[Harp-L] Perfect Pitch revisited

[Winslow Yerxa]

Absolute pitch (the preferred term nowadays) is thought to be genetic. One of my musical partners claimed that she knew the identity of notes since childhood, as surely as that the sky was blue and grass was green. Yet I noticed that her ability was approximate at times. Both she and her son seemed to have absolute pitch, and at times I felt pitch-blind when working with them.

I don't have absolute pitch naturally, though my relative pitch is good enough that if you give me the identity of one note, I can usually deduce all the others I'm hearing from that information. However, I have found over time that I do have a form of pitch memory. I first noticed it when, after singing in choirs for a few years, I could pick up a piece of unfamiliar choral music and start sight singing the bass line in the right key. I tend to hear mentally songs I know in the right key as well.

However, hearing music and identifying pitch is where pitch memory for me doesn't seem to work. Could that be trained?
 
Winslow Yerxa
Producer, the Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition: ISBN 978-1-118-88076-0
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool Community Music School
President emeritus, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica



________________________________
From: James Brill Rumbaugh <jrumbaug at xxxxx>
To: The Iceman <icemanle at xxxxx>; "amaccana at xxxxx" <amaccana at xxxxx>; "harp-l at xxxxx" <harp-l at xxxxx> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2019 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Perfect Pitch revisited



My 2 cents

I find the concept of "perfect pitch" hard to believe BUT...
The drummer at our weekly harmonica club will lead in his songs singing 
without backing and is always in pitch.
I can't explain it. and a great talent that almost seems wasted on a 
drummer. <grin>

I have not worked with any other musician's with perfect pitch but would 
enjoy the experience. I have worked with many musicians that I wish had 

perfect pitch.

A fellow musician said to me, "I bet perfect pitch would get annoying. You 
would hear squeaky car brakes and say 'ouch, they're a too sharp'"

Jim Rumbaugh