Perfect Pitch vs Relative Pitch

Music isn't only about what you're born with. It's also about what you train.

Many musicians have heard of perfect pitch and relative pitch, but both are simply different ways our ears recognise sound.

Perfect pitch is the ability to identify or sing a note without any reference. For example, hearing a piano key and immediately knowing, “That's an F♯.” 

However, it can sometimes make music more confusing! Since many Baroque orchestras tune slightly lower than modern orchestras. This means a musician with perfect pitch might read an A on the page, but hear a pitch that sounds almost a semitone lower. While perfect pitch helps identify notes instantly, it can make adjusting to different tuning systems a little difficult. 

Relative pitch is the ability to recognise notes by comparing them to another note. For example, if someone plays a C and then an E, you can hear that the second note is a major third above the first.

An interesting fact is that neither ability makes someone a better musician. While perfect pitch often develops naturally at a young age, relative pitch is considered as a very useful musical skill and can be trained through ear-training exercises.

In reality, every musician uses relative pitch to some extent, and many people can improve it significantly with practice. Just like rhythm, sight-reading, or technique, our ears can be developed over time.