Absolute pitch (AP), widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.
Correct identification of the pitch need not be expressed linguistically; AP can also be demonstrated in auditory imagery or sensorimotor responses, for example by reproducing on an instrument a tone that has been heard (without "hunting" for the correct pitch).
Possessors of absolute pitch have it in varying degrees. Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of the following abilities, in the absence an external standard:
- Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. A, B, C♯) played on various instruments
- Name the key of a given piece of tonal music just by listening (without reference to an external tone)
- Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass
- Accurately sing a named pitch without an external reference
- Name the pitches of common everyday sounds such as car horns and alarms
People have absolute pitch ability and relative pitch ability in varying degrees. Relative and absolute pitch work together in actual musical listening and practice, but strategies in using each skill vary.
Read more about Absolute Pitch: Correlation With Musical Talent, Relative Pitch
Famous quotes containing the words absolute and/or pitch:
“An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.”
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941)
“He maintained that the case was lost or won by the time the final juror had been sworn in; his summation was set in his mind before the first witness was called. It was all in the orchestration, he claimed: in knowing how and where to pitch each and every particular argument; who to intimidate; who to trust, who to flatter and court; who to challenge; when to underplay and exactly when to let out all the stops.”
—Dorothy Uhnak (b. 1933)