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I have to admit, I am a bit envious of any pianist, classical or jazz who has perfect or absolute pitch. Personally, 3 of my teachers had perfect pitch and 2-3 students I had in the past also had the "gift." I tested them and sure enough, they passed the test.

What I am curious about is what pianists, past and present have/had perfect pitch.

The list I know of is: Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett, Mozart, Mike Garson, hmmm, guess that's about the only ones I know who are "certified."

One teacher told me that having perfect pitch was sometimes a hinderance if the piano was out of tune which drove her a little nuts I'm sure and especially when she had to transpose songs for singers, because she would see and hear the original key in her head.

Now of course many fine musicians don't have perfect pitch and develop their relative pitch through ear training. I was always in awe of musicians with perfect pitch and don't understand it and some of them say they don't understand how or why they can hear tones and know exactly what note it is.

If anyone here has perfect pitch, I would be interested in learning about how it helps you or hinders you because of instruments out of tune, etc.

Thanks katt

I have perfect pitch. It helped me get an easy "A" in sight singing class, and I suppose that it helps me to some degree with improvisation. But I think that it's more important to have good relative pitch.

Pefect pitch kind of messes me up when I have to read the music of transposing instruments, such as the trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, or french horn. In order to hear them in the proper key I need to transpose them to different clefs. That's why I'm glad that I play the trombone and piano - no need to transpose!

Wald, that's quite interesting that PP can sometimes be a hinderance. Since I play mainly jazz, when improvising, I will hear notes exactly in tone and key before I play them, but only on the piano when I'm playing and this is possible.

I have read about courses online that claim they can teach anyone to develop PP, however, I am a bit skeptical if PP is something that can be taught or learned from scratch.

katt

A note to add, I talked to Oscar Peterson for a few minutes back in the 70's and told him I heard that he possessed PP. He said he did, but again, transposing songs and out of tune pianos were a bit of a hinderance.

I have AP.

The only thing I used to notice is when I play an interval of an octave is it sounded strange/felt empty. The reason is simple though once you understand what is going on. The chroma of the note doesn't change in this case but with any other intervals you're fine. I don't notice it now.

I don't know of any advantage this is in relation to a musical advantage. Music works by relative pitch.

I'll pm you a link to a certain AP which lists a few names. I would not promote these sites because they claim to achieve the impossible.

How was meeting God?

Hehe Debussy. Yes Meeting "the great one" OP made my whole day. I met him at Berklee in the 70's when he came over to the school to speak to all of us that could fit into the auditorium. I actually was waiting for the elevator to go up to practice, the door opened and standing there bigger than life, my all time idol on jazz piano, Oscar P. I'm lke 5'10 and he was like looking up at Mt Everest, incredible charisma and energy.

And honestly, I really miss him, but thanks to youtube, he is alive and cookin' I had wished for a long time to get a lesson with him, but that never worked out. I can tell you though that hearing OP speak to us that afternoon inspired us all. He took time for question and answer and he played "Who Can I Turn To." About a dozen of us piano students circled him before he left the piano, and someone asked OP, "sir, can you show us something," and he did in fact demonstrate a unique voicings technique that has us all stumped.

I can tell you that OP was a real gentleman, was humble, with no edge or attitude, but confident in his wealth of understanding of jazz and classical music, especially Bach, which he spent a lot of time playing through WTC Bk I.

Yes, Oscar P, one of a kind

katt

I thought Art Tatum was the acknowledged, one true God. I think Oscar Peterson, himself, may have asserted this.

You may be right on that one, however, I never met Tatum, who I think Fats Waller announced that he was just a piano player, then Tatum entered the club and Fats said "but God is in the house tonight." I have to say though that OP was probably the closest technically to Tatum and he was good friends with him and learned a lot jsut hanging out with Art.

katt

I forgot to mention that Tatum was noted to be more at ease playing solo piano, whereas Oscar could play solo or really swing with a trio, bass/drums or with Joe Pass/Herb Ellis. Not sure if Tatum accompanied singers which Oscar did, Ella for instance. Oscar did some cool albums with full orchestra and worked with the great arranger Claus Ogerman. But between the 2 great pianists, I listen to Oscar the most, as his style was more bluesy and modern, to my ears anyway.

I think Oscar mentioned when he did NPR Pinao Jazz with Marian McPartland, that he made the decision that he was not going to be a Tatum "clone" and worked to develop his own style and identity.

katt

katt

You can develop "perfect" pitch, I did it and when I spoke with Bach he admitted it's possible but relative pitch far more important fro playing.
You have to learn to listen to a sound, it's a little bit like with colors. Also it's never perfect, you can be off sometimes but quarter tone or even half, when you got cold for instance etc.

Erroll Garner

http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/


On Tatum:
"Milt Hinton said of him: 'I marveled at what Slam [Stewart] did with him ... know at the Three Deuces, 1935, '36, when I was out there. I just wasn't up to playing all those changes that he [Art] played, you know'. Grimes remembered: 'The arguments he [Art] and Slam had were funny to me. They both had perfect pitch. You could hit on a glass, and they'd tell you what note it was, or what notes it was between. They would get into arguments about things like that, but all in fun. Because Slam had that perfect ear, Tatum couldn't lose him'."

You spoke with.. who?
Oh, and here's a question about music and colors: do people who have some form of synesthesia also have perfect pitch?

Yes, that's is what I was thinking. There are two claims mentioned here. AP can be taught and time-travel is possible. Time-travel being the most realistic.

If you are a time-traveller can you tell me what the smoke-monster is in "Lost".

The description of AP not being perfect is accurate. You're not memorising frequencies. If you are, well.......


There is a song you can learn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcYPjO-Nac


This is a very interesting question.

One would assume that if you hear a note and it has a constant corresponding colour? So this will make it easy but my question would be.....


If you hear a "C" and also see "Red". What colour would a "C" an octave higher or lower be? Is it the same colour or different?

and

If the colours are the same, can you hear the notes being similar or it it just a visual thing?


This lady has all her senses fused. She see intervals too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R_A4tUMOtI&feature=related

I'm sure the song "sing a rainbow" annoys the heck out of them.

Devane, just because you cannot learn something don't assume it cannot be taught.

It was not the point of teaching perfect pitch or not. It's the problem of who did you claim told you that? [ bach? o.O ]

Ok,back on topic. Since the link I didn't want to post is up now I'll refer to it ( I really like his RP though). Some names from the list..

Mozart, Claudio Arrau, Ludwig van Beethoven, Chopin, Fryderyk , Artur Rubinstein,Glenn Gould, Martha Argerich.
I'll add Lang Lang. Some interview I read last summer stated it.

All the AP sites do this. Hoping that people will correlate that AP was a factor for their success. Early exposure/training to music is the primary factor associated with AP (though tonal languages also help too).

When do think most of these people or most professional pianists started playing? It is not a surprise to get good figures here but it is unfair to point out that this is 100% because there are non-AP profession pianists/composers about and rightly so. How AP is critical or even an advantage is a mystery.

Where is the list of non-AP pianists? You could produce one just as good.

that's the whole misconception about that subject,
it's not something that you have to be taught but your ear has to be un-taught what it was doing.
Another misconception is that your ability to learn decrease with age, it's bulsh@t - with brain one rule counts: use it or lose it. Most people when older simply stop learning because of their busy life and that's the only reason.

Regarding so called "studies" come on...I can bring up here hundreds of studies on hundreds subjects that were thought impossible yet some guys who don't like to be told what can be done or not simple did it.

But it is almost impossible what you're saying:
"You can memorise all the pitches". That would be silly even to try...we're not robots.