r/perfectpitchgang

I’m an amateur musician who started playing the violin/cello at 10/11 years old. I have a very informal music background (played a bit in my school orchestra as a kid, self-taught guitarist). I’ve never trained for relative pitch.

I don’t fit the typical definition of someone with perfect pitch, and yet I feel I have something very close to it. Does anyone else have this experience?

I can correctly identify which note I’m listening to without an audible reference note with almost perfect accuracy. I can also do the same for chords as well. I can learn songs on the piano very quickly (within a few minutes) completely by ear, and in the correct original key. I do this going purely off of my memory.

However, one thing that sets me apart from someone with perfect pitch is I do have to do some mental calculation to figure out what some notes are. I know automatically what C, D, E, G, and A sound like. If someone plays A#, I’ll think to myself “this sounds a semitone up from A, so it must be A#”. It’s a quick mental process, but not quite automatic.

I know that relative pitch involves the use of a reference, but I don’t need an audible reference to know which note I’m hearing. I feel that I don’t neatly fit into either definition.

I also do have an immediate knowing when something is out of tune, even very slightly. But I don’t fit the definition of someone with perfect pitch. Does anyone else share my experience? I’m often told that relative pitch is common among musicians, yet I don’t find my experience to be common when engaging with other musicians in-person. Can perfect pitch be considered a spectrum?

For as long as I can remember, I've been able to instantly recognize all the white keys on a piano without any reference. It works for other timbres too — even something like the squeak of a chair. But I’ve never been able to distinguish flats and sharps. If I hear a C♯, my brain just tells me it’s a C. This might stem from a bad habit: I’d sing a C even when the score said C♯.

(Edit: When I say I would sing a C even if it’s C sharp I meant that i think of it as a C in my head as I play that note. I play piano religiously when I was a kid and I thought if I think of it as C sharp that’s two words and it ruins the rhythm a little bit. I just tried the perfect pitch test online and identified 20/20 correctly of all 12 notes I guess I don’t have this problem anymore but i still WANT relative pitch !)

Recently, I’ve been trying to develop relative pitch. But whenever I try to use a movable-do system or imagine the tonic as “do,” my brain just won’t have it. It keeps telling me, “That’s not do, that’s a G.” I can force myself to think of it as “do” for a few seconds, but then my brain subconsciously flips it back to the absolute note name.

It’s like my imperfect pitch is actively preventing me from hearing relationships. I can’t be the only one who’s struggled with this. How do you work around it? I wouldn’t say I have perfect pitch cuz I only have a 50 percent success rate which is practically useless that’s why i really want to learn relative pitch.Whatever I have I just want to turn it off.

Hello! I’m an amateur musician with very little musical training. I started playing the violin at 9, cello at 11 and guitar at 12. Stopped playing music regularly at 15, and I’m 22 now. I also don’t play piano, just to preface.

I can learn basically any song by ear within a few seconds to minutes on the piano. I don’t need to listen to the song again in order to do this. Every pitch is mapped out in my mind, including chords, and I simply “find” what’s playing in my mind on the piano and go from there. I don’t know how to read sheet music for the piano, so I’m just looking for an audible representation of whatever’s playing in my mind.

Is the skill that I’m exercising relative pitch, or related to an absolute sense of pitch? I used to think it was relative pitch, but I’m not so sure now. Mainly because I’m not finding the next note relative to whatever was played before, but instead finding the exact pitch I remember the song playing. This allows me to easily play many different chords to accompany the melody of the song as well, as I can pick out the different notes in the chord and represent that on the piano.

To be clear, I can also identify all 12 notes without an external reference, as well as many chords. But I’m not as good with chords, because I only know the basics by name. By some definitions, I guess you could say I do demonstrate absolute pitch.

I’m just curious if this skill is related to either relative or absolute pitch. Thank you!

Yesterday, I posted the following on social media...

>Bb, F, Eb D C Bb F, Eb D C Bb F, Eb D Eb C, Bb, F, Eb D C Bb F, Eb D C Bb F, Ab G Ab F, F F G, G Eb D C Bb Bb C D C G A, F F G, G Eb Eb D C Bb F C, F F G, G Eb D C Bb Bb C D C G A, F F Bb G# F# F Eb C# C Bb F F F F.

And today, I'm going to post this...

>G...... G F# G E Eb E C B C G, E F G A B C D E F D, F E F D C# D B Bb B G, G G G A G F E D C. G F# G E Eb E C B C G, E F G A B C D E F D, F E F D C# D B Bb B G, G G G A G F E D C. D D D A A A C C C B, D D D C C C E E E D, D D D A A A C C C B, D D D E D C B A G. D D D A A A C C C B, D D D C C C E E E D, D D D A A A C C C B, D D D E D C B A G. G F# G E Eb E C B C G, E F G A B C D E F D, F E F D C# D B Bb B G, G G G A G F E D C. E E F G G G C B D C, E E F G G G C B D C, C B Bb A F G A, C B A G E F G, G A G F D E F, F G A B C B A G F E. E E F G G G C B D C, E E F G G G C B D C, C B Bb A F G A, C B A G E F G, G A G F D E F, F G A B C B A G F E C. G G F# G G A G G E, G G F# G G A G G F, F F E F G F F D, D E F D E F G E, G G F# G G A G G E, G G F# G G A G G F, F F E F G F F D, D E F G A B C. E E C C B A B C, B C D D C B A G, G A B B A G A B, A G A G F E D C. E E C C B A B C, B C D D C B A G, G A B B A G A B, A G A G F E D C. C E G C, C B B Bb Bb A A, A C B, A G A G F E, C E G C, C B B Bb Bb A A, A C B, A G A G F E, E Eb E, E Eb E, E F A G F E D, F E F, F E F, F G B A G F E, E Eb E, E Eb E, E F A G F E D, F E F, F E F, F G B A G F E. C E G C, A, F#, D, B..... E, E E E, D E F D E C, E, E E E, D E F D C, E, E E E, D E F D E C, E, E E E, D E F D C, G A B C B A D, G A B C B A G, G A B C B A D, G A B C B A G, G E G E D E F D E C, G E G E D E F D C, G E G E D E F D E C, G E G E, G G# A B C!!!!!

For those of you who (like me) have absolute pitch, can you figure out why I would post those particular note sequences on those particular days?

I used to believe absolute pitch was just about memorizing isolated notes.

For a long time, I trained by identifying the 12 notes repeatedly, expecting my brain to eventually “lock in” perfect pitch. But something unexpected kept happening: my relative pitch constantly tried to create tonal centers and understand notes through relationships.

Over time, I started noticing patterns.

Some keys felt much easier than others. Certain chord progressions became instantly recognizable, while others still felt unstable. That was the moment I realized my brain was building tonal stability before true absolute recognition became consistent.

Then something changed.

Music started to gain “color.” Songs I had listened to hundreds of times suddenly revealed details I had never consciously noticed before. Harmonic movement became clearer, and even random sounds started carrying recognizable identities.

One of the biggest realizations in this process was understanding that pitch recognition doesn’t always feel like “measuring frequencies.” Often, notes feel more like unique identities or sensations.

I also realized that relative pitch and absolute pitch are not enemies — they seem to reinforce each other. Sometimes harmonic function, chord tension, or the bass note helps guide my brain toward faster pitch recognition.

Now my training feels less like “guessing notes” and more like building an integrated auditory perception where note identity, harmonic relationships, and auditory memory are slowly connecting together.

I still struggle with some things, especially identifying imagined melodies or recognizing pitches instantly across every timbre, but the difference compared to the beginning is huge.

This journey made me realize that developing pitch perception is probably much more gradual and adaptive than most people think.

I'm 53 years old and have for sure never had perfect pitch, though I've always had very strong relative pitch, and am a competent musician. I never cared a whole lot, though I did periodically try testing myself for fun over the years, and always failed.

I'm generally happy to hear music played in any key, they are very equal to me.

But... in the last year I noticed a quirk. For some reason, I can always remember the exact pitches of the treble synth riff in Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", which goes like this https://mascii.org/e#u9yVkq6gp6Cn4JoIpkCwRsEtyQFNkEvRXSFFIU0hXcFNwUXBWSFFQaFGAU0IAA

Any time I think of that one tune, and only that one tune AFAIK, I can always accurately remember the starting pitch of that riff. I've gone months without hearing it or thinking of it, then one day I'll test myself and it's always spot on. I've randomly tested myself probably 15 times now over the course of a year.

I don't know what to make of this, nor what it is about that tune. Maybe the characteristics of the synth sound? Maybe the parallel fourths it's playing? Maybe because I've heard it since childhood?

If someone were to play that song in a different key it wouldn't bother me, I probably wouldn't notice. But now if I hear a car horn or something and am curious about its pitch and I'm not near a piano (a rare scenario since I have a piano app on my phone), I can figure it out by calculating from that song since I know that song is in G minor.

This trick is basically useless. I imagine having true perfect pitch could be useful for quickly figuring out complex passages upon hearing them, but I don't think I'll ever have that kind unfortunately. Still, makes me wonder if I could find 11 more tunes and eventually develop a sort of sense without having to rely on relative pitch calculations.

I'd be curious to hear from someone with true perfect pitch if there's something about this song that makes it more amenable to being remembered in that absolute way?

I can instantly identify the white keys, and F sharp and B flat on a keyboard, but struggle to do so with the other sharps / flats. For those I need to sound the note in my head and go up / down a semitone to find the closest white key before I can get the right answer, all without a reference note though.

I also found that I got better at recognising those notes after doing some perfect pitch tests where they sounded a flat / sharp and I practised identifying them.

Related question, is perfect pitch involved in being able to learn songs quickly after hearing it and naturally knowing the accompaniment a melody should have?

When I hear microtonality in music, my brain rounds up or down to the nearest pitch. I hear the pitch translated as words (fixed do solfège is what I was taught, so that’s how my brain autotranslates).

How about for you? Do you hear the cents in between semitones as a true pitch? Do you round up or down in your brain as it translates to CDEFGABC or fixed do solfège? Or something different altogether?

I don't have perfect pitch, but I'm training my relative pitch really hard and it's getting better. I plan to do an experiment - I bought a tuning fork tuned to a 440hz, and I'm planning to spend so much time listening to it that I'll eventually internalize that a, and by extension would be able to identify any other pitch. Would that work? Has anyone done something like that? I found that idea in a workbook for music schools, the idea is that before every ear training class, students would sing an A and eventually would be able to recall it from memory. I know people do that with songs, but I haven't found anyone trying it with a pure sine wave.

My son is a brain cancer survivor and developed autistic tendencies as a side effect to the brain surgery at age 4 and proton radiation. He did not have autism prior to diagnosis. He is now 16.

He has always from a young age had a strong connection to music. I (his mother) went to state choir in school, and my side of the family is the same, all vocalists.

He went to region choir this year in Texas, and has been placed in the AP HONOR CHOIR as well as the CHAMBER CHOIR (only acapella choir with 6 singers per voice part) for his Sophmore year. Proud momma over here.

His vocal coach let me know last year he has perfect pitch, if you ask him to sing any note, he can. On key.

Also, if you play up to 3 notes at the same time, he can tell you what keys you played together. Whole, Sharps, & Flats.

He also can see colors and shapes with each note, and tells me they never change. (Chromastesia)?

I’m amazed at his musical brilliance.

Just wanted to share. 🤍🎵