Perfect pitch?

Question:my music teacher tells me i have that but i dont really know..when we do modulation exercises i can name the keys without her telling me which key she begins in and i can name notes on cue quite easily with very few mistakes. however, i cant seem to be able to identify it as easy as that when listening to a full orchestra or a band..so ..yeah do i have perfect pitch?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: my music teacher tells me i have that but i dont really know..when we do modulation exercises i can name the keys without her telling me which key she begins in and i can name notes on cue quite easily with very few mistakes. however, i cant seem to be able to identify it as easy as that when listening to a full orchestra or a band..so ..yeah do i have perfect pitch?

First of all you either have it or you don't... it is black and white and from what you say you have it. The trouble you have with not being able to identify full scores is that you have not been trained to use your gift. There are different levels of perfect pitch. I have perfect pitch and can hear practically everything. I can tell you the second oboe is flat or that principal trumpet is sharp. But it took years to develop the ear. In music, the goal is to refine the ear so that you can hear better. Music is about hearing so don't fret if you can't hear all the notes in an orchestra.

I have friends who have perfect pitch that have difficulty picking out every note but guess what, they really don't care. To be honest that is a needless task with perfect pitch. People tend to overrate the importance of perfect pitch. A person with excellent relative pitch has just as good of an ear if not better. Again, it is about how you use it.

I have a friend who does not have perfect pitch however she can quickly figure out keys, chords, harmonic progressions and can do music dictation better than anyone I have ever seen. She once transcribed this bizarre piece for orchestra for 8 french horns because the score was not available. It took her a couple hearings. Again that is a person with relative pitch.

aim to train and develop your ear. It is not that important to pick out the exact note as it is to hear the intervalic relationship between notes. Practice singing all intervals in all keys to fine tune your ear. If you want a challenge, pick up a Mahler Symphony and pick and instrument and follow their part all the way through. Sing their line and if you can sing and hear it then you are in good shape. This will take time as well. you won't be able to do this the first sitting.

And another way to improve your ear so you hear more is listening to Bach Fugues and again, sit with the score and sing along the moving line. Pick one contrapuntal voice. Or you can goto the piano, play the soprano line while singing one of the other voices. Again this will be a challenge at first but if you practice this, it will help your ear.

Perfect pitch is not important. It can be helpful, but to summarize - it is more important to train the ear and know how to use it. Know what you are listening too. Only a very good teacher can teach and develop your ear. It is something that the majority of music teachers ignore and never train. And 5 minutes at the end of a lesson is not enough. Ear training must be incorporated throughout the lesson. Every phrase, every note.

Sounds like you almost do, if you can name the notes when hearing them then yes you do, if you can hear a chord and identify the notes within that chord i would say you do too.

You've brought up a very interesting topic! My opinion is that yes, you do have perfect pitch and it only makes sense that picking individual notes out of a full orchestra is more difficult. After all, it's called perfect "pitch" not perfect "pitches."

However, I'm betting that if you take any piece of music and while listening, separate the orchestra into sections, then instrument by instrument, you can pull those notes out. This is certainly going to take some concentration on your part because you'll have to mentally block out the other instruments. However, most musicians I know, myself included, do this on a regular basis anyway, because we tend to be more interested in one instrument over another.

I've had to do this many times as an arranger when figuring out the bass, vs. rhythm guitar, vs. lead, etc.

I don't have perfect pitch, but "relative" pitch, and even that is enough to hear what's going on in the orchestra. Just keep at it!

Kabum

Hehe...I don't even know what that is...Sorry!

Perfect pitch is the ability to recognize a note within three semiquavers, with one hundred percent accuracy. It is also defined as the ability to produce that same pitch without any outside pitch source to rely on. This is extremely difficult to gauge since many people rely on a shelf tone, or internal pitch to guide them while being tested.

You probably have relative pitch, which can be much more valuable, since it can be developed with discipline. Perfect pitch is also part of the same genome that is related to alcoholism, so it is not necessarily the gift that most people consider it to be.

People with perfect, or absolute pitch often get irritated when a song is transposed into a different key, or even physically ill when a piece of music is not intonationally perfect. It can be a gift or a curse, depending on how you perceive it, but it is almost always somewhat limiting to those who have it. Individuals with perfect pitch often have trouble tuning their instruments, since "perfect" or meantone tuning is only functional for one key and when you change keys or even transpose, you have to tune all over again.

The tuning system we use today is not nearly accurate enough for someone with absolute pitch and they will often be absolutely miserable in ensemble settings. Best of luck no matter which type of hearing you have, but if you truly have absolute pitch (perfect pitch) you may want to talk to a professional as to how to deal with it. If you have relative pitch, enjoy it. That is truly a gift and something you can utilize without the above challenges and irritations.