Anyone have success developing perfect pitch?

[Bob]

I've been thinking about that idea again lately. 

Just curious.

What have you tried?

Did you have any success?

Do believe it's possible?

[mike_lang]

I'm actually working on this right now.  I am using a combination of mental practice, solfège (fixed do), mental sight-singing, and regular quizzing on the pitches that I've acquired, to make sure that I can ID them  (so far I have pretty good accuracy, as far as the absolute pitch goes, with A, Bb, C, D, Eb, F, and F#).  I notice as I go on, day to day, that the time required to ID a pitch diminishes (for example, last night, the A and  Bb were nearly instantaneous - relative pitch did not even have time to go into effect).

The answer, in short, is not yet - but getting there, I believe.  I am convinced that perfect pitch is simply an extremely acute tonal memory that can both identify and produce the 12 pitches in its "banks."

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

[retrouvailles]

I have perfect pitch, and it took a while to hone it in perfectly. I've tried various online quizzes to help and monitor my progress. I have also listened to lots of pieces of music with the score in front of me. Also, I found it easier to identify bass pitches on a piano, due to the certain nuances, if you will, that each bass pitch seems to have. Then, I would transpose it up some octaves in my head to identify that pitch in other registers. Also, when I was in school, I would try and guess what notes the bells ring at. Just random stuff like that helped me.

[mcgillcomposer]

I am a bit of an obscure case when it comes to this topic. I was not born with perfect pitch, but I certainly have it now. The strange thing is that I didn't really consciously work to develop it.

I began to recognize patterns from familiar pieces...the first I can remember is when I was sitting in on a masterclass of some Debussy music for four hands, and the bass descended in octaves ffrom G-F#-E-D. Immediately I heard Chopin's etude Op. 10 No. 1.

Similar things happened to the point of becoming a daily occurrence. Eventually I was able to recognize (and sing) any pitch without reference to a specific piece. So, if you start recognizing patterns that allow you to identify an exact pitch, don't dismiss it as a one-time occurrence!