Is perfect pitch a must have if you want to be a great composer?

Question

Let's face it. All of the greatest composers had perfect pitch. Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt etc etc Liszt pitch was legendary.
I have perfect pitch and can compose mediocrity at best. Are there any great composers that did not have perfect pitch?

Answer 1

Of course it's not. Why would it be?

Perfect pitch is a good trick, but all it's really useful for is getting good marks in your aural skills classes.

I have perfect pitch, and, according to my uni results, I'm a damn good composer. However, the two things aren't related.

The only thing that my sense of pitch is useful for is that I know exactly what note/s I want, which means that I can compose without needing an instrument nearby to test things out on. People without perfect pitch but with a good sense of relative pitch (which is far, far more valuable than perfect pitch (and I'm pretty sure that mine would have developed faster without my perfect pitch, as my tendency is to focus on individual notes rather than the difference between them, and because transposed intervals sound different: to me, there are 84 possible major 3rd sounds on my piano, each noticeably different) can just work out by interval what they're doing, starting on any note and transposing to the right pitch as soon as they get near an instrument. Which, admittedly, is slower, and I'd find it quite painful, but it's not a huge hindrance.



Now for the problems related to it.

Firstly, because of my sensitivity to differences in pitch, each note sounds qualitatively different. I often forget that not everyone experiences sound in this way, and because of this, in the past I've tended to focus too much on pitch structures in my music, to the detriment of the other elements of music.



The second big problem I have is in writing vocal music: my teacher always complained that my parts were very difficult for anyone without perfect pitch to sing (which I disagreed with; all the singers needed is good relative pitch).



Far more valuable than perfect pitch to the composer are:

A knowledge of all instruments; their ranges, how they sound in their different registers, how they sound in combination, what things are not possible on certain instruments (for example, certain trills are not possible on some instruments).



A decent sense of relative pitch.



The ability to step outside of one's work and assess it critically, and to work and work on it until it becomes something worth hearing.

Answer 2

If you play a brass instrument, I bet you already know what a Bb sounds like. If you play a string instrument, I bet you already know what an A sounds like.



We often hear the statement that "pitch memory is not the same thing as perfect pitch." Maybe not, but it serves as a handy substitute.



Relative pitch is definitely an asset. Cesar Cui did not have a formal conservatory training, so he did not run the usual gauntlet of theory and ear training classes. Consequently, he had to compose by sitting at the keyboard and fishing for the right notes. It took him 10 years to compose an opera which a well-trained composer could compose in a fraction of the time.



We have conflicting data regarding whether or not Puccini was a keyboard junkie. He is alleged to have written the entire last act of La Boheme at a table where his friends were playing cards.



However, when he was composing Madama Butterfly, the first automobiles came out. He became fascinated with automobiles, so he bought an automobile and ran up and down the country road at top speed. He hurt his leg in an accident. This made it necessary for him to sit in a chair all day with his leg propped up. Since he could not sit at the piano, this postponed his work.



I hope you never have an accident. If you aspire to be a composer, however, I urge you to develop your relative pitch skills, just in case you do.

Answer 3

No. absolute pitch is a curse (I'm a musician).

Because outside of the US, they don't tune to A 440. Not that much of the US orchestras do anyway.

Also back in the day, the A was lower.

Bach didn't have perfect pitch. Neither did Haydn, Wagner, Ravel. Or Stravinsky.

I think both Tchaikovsky and Mahler had it as children and lost it later in life. Or those are the current discoveries of the musicologists today.

Answer 4

I don't think it's all about perfect pitch, I think I helps significantly more than hinders musicians. It only hinders musicians when the pitch they know as 'A' (for example) it transposed or when the pitch or 'A' is lower or higher, as they can be indifferent countries.



I think what composers need is a deep understanding of harmony and counterpoint. It doesn't matter what style you are composing, you need to know how harmony works.



A combination of both is ideal.



Don't forget, Mozart had a really excellent music education, as did most of the others.

Answer 5

If that was the case,wouldn't everything chain-react into making conductors having perfect pitch and orchestral musicians having perfect pitch when playing their works? If a note was flat in their works then it would be extremely obvious to the audience that something was off. Beethoven wasn't the best listener when he was in his late years. Ravel and Bach did not need perfect pitch and yet their works are played until now. Bach is still extremely common in any pianist repertoire and evidently essential because he was a particularly a famous Baroque composer.

Answer 6

I don't think I've ever actually met anyone with perfect pitch. Maybe I have and just didn't know it. I don't think it's very common...at least, not in America.



Edit: I just realized I didn't answer your actual question!

I don't think it's a "must". From what I've read, these composers you refer to had the talent of hearing their work before it was on paper...almost like composition was an act of transcription.

Answer 7

NO WAY is it necessary.I go to the Royal academy of music, which meant to be amazing, and some of the best young composers I know arent pitch perfect in any way, in fact it can be a disadvantage.If you wish you had perfect pitch there are ways of teaching yourself.

Answer 8

Not really. There are dozens of composers who can make 'great' things. Like art, there are a bunch of artists who can paint realistic people. The question is 'how' you become a great one. I'll answer the main question.



Great is hard to define, it's a basis of subjectivity. People happened to like Beethoven's music etc.



You can be great for your country by making folk songs for them, but you'll be hated by the other country since they hate folk songs.



For example, you can be great in music by the majority by...

You know. Pop songs, *insert random beats* ahem.

Answer 9

Let's face WHAT? How do you know for certain that they REALLY had perfect pitch - as if that mattered? People NOW mis-use the term daily, and I think it was no different then. It is far more likely that people who might have good relative pitch - or those few that DO have perfect pitch - were steered at an early age towards music study. THAT is the advantage - study, and the earlier the better. How about couples of musicians who have a daughter, name her MELODY, and then insist that she study music from an early age? We see things like THAT all the time!

Of those fine musicians that I have met who TRULY have perfect pitch, the vast majority have said that it is more of a curse than an assistance. ANY good musician can train themselves to memorize reference pitches - most of us, A-440. Percussionists can be asked to demonstrate q@120 or 80, etc. and then can also nail THAT. Ask a pro baseball player to show you exactly how big a baseball is, or ask anyone of us to exactly show you where our hands fall on any given spot on our instrument - and we can, withing millimeters. So perfect pitch, which can be learned, is no different.



CREATIVITY, and the intelligent application of educated skills, which in the case you cite would manifest itself in artistic composition, is far harder to pinpoint. Schoenberg's famous "wie ein Tischler" statement is something that always stuck with me. He said that you can learn skill and craft enough to make things "like they guy who makes the little stools", but true compositional creativity cannot really be taught. You can learn species counterpoint, you can learn instrumentation and orchestration *rules*, you can learn form - but original composition? Nope.



So - I am sure that if we were able to RELIABLY ascertain which master composers had perfect pitch, it would be statistically slightly higher than the general population, as I indicated above, but not anywhere NEAR as many as you suppose. The list of who did NOT is much longer. Actually, the ability to play an instrument at virtuoso level and the ability to compose originally are also not necessarily joined, either - are they?



Mediocrity is the curse of all of us who have tasted excellence, and know it cannot come from US. So some of us shake our fist at the Heavens.





ADDED -



Let's not confuse perfect pitch - the ability to recognize single pitches - with perfect RECALL - the ability to hear a piece and duplicate it, either notated or by performing it. The latter skill requires you to be able to integrate pitch, harmonic structure, voicing, rhythm - MANY levels of listening - to duplicate a work. There are MANY people throughout history who have had this amazing skill - and not all of them turned to creative composition. Frankly, the RE-working of material by repeated examination yields far more profound results. We all know people who SAY they compose - and are essentially writing down puerile improvisation. The existence of digital notation programs like Finale and Sibelius has yielded more GARBAGE than anything else - gee, it looks so nice on the page, and the Garritan instruments sound so nice - too bad that structurally it is CRAP. It is like TV channels - 500 channels - just more GARBAGE - and maybe a tiny bit more quality, but it is a smaller percentage of the whole -and you gotta wade thru the WHOLE. Ick.

Answer 10

It is useful but surely not essential. A number of great composers - most famously Beethoven - produced great works after being overtaken by deafness.

Answer 11

No - perfect pitch can actually get in the way sometimes.

Answer 12

no it is not a must, it certainly helps. Most modern composers do not have perfect pitch.

Answer 13

No, you do not have to have perfect pitch. You mentioned Beethoven.

Toward the end of his brilliant career he was stone deaf, but managed to pen some classic music in spite of his handicap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

Answer 14

Perfect pitch can be a disadvantage, but I'm sure it's not a pre-requisite for good composition.

Answer 15

Was asking myself the same thing

Answer 16

No, not essential.