Perfect/Absolute Pitch

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Apparently, I'm tone deaf.

The tune test doesn't, and my examples won't indicate perfect pitch. They will show one's familiarity with Western tonal music, but not the ability to name a note upon hearing it without first being given a reference note.

Yes, I do. You'd think this might be beneficial for a musician, and in some ways it is, but it also cause problems if you work with other musicians because you can always spot even the vaguest hint of an off-key note before they do. I've played in a band with a three-guitar line-up, and if even one of those eighteen strings was slightly out, I'd hear it (even at high volumes). The other people you're working with can get irate if you continually insist on stopping a song during rehearsals just to re-tune, so I've learned to keep my mouth shut unless the mistuning is really obvious.

I'm probably going to get kicked in the stomach for this necropost, but here goes nothing... perhaps I can block the attack

Yes, I do indeed have abseloute pitch, and can tell you any note played on the piano -- or even in an orchestra. Yes, I do play the piano. No, I don't have synthesisia, and don't really get annoyed when a song isn't written in the "correct" key.

I'm not sure what I've got. Play any white note on the piano when there are no distractions and I'll name it with about 95% accuracy. I can do this even first thing in the morning when I haven't heard any kind of music, so clearly it's not just relative pitch.

It doesn't seem to be perfect/absolute though either because if you play black notes or there are distractions, my accuracy will go down significantly.

I've never learned music but I can certainly hear when something is played off key. I quite like it when a tunes played off key actually.

I probably don't have AP because I don't even know what the notes are called to be able to recognise them.

Note names are something you learn, perfect pitch isn't something you can learn. It's certainly harder to determine whether you have perfect pitch if you don't know what middle C.

Try this. First thing in the morning when you get up having not heard any other music, start singing a song you know well. Just the first few notes. Then start playing a recording of that song. If the notes you sang exactly match the notes that are played back, I'd say you might have perfect pitch.

∆∆ That won't be hard because I always have a so in my head when I wake up.

I'll try that tomorrow.

I'm with you on that one. So far as I'm concerned, the world is full of loud, ugly noises, some of them physically painful.

One of the music teachers at my secondary school had such an acute sense of hearing, if you played a note on an instrument she could write down all the harmonics.

I don't have perfect pitch, though I do have some relative pitch. If I sing a tune from a classical piece from memory and then check against a piano, I'm rarely more than a tone out. (It doesn't work with songs, as I'm in the habit of transposing them down to suit my voice better.)

Perfect pitch did make for a ridiculously easy time in ear training and dictation when i was a music major. Its a blessing and a curse. When i hear out of tune music the dissonance causes me physical pain. My garage door opener tone is G. My washing machine is Bb. I do my best to ignore it nowadays haha

That's interesting. I can here a nice tune in the fax machine noise.

There is no such thing as perfect pitch. However, I believe there is well developed relative pitch. I can prove it very easily: after getting over a cold, I can't hear pitch to save my soul.

I'm surprised, after all the issues I had with psychiatric medications, that I can still zoom in on a pitch, no thanks to all issues with tinnitus.

That's a lot easier than just hearing a single note and being able to name it, though. At the high end of my range, I can usually tell exactly where the notes are, just by the feeling of my vocal chords, and knowing which notes my voice starts to crack on. Although someone who is very familiar with a certain instrument (like piano) might have a similar ability, just from judging the quality in the timbre of the note.

Similarly, I have a note or two that I just cannot hit when I whistle. I can hit plenty of notes below and above it, but just not that specific note. I never took the time to find out which note it is, though =)

Here's an interesting page with various levels of incomplete absolute pitch:
http://www.wehearandplay.com/taneda/appxa.htm

The test I'd mentioned in the test I'd suggested probably is a good test for #8 on that list, Absolute Hearing Connected with Musical Production, which would then be an indicator of some level of perfect pitch.

I think this page also answers some questions about my own ability. I don't have Active Complete Absolute Hearing, but I'd say I've probably got 1-4, 6, and 8 on the list.

Yeah, so it would be more of a "relative pitch".

I think if I ever tried to learn relative pitch just from listening to music, something like #7, it would probably be helpful to listen for E...as long as the guitar(s) in the song are in standard tuning (and no capo), that low E should be fairly common in most songs.

Actually, IIRC, rock drums are supposed to be tuned to E?

Telephone dial tone is supposed to be an A, but you don't hear those very often anymore =)

What if you can hear a note & sing it, but aren't musical - that is to say, you can't read/write music, or play a musical instrument?

When I was auditioning for my school choir, many years' ago, I was told I had a good singing voice. But if you were to ask me to name the notes on a piano, I'd look at you as if you asked me to translate some Serb-Croat - a blank stare.