Perfect/Absolute Pitch

I assume someone else on this forum must have this.

I wouldn't be surprised if ass-loads of you have it.

Anyways, I've had it as long as I can remember. I assumed everyone did until my father and music teachers made a big deal out of it. Can't imagine life without it, goes hand-in-hand with hearing.

Maybe there's a lot of people with this ability who don't know they have it because they don't know shit about musical notation

I've always thought of that as well. I assume that if a person knows anything about music, or is moderately familiar with notes, they would be able to tell if they have it or not.

They'd just know what E sounds like, for example. Or, "That doorbell sounds like a G, and then an E".

I don't know. Just curious.

I have it too. I've been wrong before though for some reason. So it's not like it's magic.

I have it. Tends to be fairly prevalent in classical musicians.

I have perfect pitch and synaesthesia. Music means the world to me.

How do you feel about dissonance and detuned melodies then?

im kind of glad i don't. i'd be going mental fixing notes that were 0.5hz off and lose my overall focus.... i mean, i'm bad enough about that editing drums.

I don't think I have it naturally, but if I'm familiar with a song and I get it stuck in my head it tends to be in the right key (yeah, I test this out from time to time on the piano, I'm lame...). Then again, I don't usually think about what notes I'm playing when I'm playing an instrument, only the intervals between the notes. So it may be I just haven't ever made a mental note of what an E sounds like, though if I hear it in a song I usually remember it. I have a good memory for sounds, for instance I can still remember the voices of everyone in my grade 5 class very clearly.

My mate has it, pretty slick stuff.

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:35 PM, Murveman said:

I've always thought of that as well. I assume that if a person knows anything about music, or is moderately familiar with notes, they would be able to tell if they have it or not.

 

They'd just know what E sounds like, for example. Or, "That doorbell sounds like a G, and then an E".

 

I don't know. Just curious.

You have to draw a distinction between being able to recognize pitch in terms of frequency (which is necessarily linked to our perception of space and time) and the notes that western music has standardized to our "musical" understanding of frequencies

ie: G1 48.99 Hz

C3 130.81 Hz etc

In my opinion being able to recognize chords or notes from the typical 12 tone equal temperament scale and their respective octaves is a learned skill (though greatly influenced by an acute perception of frequency and tonality)

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:49 PM, impakt said:

How do you feel about dissonance and detuned melodies then?

it sounds better when it's dissonant and detuned

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:49 PM, impakt said:

How do you feel about dissonance and detuned melodies then?

I love Boards of Canada (they come to mind, naturally). I always loved BOC Maxima (The track; Can't remember the MHTRTC title of it). I think a big reason I love them is because their notes don't ever immediately register for me. I have to think pretty hard about what note they're playing ("Oh that note is in between E Flat and E" for example). So each time I listen to it it's not exactly as I imagine ahead of time.

Sadly, I'm tired of BOC Maxima, because I tried to learn it on keyboard, and I succeeded, but now I know the notes, so it's not exciting anymore.

Also, whenever I attempt to write music, I usually don't like it, but if I detune the melody I do like it.

It's all weird.

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:49 PM, impakt said:

How do you feel about dissonance and detuned melodies then?

I love that in many circumstances, though most of the time when a singer is off key it is painful to me (like more than 20 cents). But then there are some singers who sound good despite being mostly off key, like Nick Cave or Tom Waits. Guys with very masculine voices can pull it off. If I go even slightly off pitch however it's fucking horrible. But yeah, I really enjoy it when sounds are deliberately slightly out of tune. I'd pick a piano that's been sitting around in a smokey bar since the 20's over a brand new Yamaha grand piano any day. My mom has a piano that went through a tidal wave in the 50s and it sounds fantastic. Despite being out of tune it usually works really well in recordings, though there was one song I recorded it for recently where the out-of-tune-ness made it sound unlistenable, and we had to redo it with a mediocre Yamaha keyboard for the sake of the tuning. I'm not entirely sure why it was so intolerable in that one specific case... probably just one particular out of tune note that was played heavily in that one song that really clashed with the other instruments. Sounded fine on its own mind you...

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:01 AM, Scrambled Ears said:

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:35 PM, Murveman said:

I've always thought of that as well. I assume that if a person knows anything about music, or is moderately familiar with notes, they would be able to tell if they have it or not.

 

They'd just know what E sounds like, for example. Or, "That doorbell sounds like a G, and then an E".

 

I don't know. Just curious.

You have to draw a distinction between being able to recognize pitch in terms of frequency (which is necessarily linked to our perception of space and time) and the notes that western music has standardized to our "musical" understanding of frequencies

 

ie: G1 48.99 Hz

C3 130.81 Hz etc

 

In my opinion being able to recognize chords or notes from the typical 12 tone equal temperament scale and their respective octaves is a learned skill (though greatly influenced by an acute perception of frequency and tonality)

I'm speaking of note values, not Hz. Though some people can identify sounds by the specific Hz. Amazing.

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:05 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:49 PM, impakt said:

How do you feel about dissonance and detuned melodies then?

 

I'd pick a piano that's been sitting around in a smokey bar since the 20's over a brand new Yamaha grand piano any day. My mom has a piano that went through a tidal wave in the 50s and it sounds fantastic.

I completely agree with you.

I tune only by ear, does that mean I've got perfect pitch?

Maybe not... because I fucking love detune in music, and making new scales whenever I can.

  On 3/28/2011 at 11:55 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I don't think I have it naturally, but if I'm familiar with a song and I get it stuck in my head it tends to be in the right key (yeah, I test this out from time to time on the piano, I'm lame...). Then again, I don't usually think about what notes I'm playing when I'm playing an instrument, only the intervals between the notes. So it may be I just haven't ever made a mental note of what an E sounds like, though if I hear it in a song I usually remember it. I have a good memory for sounds, for instance I can still remember the voices of everyone in my grade 5 class very clearly.

i agree here... bunch of warbly heat-sensitive synths, you tune it about where you feel is right. doesn't matter if A=440hz, just matters that everything sounds in tune with each other.

would be weird having that as an absolute thing instead of just relative to what i hear now

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:08 AM, ganus said:

I tune only by ear, does that mean I've got perfect pitch?

Maybe not... because I fucking love detune in music, and making new scales whenever I can.

Dunno. I can't stand making new scales. I also can't play in realtime if it's detuned. I get confused. I generally record everything I play ahead of time, detune it, then like it.

Do you notice if a song is in a different key? Baroque arrangements are a good example, they vary by a half step a lot (A song in A minor would be in G minor or something). I'm having trouble explaining.

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:11 AM, Murveman said:

  On 3/29/2011 at 12:08 AM, ganus said:

I tune only by ear, does that mean I've got perfect pitch?

Maybe not... because I fucking love detune in music, and making new scales whenever I can.

Dunno. I can't stand making new scales. I also can't play in realtime if it's detuned. I get confused. I generally record everything I play ahead of time, detune it, then like it.

 

Do you notice if a song is in a different key? Baroque arrangements are a good example, they vary by a half step a lot (A song in A minor would be in G minor or something). I'm having trouble explaining.

Yeah, I can tell when something is in a different key. I usually can't identify the key by ear, but I have no music training other than self training, and am far off from having memorized my scales.

I think I can just tell when stuff is harmonious, and when something changes timbre, and to me, scales and keys really affect timbre.

does it count if you can reproduce a sound with your voice after hearing it?

ive been told i can do that pretty spot on, but i dont think that counts.

most of the time when im making music (i dont know notation), when there is a melody im trying to get in floops, ill repeatedly sound the note out with my voice over and over until it matches up with the floop key on the keyboards.

i have it. i can automatically give you the basic tuning for a 6 string.

incidentally, a natural 'a' = 432 hz, not 440.

retune your daw and watch your music come to life.

is there a downside to this? i mean, is there an ability that's missing when you have perfect pitch? just curious.

I'm curious as to whether someone with perfect pitch would be bothered if an entire song was tuned down slightly, say a quarter of a semitone. So the whole thing's in tune with itself, but no note is quite in standard pitch. Is there a nagging sense of "ugh, everything's just slightly flatter than it should be"? That would be hilarious. It would make so many old recordings unlistenable.

  On 3/29/2011 at 6:46 AM, GORDO said:

is there a downside to this? i mean, is there an ability that's missing when you have perfect pitch? just curious.

Not that I'm aware of. If you detuned my piano several half steps down or up, I probably couldn't play it anymore. If I memorize a series of arps in one key, for example, it's extremely difficult to play it in another.

Also, if I hear a classical movement played in a different key, it bugs the fuck out of me. Can't listen to it anymore. Happens with Vavaldi all of the time. Grow up hearing it in A minor, all of a sudden, G# minor. Can't stand it.

Any of you others have downsides?

----

And yea, Zephyr, I can't handle that. My record player plays things half of a half step up from what it's supposed to. I can't listen to anything on it that I've heard before.

Related to this as well. I don't have a clue what it is, sometimes (it's happened 2 or 3 times) music will be detuned a quarter step up or down (can't remember). I assumed I was sick or something, but my brother, who also has perfect pitch to an extent, noticed it too. Wtf could that be? Air pressure? Glitchy iPod?

how do you test for this? this interests me and i need a definitive answer.