Perfect Pitch

[MixolydianPony]

Perfect Pitch: the ability to identify by ear the exact note of any sound without reference.

Some people are born with it. But I'm starting to believe this might be a skill that anyone can practice and learn.

Just earlier today, I was noodling around on my keyboard, and I hit a Bb. Hey, that reminds me of this song I heard a few months ago... Sure enough, when I looked up the song, it started on a Bb. So I managed to identify without listening exactly what note the song started on. Out of curiosity, about an hour later, I managed to hum a Bb without reference, although it was a few cents flat. Probably all those years of concert Bb in high school band xP

Anyone know anything about training this skill? Do any of you have perfect pitch? Do any of you even care? It's much more useful for acoustic musicians than electronic... I've never heard of electronic musicians trying to figure out how to play songs by ear. I imagine that the best way to practice it would be to frequently listen to the tone throughout the day, hum it, play it on a few different instruments, and periodically test yourself by trying to hum it without reference and checking to see how close you were. I dunno. Thoughts?

[Watashig]

I actually play the lead synths of some electronic songs by ear on my typing keyboard.

Granted, that's pretty much the extent of my musical ability, since I am too garbage (I never apply myself, which is what makes me garbage).

[Magnitude Zero]

I hear of people training their ears like that all the time. Playing random notes on a keyboard and guessing which note it is based on the sound it makes alone.

As for me, I read this post, hummed what I thought was a Bb. Ended up being a C#. *shrug*

[LunchBagMusic]

I've played piano for so long I can tell the notes on perfect pitch, and because of the way that brass works with harmonics it isn't hard to guess in a couple of goes.

I'd say it's a skill, not a talent. I've done that thing before where I've played random notes and picked a song from just one note. The first time I did it (when I was seven) I was noodling and the song "You are my Sunshine" came out. It isn't all that difficult but at the time I felt like musical Jesus.

So yeah, with practice you can do it imo.

[Peak Freak]

...

[Dr_Dissonance]

You can definitely train it. I was so bad at getting pitches before University and now I can figure out melodies and harmonies quite easily (if I'm given the starting note ).

I personally would hate to have perfect pitch. My friends that do have it say it's horrible when someone plays something out of tune, because you feel that it's out of tune as well as hear it...

[bartekko]

for the record: if you're given the tonic note, it's not perfect pitch, but rather relative pitch

As for perfect pitch, I'm pretty certain I can determine if a song is in key of Cm, Em or Am. I think about if the note is the same as the starting note of: for Cm: SOAD-Toxicity (but 50% of soad songs are in Cm), for Em-David Guetta - Little Bad Girl and for Am, my "I hope you like to see me again"

[Beetie Swelle]

I remember meeting a drummer who had perfect pitch, ironically enough.

How do you go about training for perfect pitch? Do you just spend hours sitting in front of a keyboard, hitting notes and guessing them?

[MixolydianPony]

How do you go about training for perfect pitch? Do you just spend hours sitting in front of a keyboard, hitting notes and guessing them?

I would imagine that you just need to consistently expose yourself to a frequency and associate it with the name of a pitch. One guy I was reading about just a moment ago had a tuning fork on his desk that he played every few minutes for a couple months. Sometimes he'd just play it, sometimes he'd hum along with it, sometimes he'd hum before listening to see if he'd get it.

Now that I think about it, it's probably best to practice with a sound very close to a sine wave so that other harmonic content doesn't confuse you.

[Habanc]

Yeah, I don't have any of this xP

Perhaps someday I'd like to get better at it (I've also kept telling myself I'll take up the cello "someday"), but for now, no.

But, I have read a paper on expertise, and it referenced the fact that while perfect pitch is often something born with, it can also be trained given the proper practice and determination.

[Evdog]

Being a guitarist, I have "E" ingrained into my mind. I can usually work out everything else from there.

[Dr_Dissonance]

How do you go about training for perfect pitch? Do you just spend hours sitting in front of a keyboard, hitting notes and guessing them?

Kind of I guess...I've sat in so many orchestral rehearsals that I can pitch concert A anytime, anywhere! One note down, 4858383 to go!!!

[prettiestPony]

How do you go about training for perfect pitch? Do you just spend hours sitting in front of a keyboard, hitting notes and guessing them?

Kind of I guess...I've sat in so many orchestral rehearsals that I can pitch concert A anytime, anywhere! One note down, 4858383 to go!!!

Pfft, well, then you just need to figure out other notes relative to that one, and there ya go! Psuedo-perfect pitch.

[Captain Ironhelm]

I had someone with a "Dr." behind their name tell me that it's just from practice.

[GumsOfGabby]

Anyone know anything about training this skill? Do any of you have perfect pitch? Do any of you even care? It's much more useful for acoustic musicians than electronic... I've never heard of electronic musicians trying to figure out how to play songs by ear. I imagine that the best way to practice it would be to frequently listen to the tone throughout the day, hum it, play it on a few different instruments, and periodically test yourself by trying to hum it without reference and checking to see how close you were. I dunno. Thoughts?

I'm terrible when it comes to this sort of thing. The only note I can identify is C...

Anyway, if you want to train your ear, there are hundreds of games for it on the net. Here's one http://detrave.net/nblume/perfect-pitch/

I'm sure you could do stuff like this in your head when you don't have access to a PC ie on the train to work. Play a song in your head, try to guess some of the notes and even chords. That's always fun! ^.^

[WavesOfParadox]

Recently I tried randomly un-tuning my electric bass. I was able to tune it back with surprising accuracy without a reference pitch.

[bartekko]

Anyway, if you want to train your ear, there are hundreds of games for it on the net. Here's one http://detrave.net/nblume/perfect-pitch/

This is a fun game, but I'm afraid it teaches more Relative Pitch than Perfect Pitch.

[prettiestPony]

Anyway, if you want to train your ear, there are hundreds of games for it on the net. Here's one http://detrave.net/nblume/perfect-pitch/

This is a fun game, but I'm afraid it teaches more Relative Pitch than Perfect Pitch.

Yes, this. I don't have perfect pitch, but I've been getting everything right after the first note because of my relative pitch training.

Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure how you could avoid that problem in making a Flash game to teach perfect pitch. You need some way to "reset" the ear between trials, perhaps. Anyone have any ideas?

[MyLittleAwesome]

Some people say I have perfect pitch. I know I don't.

But from all of those hours of listening to "Death And All His Friends", it doesn't matter when or where, I will always know what an Eb sounds like.

[Whitetail]

I've never heard of electronic musicians trying to figure out how to play songs by ear

I do it all the time >.>


And honestly perfect pitch isn't something you can train yourself, you can develop really really good relative pitch but if you aren't born with it then it's a rather impossible skill to teach yourself.

I had a roommate with perfect pitch, it was rather annoying actually - like he'd listen to classic rock music just going "Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" on a tone and then like obsessively ask me why the song's not in concert pitch. He tuned every single instrument I brought in that room, now that might seem like a good perk until you realize he'd take things out of my hand while I was playing them to tune them even if it was in tune with itself.

I tuned my guitar's A string to a quarter tone above the E string once just to drive him nuts.

[Valenheart]

How do you go about training for perfect pitch? Do you just spend hours sitting in front of a keyboard, hitting notes and guessing them?

There's a program we were required to do in Music Production class at University called MacGamut.


Don't do it. It's pure torture, but it definitely trained me for relative perfect pitch. As far as legitimate (non-torturous ways), listen to a song and try playing it on your lead instrument. Once you get the main focus of it fully correct, usually the melody or possibly a harmonic line or chord progression, stop that song and do it with another song. It's what's been notoriously labeled as, "Sight Hearing" a play off of sight reading for musicians that learn to read music by doing the same exercise with reading notes on sheet music.

This is only one way, aside from MacGamut and the fact that piano is my main instrument, that can help you train your ear to relative perfect pitch.

Also, if you're doing this with an instrument, make sure it's tuned properly, and don't have your mod wheel up if you're doing MIDI.

The term perfect pitch was coined for those "born with it" but it is attainable. It's also a blessing and a curse because I guarantee you, you won't be able to enjoy certain musics as much as you do without it.

[Sirspamalot]

Alot of the people here are talking about really good RELATIVE, not perfect, pitch. The difference is perfect pitch let's you identify not only what note it is, but also the frequency. Like, you can identify what 1760 hz sounds like at a (what's the aural equivalent of a glance?). It's an A 2 octaves above middle C (concert A is 440 hz, and it's the A right above middle c).

[LunchBagMusic]

Like, you can identify what 1760 hz sounds like in a snap

Fixed.

Also yeah, a lot of people are talking about relative pitch.