Is Perfect Pitch Necessary?

There is always a student in one of my classes who has perfect pitch. They seem to be envied by many…….but is it really necessary?

Let’s first address who has it and how you get it. It is a gift! You are born with it. Can anyone learn perfect pitch? That is to be debated and yes, there are programs out there which teach it. But it has been my experience that the ones who have it naturally are the ones who can utilize it and it is an added benefit to them.

I don’t teach perfect pitch, because if you actually walked down that road, it’s a longgggg walk. What you need is the ability to hold a given pitch in your head which we call “Do” or the tonic or key center. Then you learn to determine how far notes are from that given pitch both audibly and on paper. So if you are wondering if you are missing out, please don’t. It’s a very small percentage of people who have it. But, the rest of us have done quite well without it.