4 ms·

I agree, you can't learn this after childhood. As somebody who went to music school for 10 years I've been around literally thousands of musicians and have neve

I agree, you can't learn this after childhood. As somebody who went to music school for 10 years I've been around literally thousands of musicians and have never once met somebody who developed perfect pitch as an adult. On the other hand, if you do have perfect pitch, you can lose it over time! I've had perfect pitch all my life, and now that I'm going on 40 I surprise myself by sometimes hearing a song a half-step off (i.e. I'll assume a song is in F but it's really in E). This has never happened to me until the past few years. Not sure how much is due to my ears aging, and how much due to I'm not a practicing musician anymore.

SeanLuke 6y ago
I'm going sharp as well (this started in my 40s). My understanding is that this is pretty common for people with perfect pitch. And it is frustrating!
cubano 6y ago
Tts very possible that the song IS a half-step off as much modern rock (not so sure about pop) music is deliberately tuned a half-step down in order to either... 1. help the singer hit "higher notes". 2. sound "heavier" and just that "bit off" that half-step down tuning gives. In conjunction with "drop-D" tuning (pulling the low E-string down a full step in order to give a "deeper", more heavy tonality), this gives much of modern "heavy rock" heavier feel. My first encounter with half-step down tuning was, I believe, Motley Crue's Too Fast For Love album, where I beleive Mick Mars used both tunings in order to use a beer bottle for full chord slides (dropping the low-E allows barre chords, the staple of rock music, to be played using just one finger or, in Mick's case, one beer bottle) and that exceptionally low "drop-C#" (remember, we dropped the low-E down a step and a half to C#) drone growl that gave that album an exceptionally hard feel. [edited]
- oriolid 6y ago
  So, is the idea that you don't actually hear that the song is in E (or some other guitar friendly key), but recognize that it's based on open strings on guitar and because of that you just assume it's that key instead of guitar being tuned down?
  - cubano 6y ago
    Yes...absolutely. I can easily say that in the 100's of rock songs that are tuned a half-step down (the entire Guns N Roses catalog for one quick example) and thus lend themselves to keys like G# and D# instead of A and E, that I have almost never encountered a song in G# or D# that were not using half-step down tuning.
robert-boehnke 6y ago
Apologies, I have no idea how "perfect" perfect pitch is (is it sub-semitone accurate?) but could it be you were first exposed to these songs on PAL-region TV where they suffered from PAL speedup (or the inverse)?
- aczerepinski 6y ago
  No - I mean I’m listening to a song and I go to the piano to play along with it. The first note I play is sometimes a half step off. This is not likely to happen with a recording of the instruments I’ve always played (piano and trumpet) but might happen if I’m listening to guitars or organ.

SeanLuke 6y ago

I'm going sharp as well (this started in my 40s). My understanding is that this is pretty common for people with perfect pitch. And it is frustrating!

cubano 6y ago

Tts very possible that the song IS a half-step off as much modern rock (not so sure about pop) music is deliberately tuned a half-step down in order to either... 1. help the singer hit "higher notes". 2. sound "heavier" and just that "bit off" that half-step down tuning gives. In conjunction with "drop-D" tuning (pulling the low E-string down a full step in order to give a "deeper", more heavy tonality), this gives much of modern "heavy rock" heavier feel. My first encounter with half-step down tuning was, I believe, Motley Crue's Too Fast For Love album, where I beleive Mick Mars used both tunings in order to use a beer bottle for full chord slides (dropping the low-E allows barre chords, the staple of rock music, to be played using just one finger or, in Mick's case, one beer bottle) and that exceptionally low "drop-C#" (remember, we dropped the low-E down a step and a half to C#) drone growl that gave that album an exceptionally hard feel. [edited]

oriolid 6y ago
So, is the idea that you don't actually hear that the song is in E (or some other guitar friendly key), but recognize that it's based on open strings on guitar and because of that you just assume it's that key instead of guitar being tuned down?
- cubano 6y ago
  Yes...absolutely. I can easily say that in the 100's of rock songs that are tuned a half-step down (the entire Guns N Roses catalog for one quick example) and thus lend themselves to keys like G# and D# instead of A and E, that I have almost never encountered a song in G# or D# that were not using half-step down tuning.

robert-boehnke 6y ago

Apologies, I have no idea how "perfect" perfect pitch is (is it sub-semitone accurate?) but could it be you were first exposed to these songs on PAL-region TV where they suffered from PAL speedup (or the inverse)?

aczerepinski 6y ago
No - I mean I’m listening to a song and I go to the piano to play along with it. The first note I play is sometimes a half step off. This is not likely to happen with a recording of the instruments I’ve always played (piano and trumpet) but might happen if I’m listening to guitars or organ.