Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [relative-pitch]

Relative pitch is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note by comparing it to a reference note by identifying the function of a given pitch and/or identifying the interval between those two notes. Relative pitch is often used in contrast to absolute pitch, or the ability to know pitches without reference to any other pitches.

Relative pitch implies some or all of the following abilities:

  • Determine the distance of a musical note from a set point of reference, e.g. "three octaves above middle C"

  • Identify the intervals between given tones, regardless of their relation to concert pitch (A = 440 Hz)

  • the skill is used by musicians to correctly sing / play a melody or chords and interpret musical notation. Alternatively, the same skill allows someone to hear a melody for the first time and name the notes relative to some known reference pitch.

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Why do people with perfect pitch perceive tunes not in 440 Hz out of tune?

I do not have perfect pitch, but I heard that people who have it might have difficulty when a piece of music is not tuned to the usual 440 Hz pitch standard; it sounds out of tune for them. But this makes no sense to me. As long everything is in the…
StefanH
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Is there a Relative Pitch Clef?

To start out: I am more-or-less familiar with all the standard musical clef notations, including F, C, and G clefs; as well as the fact that clefs can be movable (tenor clef, french violin clef...) and have octave displacements (8va/8vb). I'm also…
Caleb Hines
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If someone can sing a melody, why can they not also recognize the intervals within that melody?

Surely everyone who struggles with relative pitch already has in-built relative pitch, so why is it so hard to actually recognise intervals? What I mean is from a child I (and most other people I imagine) could sing a tune they had just heard. They…
smotala1
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Teaching a student to match pitch

I'm a piano teacher and I currently have a student that is taking voice lessons from another teacher. Our lessons involve me accompanying her and discussing interpretation and style. She has some interesting problems with pitch matching. Once…
ecline6
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Is it possible to have perfect pitch but zero sense of relative pitch?

I'm sure that most musicians have a good sense of relative pitch. Given the name of a well-known song and a starting note, they can sing it in that key, whether or not it is the original key. I have always assumed until now, that people with…
chasly - supports Monica
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Do we have any particular tonal center in mind when we are NOT listening music?

Let say I sing or play song in C major. I feel that C note as home, or in other words, it has the quality of the tonic note for me. I stop playing the song. After 24 hours or any longer period, without listening or playing any other songs I will…
Kudryavtsev Dmitry
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Perfect pitch on only one instrument?

So I was wondering if, theoretically, it would be possible to have perfect pitch only on one instrument. For a bit of background, I grew up as a Suzuki cello student and thus have been playing the cello for quite a long time now. When I'm listening…
Jackalope
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How can I develop relative pitch if I have perfect pitch?

As someone with perfect pitch, I can do the usual things associated with perfect pitch such as name a note instantly without a reference note, name the key, and name a chord. Sight-singing comes pretty naturally too, but that's because I end up…
DiscreteElite_
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Eartraining: What to learn after mastering interval recognition?

(This is for relative pitch, absolute pitch gods please don't descend from heaven) I've been learning to recognize intervals for the past year or so, and I have to say I'm very good at it. (Mostly by using the technique of associating the interval…
Nelo
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Why is it easier to remember a melody as opposed to a simple interval?

There's already a question similar to this here, but most of the answers raise questions like, "If you can throw an object a certain distance but not tell precisely how far you threw it, how do you expect to know the quality of an interval when you…
ApplePieGiraffe
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What is the difference between perfect pitch, pitch memorization and relative pitch?

I am confused by these terms. I heard perfect pitch is impossible to learn as an adult, but if you memorize all twelve notes in the chromatic scale in whichever octave, isn't that perfect pitch? If it isn't, please explain the difference between the…
n00B
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Feasibility of practising music for a person who are almost tone deaf?

I've always had trouble with relative pitch and hearing music in general. When I was younger I couldn't tell you if it was a major or a minor chord I was hearing (when other people seemed to be fully able to), and very recently I didn't do much…
kqr
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Recognizing intervals without interval songs?

I would love to know all my intervals by ear but where ever I search for help it says to learn interval songs e.g. Jaws theme for minor 2nd. I find this to be pretty ineffective honestly. I don't hear those songs when I am transcribing or…
Raymond Visconti
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Which Blues notes are deliberately flattened?

@slim mentioned in this answer that: In Blues music for example, some notes are deliberately flattened -- but others are not, and a listener with experience of the Blues would still spot badly pitched notes. While I have long been aware of…
Doktor Mayhem
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Why do humans have relative pitch?

Why does the brain learn to form a strong connection between some pitches and other pitches like having the internal sense that two notes are a fifth apart?
Timothy
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