absolute and relative pitch

TC3 · 2026-01-06T19:17:05+00:00

I was interested in the absolute pitch and relative pitch discussion in the “what makes piano hard” thread but didn’t want to thread drift with a massive pos...

rsl12

When I practice singing a tune, I find that within a week I can hit the first pitch of the song pretty accurately. So for that one note, for the duration that I'm working on the tune, I have perfect pitch (though I have to be able to sing to myself). But since I can then use relative pitch to figure out all other notes, does that mean I have perfect pitch, full stop?

TC3

rsl12 You tell me! What do you think?

pianoloverus

rsl12 When I practice singing a tune, I find that within a week I can hit the first pitch of the song pretty accurately. So for that one note, for the duration that I'm working on the tune, I have perfect pitch (though I have to be able to sing to myself). But since I can then use relative pitch to figure out all other notes, does that mean I have perfect pitch, full stop?

Why would being able sing the notes in one song in a particular key mean you have perfect pitch? Perfect pitch implies you can identify any note played or sing a particular note on request.

TC3

twocats Again: with the caveat that we be clear what we're talking about and avoid equivocation and "No True Scotsman" fallacies!

twocats

TC3 Again: with the caveat that we be clear what we're talking about and avoid equivocation and "No True Scotsman" fallacies!

I looked up what this means and I still don't understand what it means when applied here 😂

rsl12

TC3 I agree there is a continuum of skill, and if that's the case then I'm on the bottom rung of the "absolute pitch" ladder!

The only friend I have with absolute pitch will hum the heard note before declaring its pitch, so I'm curious what percent of perfect pitch people require singing.

iternabe

Here's another Rick Beato video on the topic. After the monologue, he enlisted his son who has perfect pitch, and his daughter who's has relative pitch, for a demo. The tests that he gave her daughter, I think many of the members of this forum can pass.

rsl12

pianoloverus Why would being able sing the notes in one song in a particular key mean you have perfect pitch? Perfect pitch implies you can identify any note played or sing a particular note on request.

I can produce a C with my voice, because I've practiced "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" enough that my throat knows how much to constrict to sing the C starting note (for now at least). Whether or not this counts as an inkling of perfect pitch is debatable. It's almost like carrying a tuning fork with me.

ShiroKuro

pianoloverus Perfect pitch implies you can identify any note played or sing a particular note on request.

this is the key question to me, is this the definition of perfect pitch?

I think what pianoloverus describes here is a core part of it, because it explains perfect pitch as the ability to identify a single note, or the ability to produce a single note, given the note name.

I think what makes it perfect pitch is that these are notes in isolation. It's like with colors, if you are not colorblind, you can name the color you see without having a reference color next to it. (that might not be a helpful comparison, @pianoloverus don't come at me for my sloppy metaphors! 😃

So with perfect pitch, you need to be able to identify a single note in isolation, or produce a named note, again in isolation.

@rsl12 being able to produce the first note of a song, in isolation, without any reference note, might be an example of perfect pitch. But then being able to sing the whole song maybe doesn't count, because the first note of the song is the reference note??

Maybe, I don't know! 😅

keystring

I understand that in relative pitch you identify one note vis-a-vis another preceding note. The first one has been given to you. It's like a row of fruits where you know "the third one to the right is called a pear" but you can't tell it's a pear by looking at it. "absolute" pitch means you recognize a pear as a pear. You'd recognize that it's not an apple or an orange, even if you didn't know its name.

The naming part is a way of testing whether a person can recognize the pear as a pear, and often the two things are seen as a single unit.

Something interesting happened to me quite some years ago. Until then I had only operated by relative pitch and mostly via solfege. I became aware that "this tone" is always G even though sometimes it's Mi, or Do, or Re, due to that exercise which was for a different purpose. After that, if I heard a pitch, I could go to the piano, let my hand poke a given piano key, and I'd be playing the same pitch. Then I'd look at what my hand had played and say "Ah, that was a C#." At that time I developed some ability to hear a pear as a pear - to hear a pitch as itself.

If someone has been singing a tune, and later when they sing that same tune they always start on the same right note, then awareness of the pitch as that pitch is there. Maybe something can be developed from there. Something has happened with a distinct particular pitch.

iternabe

ShiroKuro pianoloverus Perfect pitch implies you can identify any note played or sing a particular note on request.

this is the key question to me, is this the definition of perfect pitch?

I think what pianoloverus describes here is a core part of it, because it explains perfect pitch as the ability to identify a single note, or the ability to produce a single note, given the note name.

Yes. I would think this is the minimum requirement of perfect pitch (aka absolute pitch): face away from the teacher's keyboard so you cannot see it, the teacher play a single note anywhere on the keyboard, you should be able to name that note exactly (e.g. G5, Bb3, etc.) and instantly.

keystring

@ShiroKuro we cross-posted. There are literally 60 seconds between us.

ShiroKuro

keystring we cross-posted. There are literally 60 seconds between us.

Great minds post alike?? 😃

keystring

iternabe face away from the teacher's keyboard so you cannot see it, the teacher play a single note anywhere on the keyboard, you should be able to name that note exactly (e.g. G5, Bb3, etc.) and instantly.

The ability to recognize a pitch distinctly, and the ability to give a name to a pitch, are two separate things. As I wrote before, naming is a means for testing an ability.

pseudonym58

keystring Not to belabor the point, but it amounts to the same thing, practically speaking. You know what it is, but you have to have a way of identifying it to someone else. Hence the name. Here's a funny thought, though. Before there was a scientifically measurable and accepted standard of pitch, different people's notions and understanding of a particular note would have varied somewhat. Today if you have perfect pitch and you go an "authentically baroque" or other historical music concert, it might actually be somewhat annoying to hear all of those "off" pitches, unless you're used to it, of course.

keystring

pseudonym58 keystring Not to belabor the point, but it amounts to the same thing, practically speaking. You know what it is, but you have to have a way of identifying it to someone else. Hence the name ....

So we're sort of in agreement. It's an important point however because the first order of business is the ability to distinguish a pitch as a pitch - a pear as a pear rather than some kind of fruit. Some may have that, some may not. The naming part is a way of testing that ability. A person might have the ability but didn't learning naming it, and then the test would give false results. Or - naming is an aspect of it.

pseudonym58 Before there was a scientifically measurable and accepted standard of pitch, different people's notions and understanding of a particular note would have varied somewhat

That is where the naming bit gets in trouble somewhat. If someone time traveled from the Baroque period, they might call something C which a modern person with equal pitch-recognizing ability would call B. But both are still able to hear a distinct pitch as a distinct pitch.

These two ways of perceiving notes - relative and absolute - may have implications in how a person processes music, and that in turn my affect ways of teaching certain things. (I've seen this discussed.)

BartK

Interesting discussion.

My understanding is that what you can learn as an adult is termed "pseudo-absolute pitch" where you can have some kind of longer term memory of pitches.

But I think real absolute pitch acquired in childhood is qualitatively different. I read somewhere a comparison to seeing colors. When you see blue you automatically know it's blue. You don't have to compare it to another color and say that "it's a slightly higher frequency than green". You just know it and you can picture it in your mind without reference to the physical world. I think most people wouldn't even know whether one color is a higher or lower frequency than another color. We have these conceptual boxes for what is red, blue, green, etc. that are triggered automatically and immediately in our mind. I think people with true absolute pitch have a similar perception of pitches.

iternabe

BartK

iternabe

Oh that brings up another question... do you know if Schumann had perfect pitch?

In the first edition of his Album for the Young op. 68 he included a preface titled "Advice to Young Musicians" where he writes:

Endeavour early to distinguish each several tone and key: Find out the exact notes sounded by the bell, the glass, the cuckoo etc.

So I was wondering if he meant that we should learn to distinguish the absolute pitch of those things.

pianoloverus

keystring So we're sort of in agreement. It's an important point however because the first order of business is the ability to distinguish a pitch as a pitch - a pear as a pear rather than some kind of fruit. Some may have that, some may not. The naming part is a way of testing that ability. A person might have the ability but didn't learning naming it, and then the test would give false results. Or - naming is an aspect of it.

Learning the of a note that one can distinguish so that one can name it is so elementary that I don't think this distinction really important.

iternabe

BartK I do not know. If Schumann meant that, I sure hope that's a suggestion of what student should strive for, but not a minimum requirement.

« Previous Page Next Page »