Saturday, September 19, 2009

Perfect pitch VS Relative pitch

I have perfect pitch myself. It runs in the family I should say, so that includes my sister and my brother and my dad. I still remember someone back in choir said that he does not trust that there's such natural talent as perfect pitch and surely not in someone like me (long story back during that time in choir). Even said that's he's a perfect pitch himself and yet he always has to depend on me to give him the right key and the right note during practices. *dash underscore dash* Really cant understand these people. It'll only damage more of my brain cells by trying to understand what's really running in their brains.

Definition

Absolute pitch (AP), or perfect pitch, is the ability to name or reproduce a tone without reference to an external standard.

The naming/labeling of notes need not be verbal. AP can also be demonstrated by other codes such as auditory imagery or sensorimotor responses, for example, reproducing a tone on an instrument. Therefore a musician from an aural tradition, with no musical notation, can still exhibit AP if allowed to reproduce a sounded note.

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:
1. Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. A, B, C#) played on various instruments
2. Name the key of a given piece of tonal music just by listening (without reference to an external tone)
3. Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass
4. Sing a given pitch without an external reference
5. Name the pitches of common everyday noises such as car horns

Relative pitch

Many musicians have quite good relative pitch, a skill which can be learned. With practice, it is possible to listen to a single known pitch once (from a pitch pipe or a tuning fork) and then have stable, reliable pitch identification by comparing the notes heard to the stored memory of the tonic pitch. Unlike absolute pitch, this skill is dependent on a recently perceived tonal center.

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