SolfetoAbsolute pitch and relative pitch
Relative pitch is hearing the distance between two notes. Absolute pitch is naming a note on its own. Play C and then G: relative pitch hears the second note as a fifth above the first, and absolute pitch hears a C and then a G. Relative pitch needs a starting note. Absolute pitch does not.
Two questions about the same sound
| Relative pitch | Absolute pitch | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | How far is this note from that one? | Which note is this? |
| Needs a reference | Yes, a note to start from | No |
| The answer sounds like | "Up a fifth", "a minor third" | "G", "E flat" |
| How common | Every musician trains it | Rare, and far more common in early starters |
| Used for | Melody, harmony, transposing, singing in tune | Naming notes and keys with nothing to check against |
Most musicians use relative pitch
Ear training at a conservatory is mostly relative pitch: intervals, chords and progressions. A song in a new key is the same song, because the distances between its notes have not changed, and relative pitch is what hears that. It is the more useful of the two for most of music.
Absolute pitch is different in kind, not a stronger version of the same thing. Someone can have excellent relative pitch and none of it, and the reverse.
Why a slow answer gives it away
A musician without absolute pitch can still name a note, the long way. Remember one note, hum it, and count the steps to the note you heard. That is relative pitch doing absolute pitch's job, and it takes time. Someone who knows the note just knows it, in about the time it takes to recognise a face.
So training for absolute pitch asks for speed as well as accuracy. Solfeto adds a pitch to your set only when the middle of your answer times is under 2 seconds, and its test guide says to time every answer for the same reason.
How training keeps the two apart
- No reference note before a tone, ever. Any fixed note heard again and again becomes something to count from.
- At least 800 milliseconds of silence between tones, so the last tone is harder to compare with.
- From week 3, a short burst of noise before 20 percent of tones, to clear the memory of the one before.
- Instruments and octaves change from tone to tone, so the sound itself is not a clue.
- The sound after an answer is built on that tone's own note, so it never repeats from one tone to the next.
You can train both
The two skills do not compete. Relative pitch tells you what a melody is doing, absolute pitch tells you where it is. Solfeto trains absolute pitch recognition as its programme, and has a separate track for intervals, which opens once your first session is done. The names used in each are covered in the names of the notes, and how the two map onto solfège in fixed do and movable do.
Questions
Which is more useful to a musician?
Relative pitch, for most things: melody, harmony, transposing and playing with others all depend on it. Absolute pitch adds the names. The two work together, and a musician with both can use whichever a moment needs.
Can relative pitch get in the way of training absolute pitch?
It can stand in for it. If you remember one note and count up to the next, you get the right answer by relative pitch, more slowly. That is why training for absolute pitch asks for speed as well as accuracy, and puts silence between tones.
Does Solfeto train relative pitch too?
Yes, as a separate track for intervals, open once your first session is done. It never stands in for the day’s absolute pitch session and adds nothing to it.