The term perfect pitch sounds like a great thing doesn’t it? It even has the name perfect in it! However, there are a few drawbacks to having perfect pitch that some people might not be aware of, despite the name, it does have some challenging aspects.
Perfect pitch is actually a misnomer. It has nothing to do with intonation – being in tune – it is simply pitch memory. Someone with perfect pitch can hear any sound and without even thinking about it know exactly what note it is just like most people can recognize colors without effort.
The adjunct to perfect pitch is Relative Pitch. The vast majority of people – including professional musicians – are able to comprehend pitch by hearing one note relating it to all others. This is a skill that can be honed to the point where you might think that someone with a well developed sense of relative pitch has perfect pitch because they can nearly instantaneously recognize notes just from hearing them. The secret is that they must first identify one note. From there they can relate all other pitches from that reference note.
A person with perfect pitch does not need a reference note. They can simply identify notes on their own.
The benefits of this skill are great. For transcribing music – listening to music and writing it out – it is incredibly simple for someone with perfect pitch. There are some instances however where perfect pitch can actually be a detriment. How can this be?
Imagine this: you are singing in a choir and you have sheet music in front of you. The choir director decides that C major is a bit high for the choir so she wants to lower it down a whole-step to B-flat major. For the people in the choir with relative pitch this would make pretty much no difference – their relative pitch can easily adapt to the changes. For those in the choir with perfect pitch, they will have to calculate every single note to the lower pitch because their sense of pitch is absolute! If a C is written on the page they only see and hear C and not the B-flat the director wants.
What about if you have perfect pitch and you’re in an orchestra? Perhaps you are used to A- 440 which is how your piano is tuned at home. But what if the orchestra tunes higher to A-442 or A-444? This could be a challenge because the reference is so ingrained that a small change can be maddening – to have to play “out of tune”. The temptation is to play the “correct” pitch which is not going to work in this setting.
Let’s go back to the choir scenario. Imagine if during the performance the choir shifts up or down in pitch – which can definitely happen when the choir is not accompanied by any other instruments. People with relative pitch may not even sense the wandering of the pitch. But the person with perfect pitch will hear the error and have a hard time adjusting as the choir drifts up or down in pitch. This is a very real scenario.
Perfect pitch is not something that’s a deal breaker for musicians. In fact it can be extremely beneficial but it’s not without its challenges. It’s important for all musicians regardless of whether they have perfect pitch or not to understand the underlying structure of music. Perfect pitch is a tremendous thing to have in certain situations but it’s not a substitute for getting intimately involved in how music is constructed.
If you don’t have perfect pitch it’s not a big deal – most of us have to depend upon relative pitch. If you have perfect pitch you should enjoy your inherent skill but still focus on learning the fundamentals of music and the relationship of tones just as someone with relative pitch would have to do.
Thanks again for joining us, I would love to hear your comments about this subject – from both those with perfect pitch and without. Info@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729