How to Develop Perfect Pitch

Perfect pitch--a much coveted musical skill of being able to identify or sing any pitch without an instrument serving as reference--has long mistakenly been believed to be due to genetic talent. However, more and more musicians and music scholars in recent years are discovering that it is possible to learn this skill. Through careful listening and devoted practice, you can develop your awareness of pitch color and learn perfect pitch.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Work on your sense of general intonation. Learning how to hear the microtonal changes in pitch between tones being adjusted for intonation is not only a vital skill for any musician to have but also good training for developing the sensitivity needed to hear pitch color and pitch depth.

2. Memorize the keys of songs you hear often. Many times, a song that we hear hundreds of times--such as a popular song played on the radio or the theme song to a favorite television show--will eventually make enough of an impression on our memory that you can remember it well enough to sing it in the appropriate key without hearing it. Try singing the song and then listening to it to see if you were right. If so, identify the starting note and you will have a pitch that you can recall with accuracy.

3. Learn to hear differences in color in different keys. The crux of learning perfect pitch is to learn to hear different pitches as being fundamentally different and identifiable by their color on their own, rather than simply in relation to one another. A good way to do this is to observe the color of music played in particular keys; musicians will often describe, say, C major as being the brightest of the major keys while Db major is considered "darker." Pay attention to one key at a time, listening to several pieces of music in that key and notice the character. Also, listen to one song transposed into several different keys and see if you can start to hear the difference.

4. Quiz yourself to identify pitches. It's easier to develop this skill if you can have a friend play a note on the piano without letting you see it. If you're practicing alone, try to play the keyboard while you have your back to it, or make a sound file of pitches and start playing the file in random order.

5. Practice producing pitches on demand. Choose a time when you don't have any music or pitches in your head and try to sing, say, a Bb. Check your accuracy on an instrument.