There's been a bit of talk about perfect pitch here. I thought it might be worth having a thread about it.

What are your opinions regarding perfect pitch?

I can see the advantages of perfect pitch but then I heard a story of a woman who had it who was unable to listen to most music recordings because they weren't tuned perfectly. She also tuned pianos according to this perfect pitch without any compromise... so it's not exactly the most versatile piano...

you've got a point. I would like to have it so I could incorporate it into my own music, but thats about it.

For me, relative pitch seems to be more than enough for music making, at the moment anyway.

I keep thinking that even though there are predifined pitches for each note that are used by convention, it doesn't mean that if an instrument is detuned my microtones the music will not sound 'right'. I could still appreciate and comprehend the music, even if it isn't perfectedly pitched...

But then I haven't experience perfect pitch and I don't really know how a perfect middle C sounds compared to a slight out-of-tune middle C. Who know, maybe there's a magical difference.

the only reason I would like to have perfect pitch is because i want my music to someday acheive a certain greatness.

But why would you feel that you'd need perfect pitch to achieve this?
There are plenty of great composers who don't have it.

true, I dont feel a need for it, but just think it would be an interesting tool to have.

As well as having passive and active perfect pitch, my middle daughter has relative pitch. My other 5 kids, wife and and myself all have passive perfect pitch. The middle daughter is the only real musician of the horde. If being kind, you would call me a hack on the piano.


You don't need to have perfect pitch, to become a great musician/composer. Wagner and Stravinsky were two composers that did pretty well without it.

In fact, the odds are, that perfect pitch has more to do with linguistic ability than musical.


You will find the vast majority, if not all of those, which speak one of the tonal languages (which we do) have perfect pitch.

That doesn't mean they can become musicians. My wife and youngest daughter can't play an instrument to save their lives, and they tried to learn.

They can tell you the notes, but they can't do anything with it. It's those people that have perfect pitch, but no musical training that end being bothered by weird tunings and when something is out of tune. Many won’t even know why the music is bothering them. They will most likely think that the music is “bad�.

For a long time, this happened to my wife. Until she took some musical training. Of course, she still thinks, that I listen to a lot of "icky music".

yes, very true about it having more to do with linguistics. The best vocalist in our school has perfect pitch.

i can't imagine what it would be like having perfect pitch and listening to harry partch

Tonal languages?

Such as?