# Piano Perfect Pitch?



## BlackKeys

I'm not really sure where to put this thread, I guess here is the best guess.

I have been playing piano for over 13 years now, and I only recently discovered I possess "perfect piano pitch" (as called by my friends). I can instantly name keys played on the piano, although black keys and high/low notes are slightly more difficult. The only catch is, I don't have real perfect pitch as I'm not very accurate on other instruments. 

To me, the notes aren't predominantly recognizable by pitch, but by how they resonate. A and G are very shiny, F and B are mellow, D and C are soft, and E is somewhere in between.

Does anyone else experience this? Is it just musical memory or something else going on?


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## Nate Miller

all perfect pitch is is a very keen memory for sound.

nobody is born knowing what A440 sounds like, how could they?

what they are born with is a very good memory for sound

you are used to hearing your piano, that is why you can hear the notes on pianos, but are a mere mortal when the note is on another instrument.


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## shostythesnowman

Both my brothers possess perfect which when I was younger was very annoying. 
But since then I have developed something that's very close to perfect pitch.
I can recognize individual notes and keys but still I'm sometimes off. I find it useful but both my siblings find it more a curse than a gift, do you?


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## EdwardBast

BlackKeys said:


> Does anyone else experience this? Is it just musical memory or something else going on?


My first girlfriend had something like that. She could name notes played on the piano, but only the white keys I think. I don't believe Nate is correct that perfect pitch is just a memory thing. Incidence of perfect pitch is strongly correlated with tonal versus non-tonal languages. People who speak languages where meaning depends on pitch, have enormously higher incidences of perfect pitch.


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## Nate Miller

no, not just a memory thing. Its a disposition towards a very good memory of sound. Some people are better then others, but everybody I knew that had it, believed they could teach it to somebody. That's everyone I've known, so that might not be universal. But I had a roommate that had it, and Steve worked with me and I got better at it living with him. I also knew a girl that had the form of perfect pitch that she saw colors, and was doing her thesis on how to teach that sort of thing.

so when I said a keen memory for sound, I didn't mean it was a memory thing.

It would make sense, though, that people that spoke a language where pitch was part of the pronunciation, that they would be more likely to develop perfect pitch 

I think that people with perfect pitch basically have a photographic aural memory. I'm basing that on talking with people that I've worked with that had perfect pitch, not any articles or research or anything


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