It's importent to develope a good relative pitch ( perfect pitch isn't all that usefull, especially since it's genetic, so either you got it or you don't ).
Contrary to popular belief, perfect pitch is not genetic. One can acquire it. It takes a different kind of ear training than relative pitch does. Also, I would say perfect pitch isn't useful. For instance being able to tune your instrument without out a tuner is a good skill. As is being able to start out singing on key without a relative note to relate to. Especially in a song that starts out acapella.
Just to clarify a bit. The ability to accurately recognize and reproduce a tone is often called perfect pitch. This is not entirely true. It is not one, but two very different phenomenons. Perfect pitch is the most precise of the two. Recent studies suggest, that it
might be trainable in early childhood, but it's not conclusive. So far every single attempt to teach perfect pitch has failed, which means, that seeing perfect pitch as a genetic defined talent still stands. Perfect pitch seems to have some relations to autism spectrum disorders. This does not mean, that one has to be autistic to have perfect pitch, but some personality characteristics often seen in people with autism are present. It does not have to be characteristics that are part of the diagnose. So people can have perfect pitch and be quite normal in any other respect. The brain of people with perfect pitch are a bit different from others, which can be reveiled during a scanning. Cortex for one, is thicker than normal in various places.
The other ability, usually called "pseudo absolute pitch" can be trained. I guess many of us already have experienced it, even if it's in a small way. When I started playing guitar, I used a tuning fork. It didn't take long before I could tune it without the tuning fork, I had the "A" in my head somewhere. Others might be able to recognize and sing the low "E", as it often is the tone we hear the most. These things can be trained to a degree, where it becomes pretty close to perfect pitch, and even though it will never be as precise it is still very useful. Many people are not aware of the difference and see the two things as the same thing and, incorrectly, calling it "perfect pitch", which can lead to misunderstandings - we may think we are talking about the same, but could in fact be talking about two different things. That is not so uncommon - we have all done it and will probably do it again on another subjectÂ
. Add to that, that when someone is advertising for an eartraining course, even if it's an excellent one, "perfect" is a word they want to use, "pseudo" is a word they most likely will try to avoid.
So in short, I do agree, it's just giving two very different things the same name, I'm not happy with.
