Five artists said to
have perfect pitch

With technology, musicians can now replicate this rare talent that very few artists possess

Perfect Pitch is a person’s ability to identify any musical note by name after hearing it, without any reference to other notes, and reproduce the pitch of any musical note. It can also refer to the ability that some singers have to sing a given note on cue.

Psychologists have been able to train some adults to develop the prized musical ability of absolute pitch, and the training’s effects last for months.

As simple as that sounds, it really isn’t something every musician can do. However, there are some who are known to have perfect pitch and although you may not have the same ability, there are ways you can reproduce perfect, or absolute, pitch with a little help from technology.

Jimi Hendrix

Often thought of as one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived, Jimi Hendrix is documented as having this ability. It is what enabled him to play amazing riffs still very much copied by guitarists more than 50 years after his demise.

Yanni

Oddly, perfect pitch isn’t something specific to singers. Many musicians who aren’t vocalists make use of this talent and are able to compose some of the world’s most beautiful instrumentals because of it. Yanni, famed within the New Age genre, composes some of the most hauntingly ethereal melodies.

Mariah Carey

Who hasn’t heard and loved anything Mariah Carey has ever recorded? Although you may be an aspiring singer, you may not have Mariah’s perfect pitch and the almost superhuman control in singing those vocal riffs that are still emulated by talented young performers some 20 years after she made them popular.

Ella Fitzgerald

Still known to this day as the “First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald had what has been classified as purity of tone, which we now call perfect pitch. A couple of generations prior to Mariah Carey, Ella made those vocal riffs popular. They are often referred to as scat singing and they require extreme vocal control in addition to perfect pitch. Have you ever tried scat singing? It’s one of the most difficult vocal techniques to master.

Whitney Houston

The late Whitney Houston is a vocal icon of her time. Sadly, the diva died of a cocaine-related accidental drowning. She was found dead in her bathroom in 2012 but as a legend, she lives on. What fans remember most was the raw emotion that came out with every note she sang and that like Ella and Mariah, she had that ability to create vocal rhythms within scat singing. Whitney had perfect pitch which led her to success after success with that unique, often emotional style to every song she ever recorded.