I have perfect pitch - A(440)MA!

[ShackUp]

Fire away!

Do you listen attentively to door bells to gauge their notes (the ding dong ones)?

Do you work in the music industry?

How old were you when you knew your skill?

Thanks!

How do you use your skill?

Hi urban if you asked me which notes the doorbell was playibg, I could tell you tout de suite (its usually a major third apart, and more commonly B and G!).

I believe I’ve always had the skill, but it was discovered by my piano teacher when I was nearly 7 due to a mix-up with where middle C was ‘supposed’ to be.

I used to work for a record company, but I now teach music in a secondary school.

prem I don’t use it, it’s a party trick! I did use it in my Oxford entrance exam though, to fill in the lower three parts of a chorale we were played.

Thanks shack - my mum has perfect pitch (retired music teacher) and used this as an example of her skill! She also tells you the key of pieces on the radio etc and also if songs have a key change party way through she'll tell you from what to what.

Do people singing ‘off key’ bother you - particularly in things like X factor or the voice?

Op, why does this matter? And how is it used as a party trick?

Are you an Opera Singer?

I’m very confused about this.

How does it WORK? Surely the pitches of notes are not innate anyway, ie they had to decide on 440hz for A at some point. Does that mean you can recognise what hz a noise is?

It doesn't matter! It's a party trick because I'm always asked 'what note s this?' And I can just say 'C'. Singing out of tune on records (early 90s samples are the worst!) annoys me intensely.

Ok, does being pitch perfect mean you’re a fabulous singer or can you be pitch perfect and be an awful singer?

I’m not really understanding this at all.

We cross posted.

DH has perfect pitch. I make him wheel out his talent like a trained monkey at parties. And if there’s a piano he can play most songs on request. It’s AWESOME.

He is a terrible singer though. Well, not terrible, he’s in tune but the voice is not his instrument, let’s say.

Can it be learned? Can you just keep listening to octaves until you just learn the notes?

flora look up the definition of perfect pitch

Op, I think that might be best 😜

I am getting the idea though that it's something to do with your ear and not your voice.

Perfect pitch has its problems though...

I don’t know whether or not it can be learned...the earliest indication I had it was replicating tunes I’d heard in assembly on the recorder. I didn’t practise it, I just DS it. I would say I was aextremely musical as a child but my abilities have broadened somewhat as I’ve aged

Sorry about the typos, DS2 dropped my phone and it cracked I think DS1 has perfect pitch, DS2 is still too young to know. DS1 has sensory issues, which I also had at his age.

Which famous singers always sing in pitch and which are off pitch?

Indeed, problems include getting into a right pickle with transposition. It’s also very ethnocentric, so I couldn’t tell you the notes of any Indian raga, because they don’t have twelve semitones.

Robbie Williams is out of tune often on record. Morrissey doesn’t always hit the note in the middle. Random people like Roland Gift and Paul Young It adds charm, I suppose. A lot of church-based/raised singers have perfect pitch (Stevie Wonder, for example, although his could also be related to being blind from just after birth).

So presumably you can sight-sing music?

Yes I can sight sing literally anything apart from transposing stuff!

Interesting - so you could sight sing a musical score, but if I asked you to transpose it two tones, you couldn't? Is that not part of perfect pitch?

That would explain why Robbie Williams totally grates on me. He sounds out of tune even to an untrained ear🤦🏻‍♀️