I have perfect pitch Went into a club one night and Dave berry was on (he had few hits including the crying game) I cringed all night, he sang sharp , not ridiculously so, but just enough to make me wince Not as bad as Celine Dion though
I have very good relative pitch, which I attribute mostly to playing trombone starting at age 10. You have to listen to get the pitch correct, on trombone. I have one string on one guitar that I can tune bang-on by ear, it's got a resonance in the B string that I tune to. Once I have that string in tune I can tune the others to it, and I can get the whole guitar as close to correct as I can read on a Snark--so within 2-3 cents. A whole separate challenge is tuning to a Jimi Hendrix recording, which I've done many times. You don't get there with a digital tuner, most of his songs he's a little more than a half-step flat. Folks I've known who had perfect pitch would be able to name any note that was played, correctly--as well as identify whether it's sharp or flat. Every one of them I've met played piano, and most of them hate listening to Hendrix.
if you have good relative pitch thats all you need for music...and thank god for that cause thats the one that you can actually work for,train and get better....perfect pitch either you got it from your very young age or you dont......
Dad and I sat down to watch the Andy Griffith Show one evening. Just before it came on I whistled the first few notes of the theme song. As soon as I stopped, the song started in the same key. Dad gave me an inquisitive look but didn't say anything.
I used to work with someone who had been a professional orchestral musician, and he genuinely had perfect pitch. We'd be listening to music on the radio and he'd say: "Oh, he's tuned the whole orchestra slightly sharp of A440. A lot of the younger composers seem to be doing that these days..." and he'd be right! It took me several years to get strong relative pitch, as in "you went a wee bit flat on the chorus", or "the G string is slightly sharp". To my surprise, in more recent years, I've been able to sing a note without any reference pitch and be within about 1/8 of the intended note. It's far from the perfect pitch of my former colleague, but it does mean I can often identify keys correctly. My friend Clive is a very good keyboard player, and he has the uncanny ability to tell guitarists what the chords are, even though he's never heard the song before and he's nowhere near a musical instrument. He used to get a lot of work creating non-copyright music for commercials, because he could capture the essence of well-known songs without stepping into infringement. Suffice to say, his ability to deconstruct other composers' work made him fast at delivering the new piece.
My son, 16, has perfect pitch. One time, the choir leader forgot her tuning fork. He (much to my delight, when I was later told), gave her an A. It has advantages and disadvantages. E.g., when with a singing teacher, I deliberately don't look at what notes are being played on the piano, in case I go "that's an F, I can't hit that". Of course, he can't do that. Drives him nuts when I play Eagles doing Take it Easy and it's a bit below G. It may be related to the fact that he has high functioning autism. He is socially awkward and very intelligent. I am immensely proud of him. As he told me himself a few years ago "Dad, with your passion for music, if you had my talent, you'd be brilliant."!
Relative pitch, also a trombone player in school. Singers who can't hear sharp or flat bug me, but most I can ignore. Garth Brooks drives me insane.
Knew a trombone player with perfect pitch. He would put his fingers in his ears and sing a pitch. That was almost 40 years ago. Looked him up recently via internet and he is still teaching, still playing both orchestral and jazz. Great guy. I bet he is a dynamite clinician for the young musicians. I did not have perfect pitch but when I was young I had very good relative pitch. Would help the director tune up the rest of the band in HS and when I worked at music stores I would walk down the racks of acoustics and touch up their tuning without taking them off the racks. That was just tuning to themselves. Had a boss that I proved how good my pitch was using a tuner and he rejected the results that he personally observed because he did not believe people could have pitch that good. That's all over now. I can discern pitch, but it's not at all like the instant way it used to work. I have to work and work to lock in, do not succeed totally and I get very frustrated.
I know one keyboardist that has perfect pitch. We call her Freak of Nature, she can tell you the pitch of a car horn, a bird's squawk or really anything. She is very useful for writing charts for our band. She doesn't like songs that do not resolve to the root chord, and there have been times when we will finish a song on the 6 minor or something and she will drive all the way home unsettled, until she can sit down at her piano and play that root chord. Then the universe will be in balance again. I don't have a great ear, and I probably should have been a drummer, but I'm very grateful for this current age of tuners. I grew up back in the guitar band days of the early '70s when it was always, "Tune to me, I'm in tune." One night our band sat in at a jam and the house band had a Conn Strobotuner. We tuned up before going on stage, and at the opening chord my mouth literally dropped open. That was the first time I had ever heard our two guitars and a bass in tune. The next week I went to a music store and bought one, and I've still got it.
I’ve always heard that the definition of perfect pitch was throwing an accordion into a dumpster where it crashes onto a banjo. ... rim shot ... Bill, tgo
I work with a keyboard player like your friend. He can pick any note or chord he hears and dead on identify it. Unfortunately he's also as nutty as the proverbial squirrel turd so I don't have any interaction with him outside of work. Kind of a shame really. Musically I could learn a ton from him but I can't deal with the mania
My teacher has absolute pitch. I've asked his help several times when I've had trouble figuring out something by ear, and he's been able to say things like "he's bending up to it but it's flat by a little less than a quarter" just by listening. I, on the other hand, have relative pitch that's still very much a work in progress.
