The truth about relative and perfect pitch

There’s more gradation in abilities than many people assume

A version of this essay was posted on my Facebook on January 4th.

One of my pet peeves is when someone asks me, “Do you have relative pitch or perfect pitch?” It’s super complicated, but also really is not.

The thing is, relative pitch is NOT a worse form of perfect pitch. Relative pitch is the ability to identify intervals. Perfect — or absolute — pitch is the ability to identify pitches. They are two SEPARATE capacities.

I personally prefer the term “absolute pitch” because “absolute” indicates that a person can identify pitches in themselves, whereas “relative” indicates that a person can identity pitches in relation. But because “perfect pitch” is the more common term, I will use it in the rest of my explanation.

For both relative pitch and perfect pitch, everyone exists somewhere on a continuum. You might be able to sing a short melody that you just heard, but not be able to sight-sing a short melody given a reference pitch. Both skills can be learned using relative pitch.

Similarly, you might be able to sing any pitch-class (ex. “D flat”) that someone tells you to sing, but only inconsistently be able to identify pitches that you hear. These skills are developed using perfect pitch.

And those last two skill-statements generally describe the amount of perfect pitch that I possess. Just enough to frequently get asked the question, “Do you have perfect pitch?” and to relate to the high-perfect-pitch experience of sometimes randomly noticing that the heating system blows at a B. But not enough to avoid frequent semitone errors when I try to identify pitches that “stand out” in what I’m hearing, nor to hear with any clarity the pitches in a rapid, dense, or chaotic stretch of music.

So when people ask me if I have perfect pitch or relative pitch, it’s really hard for me to answer. Usually I just settle for the slightly joking but true answer, “I have imperfect perfect pitch,” and people can laugh a little with me. The confusion about the word “perfect” is another reason why I prefer the term “absolute pitch.” It’s not about your skill being perfect, but rather it’s the note that is perfect as a pitch in itself, rather than being related to other notes.

Instead of asking people if they have relative pitch or perfect pitch, I propose asking people more precisely about what skills they have. For example, “Can you identify pitches that you hear? To what extent?” Or, “When you sing with a group, can you provide the starting pitch?” Or, “If you look at a notated melody, can you hear it in your head? Or perhaps you hear it more easily if it’s in some keys versus others?” Or, “If you listen to a Baroque music performance, can you tell if it is at a historical pitch rather than at modern pitch? Can you identify the exact tuning?” My answers: Sometimes but usually only isolated notes, yes, yes especially if tonal but I might have to work it out really slowly in my head, yes but not the exact tuning.

Most people who describe themselves as having “perfect pitch” do have some limitations to their abilities. In one scientific study, people who were identified as having a substantial degree of perfect pitch listened to music that was gradually detuned (i.e. getting flatter at a rate of 2 cents a minute). After the listening, these people began to identify in-tune notes as out-of-tune and detuned notes as in-tune — but only for instruments that were heard in the music.

Even people who would never describe themselves as having “perfect pitch” often have some of that ability. For example, my parents (who are not trained musicians) can sing songs in-tune without needing a reference pitch. They might be in the wrong key, and they absolutely have no idea how to name the key, but they aren’t singing “in between” keys either. That demonstrates a small amount of absolute pitch awareness.

So let’s go beyond the binary of relative pitch “versus” perfect pitch and be curious about our abilities that may only be partial, but are awesome and often useful.

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