[ek]

You refer to perfect pitch and absolute pitch like they're different things -- do you realize that they're the same thing?

My brother and I are both musicians with perfect pitch, and we've found it useful in a variety of circumstances. To name a couple, it really helps if you're jamming and want to pick up a progression quickly, or if you're DJing and want to key match. I will concede that Traktor recently got key detection, which is nice, but especially when playing live I find that key segues will pop into my head without having to search for the next song in the right key.

Even the best relative pitch cannot help you exactly memorize a melody -- if you are unable to remember what note it actually starts on, you haven't remembered it fully.

[girvo]

Also, the key detection in Traktor (and Torq, tho it's a little better) isn't perfect either, so it helps to have the ability yourself.

[sjtgraham]

I think they are different things. Knowing the sound of a perfect fifth is not perfect pitch, but relative pitch. One could transcribe a piece of music from memory with just very good relative pitch, with the caveat they probably will transcribe it in the incorrect key.

[ek]

Are you saying that you think perfect pitch and absolute pitch are different things? They are synonyms, cf. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch .

If you're saying that perfect pitch and relative pitch are different things in that it isn't as if perfect pitch is better than relative pitch, then yeah, I absolutely agree. The hacks that I mentioned involve perfect pitch specifically, but transcription ability like you mention is probably tied most to one's sense of relative pitch, even if one has perfect pitch.

[sjtgraham]

Oops! I clearly need to read better. I thought I read relative pitch vs absolute/perfect pitch. Sorry about that.

[treetrouble]

> You refer to perfect pitch and absolute pitch like they're different things -- do you realize that they're the same thing?

Are you referring to someone else's comment? I use them interchangeably in the first paragraph