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Originally Posted by TemjinStrife  The thing is, I don't really have "relative pitch" at all, as far as I can tell. You play me two ascending fifths, say F-C then D-A. I hear "F-C" then "D-A." I don't hear the "fifth." I have to count on one hand (or imagine the cello strings under my fingers) to figure out the interval.
It's also not something I've trained in... I just realized I had it one day, and now I'm trying to adapt certain lessons and stuff like alternate tunings (which come much easier to people with relative pitch) to my own sense.
As a matter of fact, I fear that I never really will have relative pitch, because the notes "singing" overrides anything else really. I can only identify suspended or 7th chords because I hear them so often that they have their own way of "singing" to me.
As for using perfect pitch for everything (including transposition)... I don't have a choice. That's kind of what I was trying to get at. I'm locked into the toolset I have, and I have to deal with it. Thus, I tend to laugh at people who wish for perfect pitch; it really is a double-edged sword. |
I would actually say that relative pitch is more important than perfect pitch, but most music university professors I've met or seen say that they are both absolutely necessary and equally important.
There's an old idea that anyone can learn relative pitch, but that you are either born with perfect pitch or not. Recently however certain people have proven that you CAN learn perfect pitch as well (it's been known forever that you can learn relative pitch, since it's quite easy to learn), making the idea that anyone can learn perfect pitch as well.
I have pretty good relative pitch, but I'm no good at perfect pitch. When I used to take music theory classes, if you told me what the first note was and played a melody after it, I could notate the entire melody perfectly, but if you didn't tell me what the first note was, I'd have no reference for the rest of the melody. It's just be a 5th above "X" and then a minor third above "X" and so on.