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I don't know much about perfect pitch. . .but I know that I can replicate almost any vocal line that I hear (within my physical limitations.) I cannot, however, do the same with an instrument.

This is something I've been doing lazy research on recently, though, as I am in desperate need of ear training. I'll keep you posted on whatever I manage to find.

perfect pitch is not all that useful in making music. What is useful is relative pitch. That makes it easier to recreate the music you hear in your head.

Relative pitch is the ability to immediately recognize musical intervals, i.e. minor 3rd, major 4th, major 5th, etc... and an advanced level of relative pitch will allow you to pick up chord extensions, such as #13ths and such. This is an ear training skill that should be worked on.

My mom had perfect pitch. She wasn't much of a singer, so it didn't help her there.

It did make it extremely hard for her to enjoy music, because she said most singers that she heard were slightly flat.

=^-..-^= wrote:My mom had perfect pitch. She wasn't much of a singer, so it didn't help her there.

It did make it extremely hard for her to enjoy music, because she said most singers that she heard were slightly flat.

That would be tough. Most people are very forgiving of "slightly flat", in fact most people hear it as being in tune. The ear tricks you into thinking it's in tune. That's why I'm not enamored with the Buzz Feiten tuning system. It takes certain notes that are inherently flat on a guitar fretboard and makes them perfectly intonated. Unfortunately, unless all guitars and basses in the band are using a Feiten set up instrument, you now have clashing intonation. Most piano tuners even tune those frequencies slightly flat on a piano, especially if it will be used in a combo setting with guitars. Horn players have adjusted to these flaws, as have singers and fretless string instrument players. Most don't even realize it.

anyway, where were we????

bassjones wrote:perfect pitch is not all that useful in making music. What is useful is relative pitch. That makes it easier to recreate the music you hear in your head.

This makes no sense. Perfect pitch is relative pitch taken to a much higher level. Everyone with perfect pitch has relative pitch. People with relative pitch do not have perfect pitch.

Someone with perfect pitch has several abilities (from wiki):
* Identify and name individual pitches played on various instruments
* Name the key of a given piece of tonal music
* Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass
* Sing a given pitch without an external reference
* Name the pitches of common everyday occurrences such as car horns

Relative pitch is more commonly associated with the ability to name notes and intervals upon hearing them.

To answer the original question from Scott, in my experience, yes, music can be more difficult to enjoy and yes, it does make it easier. I had several instructors in college with varying degrees of both relative and perfect pitch. The differences were obvious. The ones with perfect pitch could tune the orchestra or band without the benefit of a tuner, and be deadly accurate every time. The ones with relative pitch could sing this note and that, and knew what wrong note you played, but not much else. The four instructors that had perfect pitch were all composers as well. In fact, my music theory instructor, Dr Daniel McCarthy, wrote the "GE, we bring good things to life" song. The subject of perfect pitch came up often in classes, as only a couple of students had it through my years in college. The instructors unanimously stated that music WAS more difficult to enjoy. They found it difficult to attend concerts of lesser talented groups because they caught the intonation problems not noticed by most everyone else.

I know several people with perfect pitch and many with good relative pitch. Have a good relative pitch can really help in all aspects of making music as well as transcribing it from recordings. Perfect pitch is an amazing ability but it gets tiresome hearing people constantly tell you what the pitch of every random noise is (fan whirring, whistling, sneakers squeeking, ect.) It is cool though when you ask a musician with perfect pitch for a specific pitch, say C#, and they can immediately recall it to memory and sing it.

My mom as well has perfect pitch. She does have a hard time when things are slightly off, but I think over the years she has learned to live with it.

Oliver's Army wrote:

yes, rednecks can have purfict pich two.

Oliver's Army wrote:

the mullet looks sharp to me.