Perfect Pitch

[rph108]

I was just wondering. Does perfect pitch increase a pianists performance skill by very much?

[dj]

i hope not!!!

[Saturn]

Perfect pitch does not increase a pianist's skill at all.  Only practice does that.

Also, see this thread:
https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1086762031;start=17

- Saturn

[goalevan]

I would say it would help to have Perfect Pitch, maybe not straight benefits for performance, but it could help in other aspects. But there are many things more important for a pianist.

[DarkWind]

Perfect Pitch works wonders for Composers, not Pianists. I don't think being able to recall exactly how a G# sounds like helps with piano. But as for composing! I wish I had perfect pitch!

[JK]

No, I don't think perfect pitch affects your playing at all, at least I really hope it doesn't! It may well help jazz musicians a bit, I heard a story about Miles Davies and apparently there was a time when him and his band were playing so well together that one day when they were rehearsing someone came in through the door, as the door opened it squeaked and he was able to say exactly what note it squeaked at!

[amanfang]

Couldn't perfect pitch help with aural memory?

[scarbo87]

You would probably be happy to know that Wagner, Schumann,
Ravel, Stravinsky, Ivo Pogorelich, Alfred Brendel lack(ed)
perfect pitch.  

[bachmaninov]

In a london competition... We had a concert.. and i performed on a 9 ft. Bosendorfer...

The sound was so... undescribable... I almost stopped playing because i was overwhelmed at how Incredible the piano was.. so light.. the keys felt so so comfortable... The best piano ive ever touched.

(it had an extra octave) lol

[maxy]

Perfect Pitch itself won't make a good pianist...
But if it is functional... it will help a lot.
I have known some people that could learn hard pieces just by listening to recordings.  These people can't totally screw up as long as they know how the piece goes...

Let's face it, perfect pitch can be a huge advantage!

[Motrax]

Never fear, ye downtrodden masses, perfect pitch is acquirable!  

I decided a year or two ago that I'd try to train myself into getting perfect pitch. Though I'm not close to the level a natural is at, I'm much better at telling pitches (without relative notes to help) than I used to be. The most helpful advice to me came from someone with perfect pitch. She said that to her, notes had a "color," and discerning pitch was the same process to her as discerning color. I don't know why, but after hearing that, I started being able to tell the pitch of single notes with much greater accuracy. I still can't listen to a piece and catch the pitch of every note, but I'm fairly accurate with single-note, slow melodies.

Some physical thing to try is to close your eyes and hit a random key on the piano. Try associating the pitch with a color, or flavor, or something else somewhat intangible. That will put your mind in the right direction, and after a while you'll probably just stumble into the correct way of thinking about pitch to identify notes correctly.

Now, it's probably near-impossible to get a studied perfect pitch to the same level as someone who naturally has it, but you can get reasonably close without a great deal of effort.

(And click Bernhard's link, it's very helpful)

[DarkWind]

www.eartraining.com

Talks about the same thing as you, Motrax. I'm currently trying. Very interesting, requires lots of effort, however.

[Tash]

i wish i had perfect pitch cos it'd be freakin helpful for aural at uni. otherwise in my piano world it hasn't really affected it...or at least not that i know of for all i know i could be a much better pianist with it...

[goalevan]

I was tryin that thing Darkwind but I had to take a break from david lucas burge lol can't stand him

[Clare]

I agree with others that perfect pitch can be learned. I don't have super pitch skillz but I can tell a few notes very easily due to the fact I played violin for a number of years. For instance, all that tuning of the violin makes me able to recognise an A, D, G or E at 100 paces. Also, if I hear a note that is the same as one at the beginning of a piece I know the key of, I can recognize that too. I'm sure that anyone could do this with minimal effort.

I sort of can't be bothered pursuing the whole perfect pitch thing myself but I reckon if you start with one note and then expand from there, it might be one way to approach it.

The only thing that my very minimal pitch abilities has helped with is being able to amuse friends by playing tunes from commercials or the theme songs to TV shows. Come to think of it, it does help a lot if you have made up a tune in your head and you want to write it down.

[Medtner]

In Taiwan all music students have perfect pitch.

I was quite amazed to find out one day that all my students have it because they're required to pass the ear-training tests in music classes in elementary school. One day I did an exercise with one of my better students (a 12-y.o. who can play Jeux d'Eau) to identify intervals, and she got all of them, no matter how high or low on the keyboard, so I kept going harder with individual notes, no matter how high or low, she got all of them. I was impressed. Then I tried with all my other students how well they identify individual notes, they weren't as good as the first student I mention, but they could identify most in the middle range.

I'm sure it's not the only country where this is required. In Russia it's the same.

No, their perfect pitch doesn't help them become better players, I can assure you. But they are better listeners!

Kolya

[DarkWind]

There's this one Asian language, I forget which, but if you say the exact same thing in a different pitch, it can mean an entirely different thing!

[Motrax]

In Russia, relative pitch is a requirement, but perfect pitch is not. I almost know first hand (my teacher taught there, and my mother and father learned there).  

[Medtner]

DarkWind,
You're thinking of Chinese tones. Yes, it is spoken in Taiwan. Just because you can speak a tonal language doesn't mean you have perfect pitch. A tone has nothing to do with identifying a C of F#, or knowing 440Hz when you hear it. In fact I learned it as a second language, and I believe that it's not much different than the accent in English. The tones of Chinese sound like how we say 'perfect' as an adj versus 'perfect' as a verb like in "I have to perfect this piece." If you said the sentence with the first 'perfect' people wouldn't quite understand you because it sounds weird (well they might, but they might scoff).
Anyway, English has a lot more tonal nuances that Chinese doesn't have. We can change our expression and meanings with "tone" of voice and Chinese can't. They have to stick to their tones and add extra words for our equivalent of expression and tone of voice. But being able to do this in English doesn't mean you have perfect pitch. Students still have to train.

[schmetterling]

I believe it helps when learning and reading new pieces. Performance skill is still performance skill. A friend of mine complains that he is "tone deaf" but plays both beautifully and with incredible technique.

[matt_black]

I do not thnk that perfect pitch helps your playing but it is very usefull if you hear a song on the radio whilst driving and want to work out how to play it in the correct key in your head - by the time you get home  you can have worked out the song structure chords bass line melody etc...and can colour the tune in later

[Derek]

I'm beginning to think that a lot of stunning cognitive musical abilities are not really neccessary to be able to create interesting or well played music even if one is of modest capabilities.

[bernhard]

I'm beginning to think that a lot of stunning cognitive musical abilities are not really neccessary to be able to create interesting or well played music even if one is of modest capabilities.

You are quite right there, particularly for music on the piano.

[steveolongfingers]

am i the only one that thinks this, but i dont beilieve beethoven had perfect pitch.  Hes always used in the examples for people who had it, but then why the hell would he cut the legs off his pianos so he could here the frequencys of the pianos when he pushed his ear against the floor?  If he had perfect pitch he already knew what it sounded like! Why bother?

[scarbo87]

sorry but Beethoven did have perfect pitch. He HAD to have
had it.... he was deaf, remember?? How else could he have
heard in his head what to write down

[pseudopianist]

sorry but Beethoven did have perfect pitch. He HAD to have
had it.... he was deaf, remember?? How else could he have
heard in his head what to write down

Relative pitch?

[Daevren]

Perfect pitch isn't that important.

Relative pitch is, which means you can hear the relative relations between two notes, iow recognise intervals. Which is very important for musicians.

Of course all these skills aren't that important if you reproduce music off a score, like most classical concert pianists.


I also heard that the story about a language giving all people perfect pitch, but in that story it was a language in Vietnam is I remember correctly.