BY RACHEL BRUERVILLE
“Do you have perfect pitch, or just relative?”
I am sometimes asked this question, but before I can get into any personal opinions, let’s explain what the heck it even means.
To put it simply, having so-called perfect pitch means that someone has the ability to recognise notes ‘out of thin air’; that is, notes that are without musical context.
For example, a noisy truck might drive past, and your friend with perfect pitch (and a whole heap of confidence) will say: “That’s a D-flat”.
(But can you name all the overtones?)
Having good relative pitch means that you have the skill to recognise pitches within a musical context. You might be listening to a piece of tonal music that you know is in C major, and then when the next section starts playing, you can easily identify that it has progressed to E-flat major.
I once asked my mum (who is also a musician) what it meant to “have relative pitch”. She explained it to me by saying something like this:
“You know when we listen to a CD we have played a lot [ABBA Gold, obviously], and after one track, we often start singing the next track from memory in the correct key before it starts, because we remember the album so well? That’s good relative pitch!”
One of the earliest things I learnt when I first started having cello lessons was where each open string note is positioned on the stave. In the beginning, reading the music and playing the notes was just about building an automatic association of what was written in relation to the four strings. I didn’t need to hear anything in my head. I just needed to remember that the top line was A. Then, I would play the open A string when I saw that on the page.
It wasn’t until I started sightsinging properly in choirs (Adelaide Girls’ Choir represent!) that I learnt to apply these same principles of inner hearing. I cannot overemphasise the impact on my musicianship that sightsinging in choirs from a young age has made. I am so grateful for having that opportunity.
I’m still a huge choir nerd, and when I sing in choirs, I sightread well. But I don’t see that as coming from any sort of perfect or relative pitch. It’s simply because I know how to read music.
Tonal music is much simpler to sightsing, because it’s easy to keep tones V and i in your head, and relate all the notes to the tonal centre you’re in. But I don’t see this as having to do with relative pitch, either. I think it’s just knowing how tonal music works.
Sightsinging music without a tonal centre is a more difficult thing to do, but if you can read music, develop good aural skills, and potentially get hold of a tuning fork to help you, then it is certainly not impossible.
I have sung in choirs with people who do have perfect pitch, and I’ve had really interesting experiences with those people.
On one occasion, we were working on quite a difficult piece of atonal music, and one of my lovely perfect pitch friends made a comment: “I’m so glad I can use my perfect pitch to cheat”! I thought it was really hilarious, and also really insightful. Non-musicians can build up the possession of perfect pitch as this amazing gift that only musical geniuses have. But, in fact, I am of the opinion that good musicians without perfect pitch are often more skilled. These musicians can’t “cheat” – they have to learn to think about pitch in a musical context, rather than relying on their perfect pitch to help them.
People often ask me if I have perfect pitch. I tell them I don’t, but that I may know where an A is, since I’ve grown up as a string player tuning to A all the time. If someone asks me to sing an A, I will often sing an A. But I might sing a G or G-sharp, instead. The A that I try to sing most likely won’t be in tune. But it will be in the vague area of an A-440 Hz.
It’s also important to recognise and question the impact of tuning. What happens to a person who has perfect pitch when they have to sing or play at standard baroque pitch, A-415 Hz; assuming their personal brand of perfect pitch relates only to A-440 Hz? Some people with perfect pitch can’t handle it and won’t do it. Others say that they have to transpose down a semitone in their minds, otherwise they’ll get too disoriented. What a hassle! I’m glad I don’t have to deal with it.
I’ve also heard of people with perfect pitch experiencing a kind of physical pain when listening to bi-tonal music.
So, I certainly think it’s time to stop painting perfect pitch as a mystical, superior thing. I am always intrigued by people who have perfect pitch, or who claim to have perfect pitch. However, the next time someone says to you: “That person has perfect pitch, they’re such an incredible musician”, just remember that it might not always be the case.
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