Confused on perfect pitch, clarification please.?
Ok so heres the deal,
I've never taken any sort of singing lessons, im 16 and really the only singing I've done in my life is in the shower and alot of the times listening to music, I recently had an opportunity to perform a song at a concert because I'm pretty good at guitar and they asked if I wanted to sing so I said Sure why not Ill give it a try so when practicing ( I don't know how to read sheet music so just plain guitar tab with words for the lyrics ) I started trying to match the singers voice of the song and after he said he was pretty suprised that I was on pitch and said I should definatly stick with it and pursue it , so I looked it up and found perfect pitch... But I can't hear lawn mower and say G#5 or whatever I dont even know the names of the pitches I just idk try to soung like the singer anyone know what I'm doing here thats working lol?
I mean a musical ear makes sense but I mean like my family doesnt have much musical backround so where could I inherit that from
I agree with most of the above answerers. What you have is just a musical ear. Many people (or so I think anyway) will be able to match the pitch on their instrument with the pitch of a singer or similar. However, perfect pitch is the ability to reproduce a note without reference PERFECTLY. That means you aren't sharp or flat and that you just know what the note is. When somebody is slightly off tune, you'll be able to tell even though a regular person can't. That's what perfect pitch is. It's being able to tell pitches apart and reproduce them without reference to another note. If someone were to sing you a note, would you be able to tell what note it was off memory? Would you be able to play the note on the piano that was sung? Perfect pitch is rare among people. I've only met two people who have perfect pitch and that is it.
Just because your family is not musical does not mean that can't be musical. Also, people are just born with perfect pitch or develop it. It could be in your genes although your family doesn't show musical ability. Did you really think musicality is a trait passed on? The materials you will need (Ie, the vocal cords, fingers, etc.) may be passed on to you; but you are the one who will decide the extent of how musical you will be.
You can read up on it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch
You might also want to watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtj01-u2sa0
