What is perfect pitch?
Answer: "perfect pitch" is when your band is practicing in your
living room & your 3 year old daughter begins to squirm &
complain & put her fingers in her ears. Then, everyone checks
their tuning, to find that someone was out of tune. Then, resume
playing & the 3 year old is content again
At least, that what I was told by a good Jazz guitar player, at
the bar.
p.s. his daughter is now an adult & sometimes needs to turn
off the car stereo if something doesn't sound quite correct
Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch is the ability to recognize any
note with no reference tone. There is a debate, however, that
contrary to earlier belief it is not a talent that one has to
possess from the time of birth. However, it is likely true that one
does have to be born with the ability. People with perfect pitch
hear each note as having its own distinct sound. Just like you can
look at a fire engine and effortlessly observe that its color is
red, because you've learned to associate the word "red" with that
color, a person with perfect pitch can give you the letter name of
a note because they've learned to associate that name with that
particular sound, which they are able to distinguish and
remember.
Update:
It is becoming more widely accepted that an individual must be
born with the ability to develop perfect pitch. They usually have
to learn the note names at a young age in order to learn to
effectively use the ability. It may be developed or perfected later
in life, but one must be born with the innate ability to develop
perfect pitch.
Others can only hope to obtain relative pitch. They will not be
as accurate with their flats and sharps compared to one with
perfect pitch, but you can learn to distinguish differences in
tones on a less subtle level. This is commonly done by comparing a
a tone known to be correct to another being preformed.
Blue Lawnchairs:
I personally believe perfect pitch can be learned through
repetition, i have been playing guitar a good number of years with
a guitar that has bad tuners and have been able to easily identify
the notes EADGB, or ABDEG, regardless of octave and from those base
notes and i compare the sound im hearing against them (in my head,
without recent playing of those notes) and see how sharp or flat it
is compared to them because i have memerized their sound, so if i
hear a C#(without knowing its a C#) i would compare it with E,
within a quarter second would quickly realize E is too high and
compare it with a D and find that the D is only slightly higher but
far from chordal and much higher than a B so it is not a C and find
that it is a C#, except for ABDEG i would not be able to tell you
if it is a in tune C# or flat C# if it is close to tuned although.
My point being that most people with perfect pitch compare it to a
base note. This note varies from person to person and the more you
practice your ability the better you get. When i was young i could
only compare with E2/E3/E1 and was not able to go much further and
was therefore very inaccurate. I am also Fluent in Chinese which
helps significantly because it is a very tonal language
In music theory, the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 8th notes of the scale
are the perfect pitches, and the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th are the
major pitches.