Anyone here have perfect pitch?

I listen to BBC Radio 4 as I wend my way along the leafy lanes of Lancashire (and Merseyside & Cheshire) in the course of my day-job

A programme entitled 'The Science of Music' caught my attention. Perfect pitch was discussed. Interesting stuff

Do you have perfect pitch? Mine is imperfect

UPDATE: Here's a link to the program series. (If you use the 'listen now' button, don't be put off by what sounds like a live feed from the Beeb, after a minute or so, the first episode begins.)

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sdg2r

Hey, Saul, any idea which episode the perfect pitch discussion is in -- er, in which episode the perfect pitch discussion is in?    

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When I started trying to play, I couldn't even tell down from up until you got about a fifth away.

Also, I had a hell of a time trying to isolate pitch from other sonic elements. While I could tune a guitar TO a guitar, I simply could NOT hear how the pitch of a reed pitch pipe equated to the same pitch on a guitar. I broke more than a few strings starting out.

However the much clearer fundamental of a tuning fork proved heavensent to me. And, after a few years with an A-fork, I actually had effectively memorized the pitch. Obviously, though, a far cry from whatever perfect pitch is. 

I'll have to see if I can't come across that show, as I've long wondered about just what 'perfect pitch' is and how it relates to the highly relativistic musical milieu in which we live (or to put in McCartney-speak, in which we're living in).

You know, if you ask folks if they have it, there are a number of folks who say they do.

But if you then ask them what it is and how it works, it's like, I dunno. 

And if you then drill in a little and say, Well, have you ever dealt with other tuning standards? How does your perfect pitch relate to A=444 or A=438? it seems like the answers get vaguer.

And THEN if you ask about how their perfect pitch relates to 12 Tone Equal Temperament as opposed to just intonated instruments and pure, mathematically correct harmonic intervals, it seems like people just start looking at you funny.

So, I'm very curious about what the scientists have to say. Because I have never met anyone who claimed to have it who could even being to answer the questions I have.

PS... probably the most interesting new (to me) tidbit of psychoacoustic understanding is the fact that the so-called 'subjective tones' (beat tones, difference tones, sum tones) are, indeed, just that, subjective, in the sense that they don't occur in air, but in the human auditory system itself or in alinear signal systems. I just sort of had this mental image of the frequency components adding and subtracting -- as one might 'see' them in a simple waveform diagram.

Amazingly, even some uni physics departments present outdated understandings of these phenomena.

Check out Georgia State's Physics department 'explainer' -- that gets it seriously wrong when they suggest that beat tones occur in air (oddly, they do use the term 'subjective tone' anhow):

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/sound/subton.html

For contrast, this explainer (originally from Sam Fraser University, wherever that is), actually gets it right (and cites the research). They correctly note that the so-called subjective tones arise from the nonlinear operation of the psychoacoustic system -- although there is newer research available that proves that the phenomena have neurological components as well. Experiments in the last few decades (IIRC) using different source tones to sepaparet ears via headphones show that such 'subjective' tones are still perceived. So, this dated info only gets a half-star, itself, but it's STILL a lot closer than the peculiar bit of nonsense from GSU's Physics department. Someone ought to stick a bug in their ear on that. (So to speak.)

http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Combination\_Tones.html

(Can't vouch for any other materials in that SFU 'handbook,' mind you. As noted, the material is older and doesn't reflect current research.)

Striking, I think, that the Physics department of a major university like Georgia State would have incorrect information that has been disproven for  many decades.

He actually sang: 'in which we're living'

I can tell you what pitches the car outside uses in its car-horn,   and tell you what pitch the ceiling fan is emitting as she spins.

I can tell if  the flying by airplane has one or more propellers, as well tell the rotor speed in Hertz of a helicopter, my nasal absolute smelling I can tell if a car runs on diesel or biogaz

For years,  I would play parties on slightly (or majorly) out-of-tune pianos.   That was murder.   Now,  I only play digital pianos.  I simply cannot play an out-of-tune instrument anymore.

This is why I'm intrigued by these always-in-tune guitars that Craig is always banging on about

How about a piano (or other keyboard) that is in perfect self-tune but is calibrated to a different standard?

And, how do you feel about the out of tuneness of ET?

When I got my first digital keyboard I couldn't get over the fact that there were out of tune intervals and resulting beat tones. Over the years, I was able to learn more about the differences between ET and Just Intonation and those oddities were explained. But it still always kind of bugged me.

Major thirds above tonic, for some reason, bug me the most, even though the minor third above tonic is even more out of tune. (The ET minor third interval is about 16 cents flat while the ET major third is about 14 cents sharp.)  

I certainly don't have perfect pitch any more than I have perfect abs, but I can pick up a guitar that some kid had messed up really badly and get it close enough to concert ptich and in tune with itself to get the job done. My relative pitch isn't bad - I took a semester or two of ear training when I was a music major at ASU for three semesters before swtiching back to computer engineering, and I learned to guess a few random notes on the piano pretty well. It definitely improves with practice and gets lost without it for me, so it's not a gift.

I'm having a hard time telling if a couple of people here are serious or if they're pulling our legs. I often wonder what it's like for people who truly have "perfect pitch" to the extent of saying the 2nd oboe or whatever is 1 cent off - I don't like equal temperament because, like on the guitar, I want that damn D on the B 2nd string to go with the F# on the E first string and it never does when you're "in tune."

My biggest problem with pitch? They ask me to start us on Happy Birthday at our monthly birthday meeting at work, and I have over a 3 octave usable range - I know it's not like the "Elvis" "Way on Down" end, and I know it's not like when John Lennon sings "It's gonna BE all right...", but there's a whole bunch of 'in-between" that's all equally comfortable to me and I prefer a higher range of that, so I end up messing up a lot of the folks who only have a few to work with.

I know... poor me, but I think about it every time.