Perfect pitch...

[dpitsch]

Pitch retension or memory are far more accurate terms.
Mozart had "perfect pitch", but he would howl at today's pianos tuned to
A-440, since his A was less than 440.  Bach had an even worse problem.
In Bach's time there were two standards of pitch, the sacred as used in
Churches, and the secular for the street musicians.  Then there was the
problem that different organs in the same town might be tuned to a
different pitch standard.  This got to the point where organ builders
chained a tuning fork to the organ so that everyone would know what
pitch the organ was suppose to be tuned at.  So what is perfect pitch to
one may very well be off pitch to someone else.

As to what does having perfect pitch mean = a musician (or even
non-musicians sometimes have this memory) can identify the correct note
when a frequency close enough to his memory for notes is heard.  I
personally have the problem that I can idenity a note correctly, but
often can not tell what octave the note was played in.  (ie A-440 might
be identified as A-220).  This varies with the instrument being played.
Yes, train whistles, striking a glass or metal object, the sound of a
vehicle's exhaust all get identified as musical notes.

By the way, relative pitch is far preferred to perfect pitch, at least
in my musical training.  The only musicians I know that really need
perfect pitch are singer, who try to perform modern music where they
have to "jump" unusual intervals without accompaniment.

Cheeto LD wrote:

> What exactly does having perfect pitch mean?