play a pitch pipe if you had one, unless you were incapacitated. They don't get rusty because the pitch pipe is in their head; it's not a skill they learned or had to practice. They were born with it. That's it.

What you're calling "perfect pitch" is simply accurate internal hearing. That is universal among musicians. Or they are horrid and should not (or can not) be musicians in the first place.

Yes, they do. If you played me a "c" I could match it, then reproduce it at will as long as I remember it. Memories are not infallible.

 

[SweetSue92]

the thing is, Bach's tempered scale is inherently imperfect.....~S~

Probably. Because they don't allow for tiny gradients of pitch, for one thing.

You use one of those Snark tuners? I do for ukulele and guitar, only because it's really hard to tune a guitar while you're asking 25 kindergartners to be quiet and sit still...heh. So I snark tune, but don't always agree with it exactly. I go by ear rather than perfect frequencies.

 

[SweetSue92]

I'm not trying to change it. I'm saying if you tell a musician you have perfect pitch, that musician might use you as a human pitch pipe and expect you to produce, say a perfect D major chord, one pitch at a time, to begin a song. Because that's what perfect pitch is to musicians.

As I said, we had a student in my college choir who had perfect pitch, and she was essentially our human pitch pipe.

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

I can match a pitch from memory, but college was 30 years ago and right now I couldn't pick a "c" outta the air. However I can whistle the 1812 overture from end to end. Minus the cannon shots of course.

People with perfect pitch don't get rusty. Like you would not be unable to play a pitch pipe if you had one, unless you were incapacitated. They don't get rusty because the pitch pipe is in their head; it's not a skill they learned or had to practice. They were born with it. That's it.

What you're calling "perfect pitch" is simply accurate internal hearing. That is universal among musicians. Or they are horrid and should not (or can not) be musicians in the first place.

Yes, they do. If you played me a "c" I could match it, then reproduce it at will as long as I remember it. Memories are not infallible.

K well I would say people with perfect pitch don't have to "remember" the pitches. They hear them accurately every time, and not from memory. Or, as the video in the OP shows, they can do this in reverse: they can hear a pitch played from anywhere: the piano, an instrument, a voice, a train whistle, a school bell--and know what the pitch is. By note name.

 

[Crepitus]

She memorized along with the perfect pitch.

Explain that.

I can match a pitch from memory, but college was 30 years ago and right now I couldn't pick a "c" outta the air. However I can whistle the 1812 overture from end to end. Minus the cannon shots of course.

People with perfect pitch don't get rusty. Like you would not be unable to play a pitch pipe if you had one, unless you were incapacitated. They don't get rusty because the pitch pipe is in their head; it's not a skill they learned or had to practice. They were born with it. That's it.

What you're calling "perfect pitch" is simply accurate internal hearing. That is universal among musicians. Or they are horrid and should not (or can not) be musicians in the first place.

Yes, they do. If you played me a "c" I could match it, then reproduce it at will as long as I remember it. Memories are not infallible.

K well I would say people with perfect pitch don't have to "remember" the pitches. They hear them accurately every time, and not from memory. Or, as the video in the OP shows, they can do this in reverse: they can hear a pitch played from anywhere: the piano, an instrument, a voice, a train whistle, a school bell--and know what the pitch is. By note name.

As previously noted:

Call it what you want, doesn't change it.

 

[sparky]

Probably. Because they don't allow for tiny gradients of pitch, for one thing.

well i see it debated , the math is a tad over my head, but that's the jist Sue

You use one of those Snark tuners?

oh yeah.....

I do for ukulele and guitar, only because it's really hard to tune a guitar while you're asking 25 kindergartners to be quiet and sit still...heh

my undying respect Sue.

as an aside, we used to do the annual 'meet the meatwagon meatheads' for the little ones....so one of my 'cheer up' things was to blow up a glove and draw a face on it, thumb was the nose, fingers looked like a chicken mohawk....

so i do one up, and then i get this line of dunno how many kids all wanting one , the other emt's were laughing as i ran outta breath , then used me for the 'oxygen dummy' demonstration

~S~

 

[longknife]

I don't know what it is but I remember how surprised I was to hear music I was familiar with played with modern instruments and the same music played with instruments of the century in which it was written.


An amazing difference.