by Thu Nguyen

Created on: August 19, 2010   Last Updated: August 20, 2010

Perfect pitch has its benefits as well as flaws. For purveyors of music whether it's classical or modern, the advantages in picking up a tune and singing it perfectly are a godsend, especially if you're in the music business. However, this may not be true all the time.

With power comes responsibility and folks with perfect pitch find it hard sometimes to concentrate on the music at hand. Thus, what ends up happening is the person starts analyzing the wrongs and hears the flaws that they cannot enjoy the process. They are distracted and just can't let be. So is perfect pitch a curse or a blessing? Let's look at what perfect pitch is first and see if we can determine this decision.

~ A World of its Own Place ~

Perfect pitch also known as absolute pitch has two types - passive and active. An active perfect pitch person can give you the sound without hearing it while a passive perfect pitch person cannot. Just asking for a note alone will show you this difference.

Music in particular ranges from A-G. These 7 notes in turn divides up into whole tones and half tones. In other words, notes also become flats and sharps that goes higher in sound or lower on the treble or bass system which is normally used for beginning musicians.

Perfect pitch owners can tell you what is a flat and what is a sharp. These distinct differences in sounds are not audible to a normal listener who is surrounded and distracted by noise. It takes a great deal of ear training to hear exactly how these tones come about. Thus, it can be a curse as all sounds become taken into account. This can then drive one mad with analytical furies.

Overall, those with perfect pitch tend to see sounds in their own place so that they can define it in terms of their position. Anything that may fall out of line with might make them cringe 

~ Cognitive vs External Forces ~

Could someone be born with perfect pitch? Whether it's in the genes or learned from an early age on, possessors of this ability do start young. Their perception of the world around them then takes on the putting the chromas, which is the tonal quality that recurs among the tones in an octave. Thus, you have 7 notes plus their sharps and flats which makes it 12 altogether, quite a lot of sounds to consider.

Imagine putting the relationship of these sound together each and everyday in the things they do outside of music. Cognitively, they work this way. However, the conflict here can come from too much engagement with the invisible that it might be bothersome to be annoyed more with things you cannot change. Thus, that is also the curse.

While I fall on the blessings side, one may wonder how a possessor of perfect pitch lives quietly. They can't and that's their curse. However to us, it's a blessing since we have not trained ourselves that deeply.

Learn more about this author, Thu Nguyen.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.