Music Ear Training: Relative vs Absolute Pitch

Music Ear Training begins with an understanding of a few simple terms: The description below sourced from Ezine Articles gives a clear description of the basic terms you need to be familiar with. However they are very general descriptions and therefore will be expored in more detail in coming blogs......

Source Johnny Moon

Absolute Pitch Is Also Known As Perfect Pitch

First I think it's important to get this out of the way. Absolute pitch and perfect pitch are exactly the same thing! They are just two words for the same concept. Don't get confused by this.

What Is Absolute Pitch?

It's the ability to discern what a note or chord is simply by hearing it (without any reference guide such a pitch pipe being used!) A good singer with absolute pitch can sing any note from memory exactly on pitch. Even if she's got no music to sing along with.

What Is Relative Pitch?

You may have also heard of something called "relative pitch." For years it was thought that relative pitch was actually the only kind of pitch recognition that could be trained. Of course now we know that absolute pitch recognition can be developed through ear training as well.

Relative pitch is the ability to hear how two or more notes relate to each other. For example someone with relative pitch can tell you what kind of chord he is hearing (whether it's a minor or a major chord) and he can tell you what the interval is between two notes (ie a pefect pitch or a minor second.) But he cannot tell you exactly what the chord is or what the notes are. Only what they are in relation to something else!

Developing perfect and relative pitch go hand in hand as you will discover in my coming blogs. I will provide you with super cool techniques and tools that will develop both your ability to spot intervals and individual notes as well as learning to hear and play back whole phrases. With practice you will aquire both relative and perfect pitch.