My journey to perfect pitch
Music has been my ultimate passion since I can remember myself. So much, that even after studying electrical engineering and computer science at university, I decided to pursue a career in music.
Perfect pitch is among the first things that intrigued me during my journey. I couldn't grasp the fact that some people were able to name any note without any external reference. I was convinced (and I still am) that absolute pitch is one essential quality if one would like to study and/or appreciate music. Such was my obsession, that I was determined to make it my own personal quest: obtain perfect pitch.
Fortunately, living in the internet era, a vast number of information is available to anyone, anytime. Soon, after extensive research, I found out a lot interesting theories about perfect pitch. In the meaning while working as a piano teacher, I could test these theories on my students (and of course on myself!).
I soon realized a few things:
1. Those who have perfect pitch do not make an actual effort to find the note names, they simply know them. So any attempt to develop absolute pitch must be "absolute", no comparing to another sound whatsoever.
2. Contrary to what many people believe there are many "stages" of perfect pitch. The most basic is that one can name any given note only on the instrument he/she plays. Some people can name any note played individually but they get confused when they listen to two or more notes simultaneously. And some people, music geniuses throughout history, could listen up to ten different melodies simultaneously and write down all of them.
3. And finally, perfect pitch CAN be learned, you don't necessarily need to be born with it! It needs A LOT of practice, testing, frustration, practice, testing... but yes, if one knows how to practice, it is possible.

And when you actually develop it .... it is something magical! A whole new world is unveiled. To get a glimpse how it is, you can compare music to visual arts. Perfect pitch is like being able to "hear" colors in music, just like a painter sees colors everywhere around him. Without colors, our visual world is a dull gray. The same happens to music. Without perfect pitch we are confined to a "gray" musical world. Sure we can distinguish many grays (that's actually relative pitch) but true "color" can be perceived only with perfect pitch.

I won't talk about how to obtain perfect pitch here, there are countless methods out there. However, all of them have two things in common:
1. Listening to individual notes EXTENSIVELY, to realize what makes one different from the other. 2. Testing yourself EXTENSIVELY, to see how you're doing.
And surprisingly one of the issues I had while I was determined to develop perfect pitch was that I couldn't find an app doing exactly what I wanted it to do: Allow me test specific notes in an easy manner. Sure, I could use the piano, but there's no easy way to test yourself on a piano, without "cheating". Most of the time, we have an idea which notes we play, even when we don't look at them. So, after me and my husband decided to make a small company, codeheavenstudios, making apps among other things, I was ecstatic! I was determined to make the perfect pitch training app, that I couldn't find anywhere else. And so EarTrain was born!
Here I will be posting details of my journey among other things. I too have a long way to go. You see, perfect pitch to a musician is like color to a painter. A painter needs to practice his craft everyday and soon, he doesn't see just one "mauve", he begins to see subtle variations, lilacs, purples, mulberries... He begins to realize and appreciate colors in a whole new level. In the same way, a musician begins to hear subtle variations in different notes. (another way to put it, is to try and describe a note just like we can describe color. If I describe "yellow" I would say it is bright, warm, soft. In the same way, C can be bright, strong etc) But be careful! Just like a painter loses his ability to discriminate subtle hues of purple if he stops painting (or more precisely stops paying attention) for a long time, a musician might lose the ability to discriminate subtle variations between notes if he stops practicing. One must practice his craft constantly!
Ear train was created with immense love, we tried to make it exactly how we envisioned the perfect "perfect pitch" testing app. And we won't stop here. As my perfect pitch journey continues, so will EarTrain. Many many more features are coming up!