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Perfect pitch?

#8
peteroberts said:
I just had to restring my bass...anyways, I put the new strings on and tuned up to what I thought was a G...

I was DEAD ON! Can anyone else do that?
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I can do it to E,A,D,or G. I wouldn't call it perfect pitch, though. I started off an open D, I then thought in fourth intervals. It's more of a memory thing for me. I can also sing a note by using relative pitch from the open sting notes I can 'hear' in my head. The 'door open' bell in most cars is an F. It really freaked out my friend when I started going 'ding, ding, ding' in pitch before he opened his door.

As far as perfect pitch goes, I played with a keyboardist who had perfect pitch. You could play chords or random notes and she could name them, it was weird!
 
#9
peteroberts said:
I just had to restring my bass...anyways, I put the new strings on and tuned up to what I thought was a G...

I was DEAD ON! Can anyone else do that?
Click to expand...

I'm fortunate enough to have my major in T-bone, and if you've ever played that, you have to have almost perfect pitch with every note. I'm very glad to say i have perfect pitch, but it takes a long time to develope.
 
#10
I've tuned my bass up, sans tuner, from either new strings or after a flight when I loosen the strings, within 10-2 cents accuracy a couple times before, I don't have perfect pitch, I'm just familiar with my bass.
 
#11
I can hum an E, and tune to that, and it will be within a few cents of standard.

I can also instantly recognize the sound of an E chord played on guitar.

But I don't have perfect pitch.

I have been blessed with very good relative pitch, which is at least as useful to a musician as perfect pitch. Some say it is more useful.
 
#14
Let me make a little distinction here, fellas:

Perfect pitch is where if you hear a note or chord played you can recognize what note or chord it is.

Then there's another kind of perfect pitch where you have perfect tune, too. So without reference you can sing a pitch perfectly in tune, or tune your instrument without a tuner.

I have perfect pitch and it's really useful -- being able to transcribe songs off of a CD without having an instrument near you, etc. But I'm pretty bad at tune. I can't sing in tune unless I have a reference, and I always need a tuner for my bass or guitar.
 
#15
embellisher said:
I can hum an E, and tune to that, and it will be within a few cents of standard.

I can also instantly recognize the sound of an E chord played on guitar.

But I don't have perfect pitch.

I have been blessed with very good relative pitch, which is at least as useful to a musician as perfect pitch. Some say it is more useful.
Click to expand...

I'm exactly the same as you my man
I ain't got perfect pitch but have excellent relative pitch So as long as I have a note as a reference then I'm sweet but without a reference I'm as useless as they come
I guess I'm too lazy to learn perfect pitch so I get by with relative pitch
But to those that have perfect pitch I say good on you
 
#16
I'm with wrong robot and embellisher... I don't have perfect pitch... but something in that realm. It always pisses me off when the bandleader in the band I'm in makes us tune to him due to his perfect pitch. The guitarist and I checked, he's always way off. Lord I wish we had a keyboard player, then we'd have to be really in tune.
 
#17
geoffkhan said:
Let me make a little distinction here, fellas:

Perfect pitch is where if you hear a note or chord played you can recognize what note or chord it is.

Then there's another kind of perfect pitch where you have perfect tune, too. So without reference you can sing a pitch perfectly in tune, or tune your instrument without a tuner.

I have perfect pitch and it's really useful -- being able to transcribe songs off of a CD without having an instrument near you, etc. But I'm pretty bad at tune. I can't sing in tune unless I have a reference, and I always need a tuner for my bass or guitar.
Click to expand...


Interesting. I can id notes and tune instruments with no problem, but I can't sing a note in tune. Haha.. I wonder what kind of perfect pitch that is.

I agree with you it's really useful for situations where I need to learn a bass line and I can't find a tab anywhere, but I find it annoying sometimes when my brain decides to id notes when I'm listening to sometihng and I just wanna listen! Hehe.
 
#18
I think I'm like a few of the others here and have a kind of hyper-developed sense of relative pitch. There are pitches that I can recognize and sing on cue (and this is how I usually tune), but I wasn't born with perfect pitch; it's just something I developed and learned thanks to my sense of relative pitch.

For the longest time I didn't use a tuner, but I got one recently just to make sure I was dead on (more or less).
 
#19
I was pleasantly surprised the other night when I worked out White Room after not hearing it for years and years and then downloading it to find I was on key and almost note for note! Uh, that don't happen to me much. Usually takes me a while to get stuff right so I was darn proud of myself!

As for anyone who can hear a note and identify it with no reference, I can only say WOW! To me that would be amazing.
 

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