Did Freddie have perfect pitch?

I don't think Freddie had perfect/absolute pitch, although he obviously had tremendous musical skills and abilities.

I remember some The Works gig in which the audience chants "Mustapha" and Freddie asks the band "What key is it? Give me the key" Then I believe it is John who plays a note in his bass and only THEN Freddie starts singing.

I believe he did something similar in the intro to It's a Hard Life live, but I could be wrong.

[QUOTE]Thomas Quinn wrote:

Right, I think a few misunderstandings need to be cleared up here:

1) "Perfect pitch" refers to being able to tell exactly what tone or combination of tones is sounding by ear (passive perfect pitch) and/or being able to 'hear' in one's mind or vocalise the exact tone(s) from, for instance, musical notation (active perfect pitch). It has nothing to do with the pitch-quality of a voice or instrument or anything like that. [/QUOTE]

Right.  Now we have to clear up another misunderstanding here.  Do you make this shit up as you go, TQ?  You seem to think you're an expert on everything, so let me set you straight on this.

Just because I can go to the chalkboard and chart a song on the fly does not mean I have perfect pitch.  The fact that I can tell a string is out of tune is a much better example.

[QUOTE]able to do what is usually referred to as "faking", meaning playing a correct-sounding accompaniment on the fly, common in jazz) is evidence of both relative pitch and a good musical ear and mind, but not necessarily of perfect pitch. In fact, most people with perfect pitch would have a lot of trouble playing a piece of music by ear if, for instance, the piano they were doing that on was a fraction of a tone out-of-tune in relation to the original recording. [/QUOTE]

No, again if they had perfect pitch, they'd know right away if the piano was out of tune or if the recording was.  And what kind of jazz do you listen to?  Alice Cooper?

Learn to read first, then learn how to use a dictionary to look up the terms you don't understand. That way, your rants might at least have the semblance of reason behind them.

i dont understand this place .... the smarter the poster the more time they waste to try to talk to morons like microwave.  cannot you and sebastion and others use your intelligence on a better purpose and just leave microwave to stupidty?

Micrówave wrote:

"Just because I can go to the chalkboard and chart a song on the fly does not mean I have perfect pitch.  The fact that I can tell a string is out of tune is a much better example."

Not at all.  The very definition of perfect pitch is knowing notes when you hear them.  If you haven't been given a starting point and you can chart out a song upon hearing it for the first time, the only way to do this is with perfect pitch.

If you compare one guitar string to another, you can tell if it's out of tune without having perfect pitch.  Otherwise, every guitarist would have to use a tuner.

IMO, the thing about the friends claiming 'x' and 'y' goes like this:

You've got a handful of teenagers (keyword: teenagers, many of which are statistically prone to be wowed and impressed by what they find 'cool' and unusual), one of whom listens to a song on the radio (another key phrase: 'song on the radio', which in early to mid sixties was more often than not a four-chord lovely but simple ditty with clichéd-driven harmony and square phrasing) and then plays it. We've got the following options:

- He played the melody with his right hand and a simple accompaniment (e.g. octave bass, broken chords) with the left. If his friends were knowledgeable about music, they'd realise that such skill, while useful and interesting, is hardly limited to geniuses (it's sort of like driving or skating on a simple level ... remember that radio songs aren't exactly Rachmaninov). If they weren't knowledgeable about music, they'd be easy to impress and then, due to their own lack of theoretical grasp, recall the experience as if the bloke in question had played the song verbatim.

- He played a simple accompaniment and sang or mumbled the melody. Again, something that may easily impress peers (especially if they're not musicians themselves) but hardly restricted to the Mozarts, the Bachs or, dare I say, the Mercurys (or Bulsaras) of the world. Given Freddie's training (both formal and unschooled), he surely knew (even if just instinctively) the way radio-friendly songs tend to work and the chord combinations that most of them have. Moreover, if his mates weren't musicians themselves, he could've played a wrong chord here and there and they wouldn't notice unless he caused a very annoying dissonance, which he probably didn't as, again, 60's radio hit songs aren't Rachmaninov or Chopin.

- He orchestrated the whole arrangement on the piano, emulating the brass, string or any other sections, duplicating the vocal harmonies on the keys, even including the same microscopic nuances and covering all the pertinent dynamics. For his mates to even notice that, they'd have to be musical geniuses, and as such, they wouldn't be astonished by it.

So there you have it.

So you're saying that I have perfect pitch, because I CAN chart out a song upon the first listen.  But the fact that I can tell that the guitarist's E string is out of tune during a song does not?

Well, then I'm almost as confused as Andreas.   Wait, no scratch that.  I'm not that "confused".

See there's a little more to it than just being able to play or chart a song.  Sure, you have to be able to (1) identify or reproduce the note but ALSO be able to (2) identify the key of the piece of music, being able to (3) identify all the tones of a given chord, (4) Identify the pitch of common everyday noises, and (5) identify the numerical value in hertz of a given note.

There are many people who posess perfect pitch, but simply cannot play any musical instrument.  That does not mean that they don't have perfect pitch.

this is not even funny as i'm not a theory expert but can tell you of perfect pitch is just someone who is of the have to say "this is 440hz" for example without hearing it reference first,  although i think there is a small accpeted margin of error

freddie would have had great they call it relative pitch, but no evidence here to say he was of "perfect" pitch.  doesnt meant anything against him to a musician as he was a god of music (not the ONLY god though as max might say)