Many people innocently think that a person having a perfect pitch (sometimes known as the absolute pitch ) is the same as having a relative pitch. This often leads to confusion among musicians, especially the beginners.
The truth is that the difference between having the perfect pitch vis a vis with the relative pitch is very substantial indeed. Let this fact speaks for itself. Most good musicians and singers have excellent relative pitch, but most if not all world class top musicians and singers not only have relative pitch, they have perfect pitch as well!
So what is the differentiation between the two terms? Well, people who have perfect pitch have the ability to name and reproduce a musical note without any reference to any musical instrument. All the person does is to simply listen to any note and he/she will be able to know what is that note and is able to reproduce the same note vocally or on the any instrument of choice.
Wow! You must be thinking that these people are very talented indeed to be able to do that. Well they are, but do you know that almost everyone can learn how to develop and have perfect pitch by ear training? It may look impressive and it is, it can be learnt if you want to.
So, what is relative pitch then? People having relative pitch which many musicians do is having the ability to identify a musical note by relating it to another note. There is a reference note to begin with and that is why it is called relative .
For example, a guitarist may play a solo rift for the first time, but because of his relative pitch skill, it may seem to you that he/she may have been playing that solo rift for umpteen times since the musician is able to run through the notes so easily and skillfully.
The guitarist is able to do this because he/she has a root note, chord or key to relate to when they are improvising. Therefore the improvised notes they play all relate back to this root of the particular rift and therefore, they seem like they are playing by ear. This skill therefore allows you to play with any other musician in a band and even any song that is being played for the first time. When a jazz zinger scats, the singer is using relative pitch to do that.
Relative pitch is relatively (pun not intended) easier to learn than the perfect pitch because it has a reference point. For example, if I were to tell you to play a melody line in the key of G , you can then choose the notes to string together provided the rhythm is correct in the key of G and you will be able to formulate a tune.
Now, if I will to give you three chords to play in the same key, all you need to do is to choose the notes that are relative to those chords and let your imagination take over to formulate a tune that can be the melody line of those chords.
Of course, you need to practice with the musical instrument of your choice. You can t develop the skill just by simply reading this article. I mean, can you read a book on how to swim when you have never swam before and will be immediately able to swim after reading?
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