Pitch Perception Quotes

Perfect pitch is genetic. It's 100% genetic.

I don't really sing... I just hear notes so I know what it's supposed to sound like, if that makes sense. You ever hear someone try to teach a choir how to sing, but they can't sing? That's me.

The frequencies of the notes in a scale—do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do—sound to us like they’re rising in equal steps. But objectively their vibrational frequencies are rising by equal multiples. We perceive pitch logarithmically.

Hearing loss has not affected my vocal range. I can still pitch perfectly, but without the hearing aids, I don't hear the intricate high parts of the actual spectrum.

Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music.

For me, the strike zone has always been, If it's something I can drive, it's most likely a strike. I feel like if it's a ball I really can't do much with, it's most likely a ball. So that's just always been my approach.

There's something wrong with my brain, it doesn't work properly! I can hear the same pitch in both ears, whereas for most people, if you listen to one pitch in one ear, it's slightly different in the other. That's how your brain works out direction.

Being in music forever, I have good pitch, so I know when I'm singing in or out of tune. But the key to really good singing is just relaxing and thinking about what the song is.

It took me 20 years to learn I couldn't tune too well. And by that time I was too rich to care.

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.

I really don't have an ear for pitch. I can't sing at all, I can't hum melodies and I can't write riffs.

But I was not in the band, because I suffer from the kind of tone deafness that is generally associated with actual deafness

I am very unmusical. I can't carry a tune. I would never be able to play an instrument.

As a singer, you kind of are able to feel notes.

I'm a guy where my perfect pitch has been altered by the fact that I usually tune up to what's going on. When I was a kid, it was horrible! If two notes were playing right next to each other, and they were dissonant, it would drive me nuts. If it was something that sounded like it was in between notes, it'd make me cringe.

Everyone in my family is pretty much tone-deaf.

I don't have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.

There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding to different aspects of music: to pitch, to frequency, to timbre, to tonal intervals, to consonance, to dissonance, to rhythm, to melodic contour, to harmony.

It always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off. But at the end of the day, it's all about frequencies and what they do to you. That's the real core.

Deftly whipping a small tuning fork from his pocket, he struck it smartly against a pillar and held it next to Jamie's left ear. Jamie rolled his eyes heavenward, but shrugged and obligingly sang a note. The little man jerked back as though he'd been shot.