This isn't perfect pitch, but does it have a name?

[OhWaffle]

I've discovered an amazing talent I have. I can sing any kids' TV theme tune that I'm familiar with, in the exact pitch, from nothing with no reference note each time. I've tested it over the last few weeks of casual Cbeebies viewing.

There's such a thing as perfect/absolute pitch which is being able to sing or identify any note with no reference note etc, I know this isn't the same and probably isn't that rare or useful!
I suppose if I could be bothered I could get to a named note if I found out what the notes of e.g. "TinPOOOO" were.

I did have piano lessons as a child/teen but am not naturally musically talented at all. I do have a visual kind of synaesthesia.

Can anyone tell me how special I am? Or can everyone do this...

I'm not sure, but following with interest as I can also sing a song at the right pitch with no reference. It's like once I know a song the 'right' pitch/key just lives in my head and it really grates if someone sings a song in terms wrong key (like when singers take a popular song down a key to suit their voice IYSWIM).

That is perfect pitch. It's how most people first notice it.

Have a look at this (and others in this guy's channel)

My 6yo is starting to do it ...

I think it's called remembered pitch.

Although I've googled remembered pitch and found no hits, so maybe I've just invented a name for it

I used to be able to do this when singing and playing regularly, but no longer can, although I can still get intervals right and tell whether someone else has. So I think it’s just good pitch combined with good memory and practice rather than perfect pitch.

I'm not sure it has a name but I have it too. To the extent that I know something in most keys and therefore could pitch most notes without any thought. I do have a music degree but right now most of the things I would use to remember a note are from Disney songs too And the theme music on an audible I listen to a lot, and the odd aria (I sing).

I agree with Doobigetta that it is often related to generally doing lots of music. My 6 year old (who plays violin) also has it.

I think you tend to sing things at the same pitch you've sung them before because you remember how to sing them like that - the same larynx movements.

I think that's perfect pitch. Not many people can do it, even if they are very good musicians and play a lot.

@Doobigetta: That is perfect pitch. It can come and go, and people have it to different levels of precision and ease of recall.

"I can still get intervals right and tell whether someone else has."

Interval manipulations don't require perfect pitch; I don't have it and can do exactly that. My DP has absolutely unbelievable perfect pitch (eg gets really annoyed if a car horn is neither an e nor an e-flat) but is rubbish with intervals because of always having used perfect pitch instead of learning to recognise the intervals in the abstract (ie "that's an a above an e so it must be a perfect fourth" rather than actually knowing what a fourth sounds like). It is a completely different way of hearing from what the rest of us have. It's fascinating!

If you’re singing it but you can kind of remember the pitch from the last time you heard it, I think it’s related pitch rather than absolute (perfect) pitch.

I can do this too and I definitely don’t have true perfect pitch. I’ve always called it learned pitch. I was an oboist in an orchestra and so played the A for everyone to tune to - I can still sing a perfect A with no reference but that’s only because I know ‘where’ it sits, if you know what I mean.

It’s called relative pitch. Sorry not sure how to do a pretty link but see here:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_pitch

Interesting, thanks for the replies! That video guy's son is mind-blowing. That's not me at all!

I think relative pitch is knowing the 'distance' between two pitches rather than being able to hit on one due to memory. I think it is a memory/practice thing, or perhaps the background noise/hum in my living room is always the same pitch so I am inadvertently getting a reference tone??!

Disney songs are another good example!

This is really interesting, especially how babies learn!

I know nada about music full stop. So are the people with perfect pitch those who sing in tune naturally? And people who can't sing lack it, unless they learn?

It's not about singing in tune, it's being able to recognise/sing a specific note that has a specific pitch. E.g. 'middle C'.
If you watch that video the little kid in it can do it amazingly.
Most people couldn't find the pitch out of nowhere.

So anyone can sing 'twinkle twinkle little star' but you would probably sing it in a different key from me or the next person unless someone played you the first note or so on a piano so you can all start off the same. Whereas a perfect pitch person would always sing it in the 'original' key (if there is one) or a key someone asked them to do it in.

Sorry I'm being thick, still don't get it but suspect that's just cause I'm a musical dunce

I watched the video, and the dad played the note and the boy recognised it - but when the dad played it was that not the reference note? And when he sang it, is that not because he knows what middle C or whatever sounds like?

Realise I'm being stupid here but would love to understand!

There's a bit of confusion about what's perfect/absolute pitch and what's (sometimes called) relative pitch.

As I said earlier, there are different 'levels' of perfect pitch. Oboists can often sing an A correctly and work other things out from that; clarinettists often often sing things a tone down from a440 etc. Some people have to really think to tune in to their perfect pitch.

With absolute pitch in the way my DP has it and the way the boy in the video has it, it's very different; you:

• always sing a song in the right key, even if you haven't heard it for years.

• always know if someone is singing / playing something in the 'wrong' key

• if trained in western 12-tone tuning, know instantly the name of any note(s) you hear and can instantly sing any note requested by name

• don't use a previously-heard note to help pitch subsequent notes in your head

• if used to western tuning, can't listen to music in non-equal temperament (eg pythagorean mean-tone tuning) without confusion and discomfort

• are baffled by tuning systems you are not brought up with (eg gamelan or Indian Classical Music for westerners)

• get annoyed when a pitched sound that you hear in everyday life is not exactly one of the notes you recognise

• can't sing in a choir unless everyone else also has perfect pitch because when they go out of tune you stick rigidly to the right note and end up sounding out of tune yourself relative to them, but you know they are wrong. If the choir goes a semitone flat you have to transpose in your head. If they go a quarter tone flat you have to stop singing because it just does your head in.

There is a famous tenor consort singer called Rogers Covey-Crump who, as I understand, has a slightly different kind of perfect pitch; he's not 'fixed' to the western EqT 12-tone scale and can almost 'hear' Herz. This allows him incredible precision and expression in the way he tunes music; he sang for many years in a small well-known group called the Hilliard Ensemble and was able to keep his fellow singers sounding at their best even when they were slightly out-of-tune, and pull them back in tune, by minutely manipulating his own tuning. Of course any good ensemble musician will tune to their colleagues, but that is something else!

Personally I don't really think that relative pitch is 'a thing' in the same way - it's just a posh name for having a good ear, good interval knowledge and good short-term pitch memory. It might just be that some musicians who don't have perfect pitch need to find a name for their ear which makes them feel special too? I think relative pitch is just good musicianshp. If you:

• Can remember a note for a long time (minutes), even if other notes have been played in a different key in the mean time (this is hard for normal people like me, but someone with perfect pitch wouldn't even consider it any particular achievement)

• Can name any note once you've been told a first note for reference, but find it easier to name notes that are consonant with each other than dissonant

• Can sing a song in the same key you heard it, say half an hour ago

• Know your intervals really well and use them to correctly pitch long and complex series of notes unaccompanied without going out of tune

.. then you have a good ear. You may wish to understand your skill as 'relative pitch'.

I'm very glad I don't have perfect pitch!

That’s interesting, footchewer. I think based on that I’d still class myself as having a good ear rather than perfect pitch, although the thing about not being able to sing with people who are out of tune is definitely true!
Absentminded, my understanding is that if you can’t tell the difference between one not and another- e.g. if you can’t sing back the same note that someone plays to you, and you can’t hear a difference between your note and theirs- you are tone deaf and this isn’t something you can improve with practice or training. But if you can reproduce a note, you can learn intervals (how to find the next note if you have the first). Everyone has to learn that in the first place, the same as everyone has to learn to read. Most people do it with Christmas carols- e.g. the first to the second note in Oh Little Town of Bethlehem is a perfect fourth.

I can sing an A as I’m used to that for tuning. And if the oboist is off when playing their A I know if it’s slightly sharp or flat, just sounds wrong. Apart from that I have no other skills!

Well, I remembered starting this thread almost 6 years ago because I came across this today! And this seems to describe what I was on about! (Doesn't look like I'm that special, after all )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitin_effect

Oh cool, nice to learn the name for it!