RealMusician said:

matter of opinion many he has worked with beleive him to have perfect pitch.

txladykat said:

Well, I'm not saying he doesn't have perfect pitch, I just don't see why it would be obvious that he does...

And personally I think it's more of a handicap than a talent anyway.

The fact that Prince (just like most other major artists) can not read music doesn't say anything about his "talent" - actually, it says more about the capabilities of the people he works with.

Musical notation, whether it's notes on a staff or chord symbols or whatever, is a language. A way of communicating. Of course there are other ways to present musical information - like playing it to someone, showing it, or recording it. What method works best depends very much on the circumstances and the people involved. Once again, this has nothing to do with talent!

Since Prince creates and performs almost exclusively his own music, he usually doesn't need to take in any musical information, but only give out information to the people he's playing with. And since he is not only the leader, but also a major star, he can communicate that information any way he likes. If he wants to paint it with watercolors or make signals with his eyebrows or call out chord changes in Swahili, it's up to the recipient to interpret and understand it.

Knowing the complexity (and pure extent) of Prince's music, there is a lot of musical information that must have passed from him to his bandmembers - which probably means that either he's very good at communicating his ideas, or his musicians are very good at taking in the information.

RealMusician said:

interesting that you consider it a handicap..do you feel like explaining why you think that? I myself consider it a talent, of course, difference in opinions is all.

RealMusician said:

I understand what you're saying. It would be much easier to plop a chart in front of your bandmates and, if they are good sightreaders, start playing through your new song right away. It would be more challenging to have to communicate all of that verbally, or just play it for them and have them pick it up. That would take some serious communication skills and understanding of music indeed. I won't lie, I'd much rather write out a chart and give it to the band.

txladykat said:

I don't know if you're a musician or so, but... Having perfect pitch is like having an instrument that you can't tune - is just is the way it is. And when you play with other people, with other instruments and voices, it can be a problem if they don't have the same "tuning" as you.

Perhaps you're familiar with this, I don't know...but the standard tuning reference (for the note A) is 440 Hz. Now let's say you have perfect pitch, and has to sing to a piano or guitar that's tuned to 442 - then it might feel weird to you, as you would have to sing purposely "out of tune" to make it sound right.

On the other hand, it could be even worse - one of my old teachers had perfect pitch, but it was a little low in itself (maybe 438 or 439 or something like that) - with the result that almost all music, whether he played himself or just listened, felt out of tune to him (even though it actually wasn't).

If you're a singer, having perfect pitch might help you with intonation, but apart from that - and the ability to pick any note right out of the air - I don't really see what the advantages would be.

Having good relative pitch, on the other hand, is crucial to most musicians - meaning the ability to find notes, intervals, harmonies etc "by ear" from a given reference point.

Prince doesn't even read fan mail, let alone music!

What I see in this never ending argument is that some folks seem to think it would somehow lessen Prince's genius if he couldn't read music.

It's also funny that people use the movies to prove their points. I guess that means Prince either lives with his parents or under a club, Morris started Apollonia 6, and he & Prince are really enemies.

RealMusician said:

I have a friend with perfect pitch, and it is a curse a lot of the time. He finds it painful to hear notes that are even slightly out of tune, and he's CONSTANTLY correcting people. It's as much of a pain to those around him. I have pretty good relative pitch, and it does come in handy quite often. I would prefer it over absolute pitch, which, by the way, can be learned.

UCantHavaDaMango said:

I studied music in college, and they had us practice identifying notes, to test us for perfect pitch, as well as cultivate the skill, which you're right, can be learned.

I agree, think relative pitch is much more important, and makes you more adaptable to different real-life situations, rather than the more sterile world that perfect pitch requires.

But perfect pitch has to be really developed to be much of a distraction. I think people with good relative pitch are likely to be annoyed by people off key, as well. I know I am.

NDRU said:

Yeah, me too. Even when Prince is flat, I cringe.

i see ur point. i get the feeling though that he is more along the lines of being able to pick out any note when played, rather than having to find the notes as with relative pitch. i always thought he had perfect pitch because he seems to know what every note played is, on so many instruments, without having to find the note from that reference point. but, then again, i dont play with him, i have never witnessed him in the studio. i was, however, told by someone who knows him well that he has perfect pitch.

i am a beginner musician, so i am sure nowhere to your level, and relative pitch is something I am still working at, LOL. I am self taught. I started off reading about music theory, and learning to play more technical piano by sheet music, but have found myself going more towards the ear training, which i like alot more. i mostly use sheet music as a kind of outline so to speak, mostly learning the piece based on what i hear, not what i read.

txladykat said:

The thing is, there almost always is a reference point of some kind. The only exception would be if you hear a single note played without accompaniment, and without any notes before or after it - then you would have to have absolute (perfect) pitch to be able to name that note.

Otherwise, for instance if you're playing a song in F minor (or any given key), and someone plays a random note, I would be able to tell you exactly what note that was (or repeat it on my instrument, for that matter). But that's all relative pitch.

So when Maceo plays a lick on the saxophone, and Prince picks it up on guitar, it's a combination of him
A - knowing the key of the song
B - identifying and recognizing the phrase
C - then, through theoretical knowledge (OR simply just experience), understanding which notes to play

It all happens subconsciously and very quickly. But it's still "just" relative pitch. And if you lose the reference point it probably wouldn't work - let's say Prince walks into a rehearsal in the middle of a song and sits down at the keyboards, not knowing anything about the song they're playing; then Maceo plays the same lick, and Prince (without having played a single note yet) tries to repeat it; chances are he (or anyone else) would fail. He might recognize the phrase itself, but wouldn't know in which key to put it. And there are twelve to choose from, so you calculate the odds...

On the other hand, let's say he did know the key of the song, but then Maceo would play some strange, avant-garde kind of phrase that's not part of Prince's musical vocabulary...then he probably wouldn't be able to pick that out either.

thanks for your posts RM.They have been very enlightening for me as a beginner teaching herself.

I haven't been able to figure out how people can just listen to a song and know what "key" it is in. I have a program that I use to practice pitch. It plays the audible note and you have to determine which key it is. I have about an 85% accuracy, but if it played chords or a series of notes and asked me to determine the scale or key, I couldn't do it yet. I guess that is something that just comes in time.

RealMusician said:

But an experienced musician (especially one who plays by ear) can figure out the key quickly, and many people watching wouldn't even notice the search. Moreover, since Prince knows instruments, he could look at the keyboard, bass, or guitar player's hands for that reference, and it would appear that he just jumped in using his perfect pitch.

He might have perfect pitch, but it's hardly necessary or even to his advantage, really.

NDRU said:

Yes, you're right, of course. I just made up an extreme example to illustrate the point - in a real situation, Prince (just like any other musician) would probably act the way you described.

RealMusician said:

Yes, I see your point. I was being a bit nit-picky.