Perfect pitch
I'm going to describe what it is like having perfect pitch, because I get asked so often. People have a way of taking things they don't understand, then blowing them hugely out of proportion - so this is partly inspired by some of the crazy questions I've gotten in the past.
Technical stuff: Perfect pitch, also called absolute pitch, is the ability to hear a particular note (or chord) and know, without a reference, which note it is. Compare this to relative pitch, which simply put is the ability to hear the difference in pitch between a note and a given reference (known as the musical interval). Most people have relative pitch to some degree - those who don't are tone-deaf and are normally found at concerts screaming the only note that doesn't fit the current song.
Perfect pitch is apparently much more rare, and is attributed to about 1 in 10,000 people. And apparently I'm that 1 in 10,000. Here's how it works - wake me up at 4am, sing a completely random note, and I'll tell you without hesitation that you sang the F above middle C, only you sang it slightly sharp, and please let me go back to sleep now. That's it. That's what I can do that 99.99% of you can't do.
Now some questions for the panel. These are a general munge of the things I've ever been asked.
"Do you see notes as colours?" Um, gosh, no. There is a very good analogy to perfect pitch - that it is like seeing in colour instead of being colourblind - but it is still just an analogy. When you look at a picture and see a colour such as pink, can you tell me how you know it is pink and not, say, bright orange? No, you can't. You just know. Similarly, I hear G and I hear that it has all the qualities of G-ness. That's all. It doesn't cause bright purple spots to float around that tell me it is a G.
"Can it be learned? Is it genetic? Do you get it by performing a secret ritual?" I don't know. I've always had it. Whether perfect pitch can be intentionally acquired is a debate that has been going on forever and will probably only end when scientists comes up with an implant, rendering the whole argument entirely obselete.
"Is it annoying hearing things that are out of tune?" Sometimes. Bear in mind that what bothers me the most also bothers everyone else: when an instrument is played out of tune, or not tuned correctly to match the instruments playing with it. While I will notice if an entire band have tuned their instruments a half-step down, it won't bug me. It's just how it is. It's like watching a TV with strange colour-balance... after a while you adjust to it and it doesn't matter anymore.
"Is it useful?" For composing, transposing, tabbing and playing... very useful. For anything else... no, not really. When I hum a tune, I'm always in the right key - but I'm not sure if that's particularly useful.
"Will you help me figure out how to play X?" Fine - but please, knowing all the right notes doesn't make you a good guitarist / pianist / whatever. Practising on the thing makes you good.
Technical stuff: Perfect pitch, also called absolute pitch, is the ability to hear a particular note (or chord) and know, without a reference, which note it is. Compare this to relative pitch, which simply put is the ability to hear the difference in pitch between a note and a given reference (known as the musical interval). Most people have relative pitch to some degree - those who don't are tone-deaf and are normally found at concerts screaming the only note that doesn't fit the current song.
Perfect pitch is apparently much more rare, and is attributed to about 1 in 10,000 people. And apparently I'm that 1 in 10,000. Here's how it works - wake me up at 4am, sing a completely random note, and I'll tell you without hesitation that you sang the F above middle C, only you sang it slightly sharp, and please let me go back to sleep now. That's it. That's what I can do that 99.99% of you can't do.
Now some questions for the panel. These are a general munge of the things I've ever been asked.
"Do you see notes as colours?" Um, gosh, no. There is a very good analogy to perfect pitch - that it is like seeing in colour instead of being colourblind - but it is still just an analogy. When you look at a picture and see a colour such as pink, can you tell me how you know it is pink and not, say, bright orange? No, you can't. You just know. Similarly, I hear G and I hear that it has all the qualities of G-ness. That's all. It doesn't cause bright purple spots to float around that tell me it is a G.
"Can it be learned? Is it genetic? Do you get it by performing a secret ritual?" I don't know. I've always had it. Whether perfect pitch can be intentionally acquired is a debate that has been going on forever and will probably only end when scientists comes up with an implant, rendering the whole argument entirely obselete.
"Is it annoying hearing things that are out of tune?" Sometimes. Bear in mind that what bothers me the most also bothers everyone else: when an instrument is played out of tune, or not tuned correctly to match the instruments playing with it. While I will notice if an entire band have tuned their instruments a half-step down, it won't bug me. It's just how it is. It's like watching a TV with strange colour-balance... after a while you adjust to it and it doesn't matter anymore.
"Is it useful?" For composing, transposing, tabbing and playing... very useful. For anything else... no, not really. When I hum a tune, I'm always in the right key - but I'm not sure if that's particularly useful.
"Will you help me figure out how to play X?" Fine - but please, knowing all the right notes doesn't make you a good guitarist / pianist / whatever. Practising on the thing makes you good.
posted by Gareth at 12:33 PM
3 Comments:
Cool Blog. I have a son with absolute perfect pitch.
http://aut2smile.blogspot.com/2006/05/perfect-pitch.html
Thoughts and information on absolute pitch can be here
"Bear in mind that what bothers me the most also bothers everyone else"
Glad to hear you say that. AP is totally NOT a hindrance.
BTW, I blog about absolute pitch ear training.
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