Perfect Pitch

Perfect Pitch

 

Perfect pitch, or as it was once commonly called, absolute pitch, is the ability to sing or play any note without first listening to a reference note. So, if you had perfect pitch you would be able to sing any note on command, with that said only one out of every 10,000 individuals actually have perfect pitch, so it’s pretty rare. Still, you may have heard of people with absolute pitch.  A few famous musicians with this seemingly rare ability include Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Florence Henderson.

It is still widely speculated on whether one can obtain perfect pitch through learning, or if it is simply an ability one is born with. While there are people on both sides of the argument, one study by the University of Chicago did note that participants of the study showed significant improvement in hitting the right note after training for a few months. This is fantastic news because it strongly indicates that absolute pitch is a learned ability, and even adults could learn it with sufficient practice.

There may be a few drawbacks with having absolute pitch, with the primary one being, becoming irritated when songs are played in “the wrong” key. It is not unusual for people to transpose songs into different keys so that the song fits with the singer’s voice better. But if someone with such a highly trained ear listens to it the sound may be blaring obvious and may cause said person to become irritated or annoyed by such pieces of music.

One thing to remember is that even if you don’t obtain absolute pitch it does not make you any less of a musician or artist. There are far more musicians who don’t have perfect pitch than who do, and having perfect pitch does not measure your musical talent.