Originally posted by Azrael
hmmmmmm.. correct me if i´m wrong.. but everyone i know always kept telling me, that this perfect pitch thing is a gift of birth and that it cannot be learned. those peeps can even tell the pitch of a car-door slammed shut.
afaik those peeps do see colors in their head when they concentrate on a sound. and from those colors they tell the pitch - sortof like "dark red is f#"...... i know about beeing able to develop your ear to a good relative pitch... but to perfect pitch?.. hmmmmmmmmmmmsss i´m not sure.

So when they're born, they are born with the exact knowledge of what the note B sounds like before they have even heard the note B?? Born with the skill of perfect pitch, NO! Born with an better sensitivity to sound, maybe. But they still have to learn to name pitches, like you name colors. And I bet if I went over to your guitar that you've been playing for so many years and hit one of the open strings, you could probably tell me what string I hit. So why couldn't you learn all 12 notes then. You may even be able to tell if it was alittle out of tune, maybe the low E was alittle flat.

See colors, no color is a metaphor. Afterall colors are frequency waves too, although they move 100's of times faster than a sound wav. Our eyes pick them up, but we still at a very young age had to learn to name them. Your ears pick up sounds waves, but they still need to learn to name the pitches. Difference in why people do have perfect pitch or not, can simply be answered by if they were taught to name notes at a very young age. People that don't have it usually where never taught to name pitches like everyone was taught to name colors as a kid. The similarities between recognizing colors and pitches has the same distinct characteristics. Some colors are bright, and some dark. Same with pitches, some are bright, some are dark. It is alittle more than that, but anyone can hear the difference between two pitches can learn perfect pitch. That what it is, knowing the distinction between all 12 pitches.

Here's more on the subject

[Edited by iamthe_eggman on 02-11-2004 at 09:18 PM]