Perfect Pitch or Perfect Scam?

BS. That's what I've heard.

There has been a lot of threads about this in the other forums. Check them out.

 

I'm wondering too.

 

Sounds like crap to me. Make do without it!

 

that is absolute BS. Perfect pitch is a talent that requires alot of skill to use. There is no way to "teach it to the masses".

 

I bet perfect pitch is easier to learn than the English language.

 

"Perfect Pitch" is pretty useless if you ask me. Why? Because it's nothing more than being able to call up a notes without hearing them first. OK, that's good BUT in most situations (especially band situations) not all the instruments are in perfect tune. It's much better to have relative pitch, the ability to work out other pitches in relation to a fixed pitch. So someone in your band starts playing with an A that is slightly flat and you start singing in A that is slightly flat and make all the other notes slightly flat too. Voila, no one knows and everything sounds perfect.

I've found with all the courses and "shortcuts" out there, there is only ONE I found to be truly a "shortcut" and in reality it's not a shortcut because it still requires constant practice.

There are no shortcuts or magic methods. Just good teachers who can help explain things the right way, IMHO

 

+ a whole bunch for truth. Relative pitch is extremely useful. Perfect Pitch can be a curse - if you start a bit flat or sharp on the first note and everything else is in tune with it, it's fine, but to one with Perfect Pitch, it'd be rather disturbing. I had a former student who had perfect pitch, and she couldn't listen to recording of certain European orchestras due to the tuning to A=442 or 444 rather than 440.

 

No, it really is a curse. The problem is say you have perfect pitch, and you're singing in a choir... it's very common for the choir as a whole to go a little bit flat or a little sharp... but if you have (real) perfect pitch, you can not go flat or sharp. It drives people nuts!

That said, I do not think you can learn perfect pitch. You can learn really, really, really good relative pitch, but I think perfect pitch is something you're born with.

And that being said, relative pitch is much more useful. You CAN change with the choir, or band you're playing with and it won't drive you crazy... and like I said, you can have realllllyyyy good relative pitch. I do, just from my years of playing various instruments and taking music theory. A lot of it is just hearing the note in your head after having played it so many times... like I can sing a pretty darn good A from memory, and most of the first position chords on guitar, just because I've heard them so much.

In college I had to take a 3-hour dictation exam. For those that don't know, dictation is when the professor plays something on the piano (or any instrument) and you have to write down the musical notation by ear. Out of a 3-hour exam, I got ONE note wrong. The asian girl in my class who had perfect pitch didn't do as well as I did...AND she was always cringing in our singing groups just because no one was perfect.

I'll take relative pitch, thank you very much!

 

+1. Extremely good relative pitch can be learned. Perfect pitch is something you're born with.

 

Gimmicks make the world go round

 

Perfect pitch is nice, and quite useful, but there are too many downsides to it. I would pretty much stop listening to everything I listen to because the musicians arent tuned perfectly. Must really suck to have perfect pitch.

 

i used to think that, too, but now reading about someone with perfect pitch who hears things in relation to a conventional tuning system makes it seem like there is a certain amount of development during life.

i doubt that american brains are "tuned" to A=440 Hz.

 

My mom has perfect pitch and it annoys the heck out of her most of the time. Curse.

 

My twinbrother has perfect pitch, but I've never heard him complaining about songs being slightly off the 440 reference A. It's not false to him unless the relative pitches are false, it's just like it's slightly transposed.

The only drawback with his perfect pitch is that he has difficulties playing on a transposed instrument. In all other aspects, it's either indifferent or an advantage. He's always eager to emphasize that perfect pitch doesn't turn anyone into a better musician. Practicing does.

 

Well, at least the Perfect Pitch system seems to be a prosperous business. This Burge guy has been running full page ads in various music magazines as long as I can remember.

Of course, that doesn´t prove that his system works, it just means there is a market for it.

 

I believe it's real and can be improved with training. My tutor has proven this to me numerous times.

 

I guess very good relative pitch is sometimes confused with perfect pitch. You are either born with PP or not, AFAIK.