Perfect pitch: gift or curse? Perfect pitch vs. relative pitch?

Question

I don't have perfect pitch and I'm having a hard time accepting it. I feel like people gloat so much if they have it and act like it is some big thing when they discover it. These seem to be the people who started playing music at a young age where as I didn't start playing classical piano until a later age. They, along with people who don't, make it seem like it is needed to be a good pianist. While I naturally have a good relative pitch, I don't often see this discussed. What I do see discussed is which pianists do and don't have perfect pitch and how it is shocking if one doesn't and they are well-known. More surprisingly, I've seen people say, "Yeah, to be a good pianist, you pretty much need perfect pitch." This concerns me even more when people say composers need it because I am a composer and want to study composition.

I have also heard people say perfect pitch is a curse. You constantly have pitches in your head and your tuning is personal, so your pitch may seem right to you, but it's not to others. People have said relative pitch is more useful and that they've seen more people do well with an excellent relative pitch than people with an okay perfect pitch.

I'm worried, honestly, because I've fallen under the trap of peer pressure. I keep reading that most college students have perfect pitch and the percentage is even greater as degrees advanced. While I wouldn't mind having perfect pitch, I wonder if I should be this nervous about not having it.

Do I really need it (though I know I wont get it)? What I find interesting is that while I naturally have a good relative pitch, I can also tell when an instrument in sharp or flat in tuning. If you give me a piece, I can almost always tell you another piece that is in the same key, but I don't know what that key is; However, I can't name a specific note if it was played before me. For example, I know the pitch of my washing machine that is running right now is the same key as the Pirates of The Caribbean theme song, but I don't actually know what the note is.

What are your views on perfect pitch and relative pitch and which do you find most useful? Thanks.

Answer 1

I think it's a gift like Jean Grey's powers. The use or misuse of it is what makes the difference.

Answer 2

Whoever said pianists need perfect pitch is a moron! Unlike woodwinds or strings, the piano does not need personal tuning (that's why you hire people to tune it for you), nor would perfect pitch help in anyway during the performance because you can't physically change anything!

It's a different story, for say a violinist, because the production of their notes rests on their ability to have correct pitch by knowing where to place their fingers etc..., whereas regardless of what you do, once a key on the piano is pressed, that's the note which comes out and no one can do anything about it!



I don't have perfect pitch, but I have many friends who do, and everything drives them absolutely insane during rehearsals and concerts... So it's a downside? I personally prefer relative pitch because I find it easier to manipulate, but practical-wise musicians of woodwind, strings and brass benefit a lot from perfect pitch.



And a person with well-trained relative pitch is more than able to play by ear, it's just practice...



From your account, you have pretty good relative pitch:) I think your only worry is not knowing which note it is, but that's easily solved by trying to memorise the pitch of a few notes, then comparing what you hear to them. As a violinist who has tuned to A for years and years, I can mostly tell whatever note/ scale someone is playing by comparing them to my memorised notes and then using music thoery derive its key. But since you don't play the violin, you could always use singing.



Hope it helps:)

Answer 3

I had perfect pitch when I was younger but it started fading when I was about 25. I can still usually (not always) tell pitches in live music with an instrument right next to me but I can't tell what pitch a recording is any more. The only thing it really helped me with was with dictation in my ear training classes. I haven't noticed any decline in my ability to write or perform music.



I knew one pianist whose pitch sense was so finely tuned that she could only listen to instruments tuned to a 440 A. An orchestra that tuned to 441 drove her crazy. It can certainly be a curse.



[EDIT: meaning that her ear had been trained in early childhood to recognize a 440 A as an A. I don't know why that part is so hard for people to understand.]



Good relative pitch gives you everything you need for what you're planning to do. I can't recall anyone at my music school implying that perfect pitch was necessary to be a good musician or a composer. That sounds like total BS to me.

Answer 4

No, you do not need it to be a pianist. Unless you can tune a piano, there's usually not much you can do to accurately to change the pitch of the notes, as others here have suggested (though I have developed a special technique, if I can say so myself)



I stated elsewhere that, as I see it, perfect pitch is just a fixed form of relative pitch. If you can memorize just ONE note accurately, you can use relative pitch/aural knowledge of intervals to figure out the rest.

Answer 5

i've got not got desirable pitch, yet I even have very sturdy relative pitch. I even have had no issues being a expert musician devoid of PP. I play distinctive contraptions, the main one being a string bass (no frets) and that i play in track. the human beings i comprehend with desirable pitch (and are musicians) say it somewhat is extra of a curse than a blessing. constructive, they are able to start the music on the final notice devoid of help, yet there are circumstances they hate having it. case in point: enjoying clarinet - the notice you spot isn't the notice you pay attention (same for all the transposing contraptions.) the fluorescent easy interior the workplace is buzzing an out of track B flat. That guy is singing that music in F, even even though it may be in G. etc. additionally, i could elect to function something approximately "paying for" desirable pitch, as instructed to me by potential of a music professor with it. you may prepare your self to discover a, then with relative pitch, you will have a sort of desirable pitch. (ask an oboe participant . . . ) Get a pitch pipe or tuning fork it rather is an A. many circumstances an afternoon, sound the A. Then after a week of that, hum the a customary, then examine your self with the tuning fork. you will get to the place you may pluck an A out of skinny air. Then once you pay attention a G or an E, you may parent it out by potential of era. Make sense? Then his disclaimer replaced into that he did not delight in having desirable pitch.

Answer 6

I think perfect pitch can be an asset, but certainly not strictly necessary. I also think it is more the way your brain in wired--either yours is or it isn't. And I don't remember meeting very many music majors in college who had it. I know people with Master's degrees in Music without it.

Relative pitch, on the other hand, is necessary for a musician. In fact, in college, musicians take at least two years of ear training that will develop this.

Answer 7

This cannot stand:



"An orchestra that tuned to 441 drove her crazy"



That can only be valid if there exists a deeply rooted and AFFECTED notion that A=440, which means relative pitch (to that A=440)



All pitch is relative. Period. Culturally contaminated certainly, but then still relative, even so.



All the best,