Did Freddie have perfecf pitch?

Sebastian wrote:

Vocal harmony wrote:

The interesting thing about it was that it was said while most singers if they go off they tend to sing flat, but Freddie would tend to go sharp which apparently is less obvious to an average listener than a singer going flat.

It was Edward Howell who said that.

Vocal harmony wrote:

Brian has also said, on film/video that Freddie could sing doubled lines when recording in perfect pitch. But Brian maybe exaggerating Freddie's capabilities.

Well, he said Frederick could double-track himself so accurately that the tracks would phase with each other, which is true - but that doesn't mean Frederick had perfect pitch.

Hi Sebastian thanks for the reminder. I guess if there was a corroborated story of Freddie recording those parts in one take each with no rehearsal or dry runs it would indicate a by good understanding and ability to find the root of what he was singing. . .
I remember Steve Vai a few years back used to do a thing called Build Me A Song (documented on DVD and YouTube. It involved inviting audience members on stage to sing or hum parts they had invented which he and his band would construct into a new piece of music. I saw several shows on that tour and he always seemed to nail the guitar part after one listen, often c playing along as it was being sung in pitch with the audience member, without having to play around on the neck to find where he had to be.

I think he is one of the few people I've seen with that degree of musical awareness.

Vocal harmony wrote:

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I remember Steve Vai a few years back used to do a thing called Build Me A Song (documented on DVD and YouTube. It involved inviting audience members on stage to sing or hum parts they had invented which he and his band would construct into a new piece of music. I saw several shows on that tour and he always seemed to nail the guitar part after one listen, often c playing along as it was being sung in pitch with the audience member, without having to play around on the neck to find where he had to be.

I think he is one of the few people I've seen with that degree of musical awareness.

When I saw Vai live a few years back he invited two audience members onto the stage and asked them to make noises. He would then recreate those noises on his guitar. I've never seen anything quite like it. Of course, Vai is known for making his guitar talk e.g. his playing on Dave Lee Roth's song Yankee Rose. Still a hell of a thing to hear it live though.

^yeah, he's keen on that. Also keen on eat training and charting, so that the two become interdependent (i.e. one can write down a C# descent in Dmaj/Bm and hear it by reading the staff.


His constant training and transcribing would make it as fluid as sentence building :....IDEALLY.

(*as not everything he's done is great, although phenomenal)

It would also illustrate a keen sense of melody and modalities that would be evident on that "write a song on the spot" bit.

Recognizing intervals from even 3-5 notes would give him a sense of the songs direction by recognizing it's likely root, and key

On paper it should be easy, after all in western music there are 12 tones. They repeat, might be likened to a decimal system with correlating relationships (intervals)

Prob the earlier your training is; the easier

I was actually in the audience once when Steven did that (I suppose he did that many, many times so there's nothing special about me having been there once anyway).

I think he did say something about his bassist having perfect pitch or something... but in any case it's not that difficult to train your relative pitch to the point of being able to duplicate a (usually simple) melody hummed or sung by an audience member. Not to take away from his (or his band's) musicianship - on the contrary: training your ear until you can do that takes time and a lot of discipline.

Both Steven and Joseph are certainly great musicians, they're way more than merely shredding (though they're also really good at that, of course).

Whilst talking of other guitarists with great pitch, here’s a clip I took of Brion James (Dan Reed Network) where he duplicates his solo with scatting, and is note perfect...this isn’t a set solo either and changes every night. Whilst it doesn’t show ‘perfect pitch’ it does show an understanding of his instrument and what he’s playing to know that what comes out of his mouth is going to be the same as he hits on the fretboard!!

http://youtu.be/SYsLBH2yPbU

Wait.....who's Steven?

Steve Stevens?