Perfect/Absolute Pitch

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I would say that I am VERY close to perfect pitch. Not quite perfect, but very close.

since music production and reproduction became digital, i have developed a precise idea of correct pitch.
when music was represented in an analog way, there were always slight variables that prevented me from locking onto a correct pitch.

with turntables there was variations in platter speed and with tapes there was also variation in pitch depending on which tape player was playing the song.

in the very old days when i was a child who lived at my parents place, i played an upright piano in my room that was out of tune, and i used to put on records that i liked and i intended to play my piano to them, but often their pitch was not compatible with my piano's tuning.

it would have sounded cacophonous for me to try to play to those records because my piano's notes were tuned seemingly halfway between the pitch of each possible note in the song.

yet some records were perfectly compatible with the tuning of my piano, and i had much fun going beserk with chords in silly ways in accompaniment to those songs.

but there was no true adherence to a universal pitch in those days (around 1986 i think ).
i used to go to live venues and see everyone tune their instruments to the lead guitarists guitar that seems not to be tuned to my exact memory of the chromatic scale.

after i got synthesizers, i got used to the pitch of them and digital music because it is so consistent.
i can accompany with my keyboards, any modern song that i play on my system because it is always precisely in tune.

pitch has been digitally standardized and is always constant these days so i remember exactly every note on the synthesizer without having to play it because i have been attuned to a constant chromatic scale for a number of years.

if i have not heard any music all day, and someone switches my keyboard on and asks me to hum middle c before they play it on the keyboard, they always find that i hummed the exact note because i am tuned to it.

it is easy to be pitch adequate these days because all pitch is standardized.

i do not think i am as accurate as a tuning fork, but i can feel the resonance in my body of different frequencies and i also have a physical memory of what the pitch of notes are.

1 in 20 autistics is more than 1 in 10 000 people. 20 x 150 = 3000. Sadly, no I don't have perfect pitch.

Sometimes I can get lucky and guess what a note I hear is, but that's about it. I know all the exercises you can do to learn perfect pitch, but I don't really have much use for that kind of knowledge, so I don't bother.

I can only suspect that the 1 in 20 autistics was determined some time ago when the autistic population was construed much more narrowly (and had a 1 in 2,500 prevalence, the figure used just a generation ago).

Incidentally, I am one of those with perfect pitch, active type. Unfortunately, I am also quite dyspraxic, so I cannot play any musical instruments all that well. I can, however, spot the smallest deviation of a note from what it should be.

http://perfectpitchtest.com/

I do not have perfect pitch, but I have very good relative pitch. My sight singing would be outstanding, except for the fact that I have huge issues with sight-reading rhythm correctly.

Somehow i got 9 out of 12 for the perfect pitch the 1st time but got 12 out of 12 2nd and third time

I can recognize a wrong note, usually, but I can't hear a note and say, "That's the F# above Middle C". Inasmuch as my untrained, limited range vocal cords will allow, I can sing a correct note, and if I hit the wrong one, I know it. I used to sing along with my Beatles records, and I didn't want to be heard, so I worked hard to make sure that my voice blended in with theirs, by getting the pitch correct.

My 8 year old son seems to be able to sing songs with all the right notes, or hum along in harmony to a song, and it sounds good. He couldn't tell you the names of the notes, but he's never learned that information.

I realize Perfect Pitch is something different. I'd like to have that! Well, only if I had the vocal range and ability to go with it. It's one thing to know it in your head, and another to be able to physically produce the sound.

My husband, however, seems to be completely oblivious to pitch. He likes to sing to himself, but it's painful to listen to, because he just seems to use random notes, almost.

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/tunetest/dtt.asp

I don't know if this is the one, but it sounds like something similar. I got 25 correct out of 26. There was one song that I didn't recognize, so perhaps that was the one I got wrong. On that other link, however, where you say what note is being played, I got like 3 out of 12, and those were just lucky guesses.

I'm not sure how familiar these song will be to people on WP, though. They were mostly the kinds of songs we learned in an American elementary school music classroom in the 1970's. Some of the mistakes seem pretty blatant to me, though, but I don't know if that's because I know the song, or because some mistakes just sound like crap.

Is having perfect pitch a talent you're born with, or a learned skill?

Wikipedia says this:

Possessors of absolute pitch exhibit the ability in varying degrees. Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of the following abilities when done without reference to an external standard:[4]

* Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. A, B, C#) played on various instruments
* Name the key of a given piece of tonal music just by listening (without reference to an external tone)
* 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 noises such as car horns

I can (or could, haven't needed to in years) do the first three, but my piano teacher taught me how.

I believe that is the one. Thanks, I'll bookmark it.

Interesting. I took the perfect pitch test and got 2 points out of 12. I also took the relative pitch test and got 3 points out of 12. Really embarassing considering I have a music degree.

However, I took the distorted tune test and scored 25 out of 26, so I felt at least somewhat redeemed.

12/12 on the perfect pitch test; 26/26 on the distorted tunes test. Both very easy.

Hearing Test Results
You correctly identified 26 tunes (out of 26) on the Distorted Tunes Test. Congratulations! You have a fine sense of pitch.


It was the Beethoven one that I had a bit of trouble with, had to play it a couple of times.

I couldn't do the 'perfect pitch' test as I don't know the music notation.

I think that all that's needed for that test is exposure to Western tonal music, and a decent musical ear. Familiarity with the songs shouldn't be needed. To test my theory, here are a couple of things that I just tossed off using my notation software. Since they were written 5 minutes ago, they shouldn't be familiar to anyone but me.
Which one sounds wrong?


http://www.mediafire.com/file/zzmzwgdmy24/example1.wav

http://www.mediafire.com/file/u4mmm2zj0jz/example2.wav