I have perfect pitch - A(440)MA!

[ShackUp]

Fire away!

I don’t like the big note in China in your hand, even as a child I thought it was out of tune. Am I right or not?

And the new Calvin Harris Dua Lipa song irritates me for the same reason.

China in Your Hand makes me want to pull my own ears off. Although the singer claimed to have perfect pitch herself.

At my church, the organ is so old it's not tuned to concert pitch (about a quarter-tone out); which is occasionally noticed by visiting choirs. It also means that no other instruments can be played with it. Would you find it difficult to sing with such an organ?

Also, do you teach your pupils singing, or direct a school choir?

@Shackup how do you cope with baroque pitch?
I often sing in concerts where the orchestra (mostly period instruments) play A as 415Hz.

I’d love to be able to sing. The DC shout at DH when he sings and not me so I can’t be that bad. 😄

Just how bad was Emma Watson's auto-tuning in Beauty and the Beast? I mean, in terms of how out of tune she still was, even after her voice was altered until it sounded robotic?

I can sight sing and sight play piano.
I can tell what note is being played by which instrument.
Is that a 'thing'? I thought it just meant I was musical?

I find A415 quite tough. I like performance practice/baroque (I play recorder and violin alongside piano and a few other instruments) but I've never played 'proper' Baroque pitch.

kaytee you probably have perfect pitch

ayn I haven't seen BATB! I'm assuming Emma Watson can't sing? I think auto tune is used on most things these days.

The most annoying thing on recordings is when a producer uses a sample that is clearly not in the same key as the track it's being used on e.g. Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack.

I'm a huge fan of reggae and non-Western music, so I am able to accommodate non-'perfect' (to Western ears) tuning!

wanderings I direct a school choir and teach my pupils singing (well we do a vocal unit!). I find it's something I'm quite good at, because I can put a harmony together really quickly. Our chamber choir is SATB and I tend to swap between parts depending on who needs help!

No, Emma Watson can't sing. This merciless video lays it all bare:

But I'm curious to know how bad it is, from a purely tuneful perspective, after all the auto-tuning.

I was interested in the previous posts about China in Your Hand. I never liked that song; I thought the tune was just horrid but maybe it was just out of tune? I read an interesting article earlier, which of course is refusing to open for me now, about it. The writer said that having perfect pitch does not necessarily mean someone can sing in tune (knowing the note doesn't mean you can hit it), and if Decker had perfect pitch, it might actually be a disadvantage. Apparently the backing wasn't true to absolute pitch, but since she had perfect pitch she wasn't singing it to the backing music, but rather to what the actual true note should be? I don't know, but it was interesting. If the link works later I'll share it.

What is relative pitch?

Perfect pitch can ONLY be learned. The concept of what C is is man made and thus, by default, you simply cannot be born knowing it.

Please please tell me that Alicia Keys New York is flat?!! It hurts me!!

I've not met anyone else who agrees!

oren yes Alicia Keys is flat in that song, which is surprising as she's very musical.

I agree that perfect pitch is a memory thing.

It's also just an indicator of decent musical training. I don't think you can do anything that most well trained musicians can do to be honest.

Op , you have made my day! I have no musical training, I can't read music or play and instrument though I have always been a member of a choir. But that Alicia Keys song hurts me!
I've have discussed it with other singers and they're ok with it.

Decent musical training doesn’t give you perfect pitch, it means you understand how all the notes relate to each other (rather than being able to sing any note on demand without a reference point).
I read somewhere that babies are born with perfect pitch but most lose it - anyone know about that?

I can't match my voice to the piano - the music teacher would play a note and I would try to sing it and fail. I certainly can't recognise any one note as A, so whoever asked that, it's definitely not something everyone can do! I can, however, hear other people be off-key, and I can hear the tune and sing it recognisably enough. That's not being tone-deaf, is it?

Is singing in tune something people can learn with practice? DH taught me not to pitch my voice sky-high whenever I'm singing and that's helped - he is a good singer with good pitch and can play songs on the piano from ear, although he can't read music. But I'm not pitching myself lower because I hear the note - I'm doing it because I've learned that my vocal range is relatively limited and if I start too high I run out of notes that I can sing. I can't tell if I'm singing the right note or not.

One more question - do you think a child who hears their parent singing out of tune will also sing out of tune? DD is like me. DS was singing the notes of Let It Go perfectly in tune when he was a year old (and sang Ded It Doh!).

puffin I read that too. Also, Mandarin is a tonal language so a higher proportion of Chinese people have perfect pitch than people in Wesrern Countries.

tabatha how do you know the extent of my magical powers? or not

too I don't know about offspring. I think DS1 has perfect pitch and was an early singer/talker. DS2 has delayed speech (he's 2 and I can't tell what he's saying!) and isn't as in tune as DS1 but is improving!

tabatha yes, perhaps so, except that I knew I had perfect pitch at a young age when I was an exceptionally untrained musician! And everyday sounds have pitches, it's not just music this relates to.

I took piano lessons for about 10 years as a child. The piano we had at home was one my parents got at an auction. It's about 150 years old at this stage and can't be quite tuned to concert pitch. I'm convinced it's the reason my note sound recognition is so dreadful now (apart from middle C. That sound is burned in my brain).