Absolute Pitch

Absolute Pitch

If a student of music were to hear a note on the piano, and immediately call the notes name out of the blue, we call this absolute or perfect pitch. People who have this rare gift can also sing any note correctly, without a starting note. When Mozart was 7 years old, he was recorded to have said to a friend, your violin is half a quarter of a tone flatter than mine. Without playing the notes to a piano, the young Mozart could almost see instead of hear the difference in pitch. The secret is a gift. In a way, people with perfect pitch do see notes of music, as though they were colours. To one of these people, a certain note will ring a certain way in their mind, and the tone of the ringing is registered as a texture, different from other notes, and in this way, one can tell what note it actually is. [AW] {NR}