Some seek knighthood
Others seek brotherhood
While bros take the hood,
Chris seeks wankerhood.
:mrgreen: Wankerhood?? I've not just sought it - I've achieved it!
I'm not sure I even believe in perfect (absolute) pitch. I think that unless the studies are extremely careful, it can be explained away by excellent relative pitch and good tone memory.
For example, I was practicing "Crossroads" a couple of hours ago, and just now I hummed the first note (A) from memory, walked over to the guitar and played it, and I was spot on. Wait a few more hours and I'll have forgotten, but maybe some people can remember for hours or days... Combine that with all of the tone references a really musically adept person is likely to run into in a particular day, and who knows, maybe it looks just like perfect pitch.
Heck, all I need is a good headache and I could fool you into thinking I have perfect pitch. (I'd really be comparing notes to the ringing in my ears...)
As for learning how to listen, I think it's critical. I've been a musician for 20 years, but strictly with keyboards and computers. Play me an 80s synthpop hit or a techno song and I can tell you exactly which instruments are playing which melodies, isolate each one in my head, and play it on a keyboard.
Guitars, on the other hand, almost always sound like magic to me... Only after 6 months of lessons have I even begun to be able to "listen" to guitars, and if there's any distortion, complex chords, or harmonics, it still sounds like magic... Figuring out how to play a guitar part by listening is an exercise in futility. Hopefully I'll get better at it.
