Absolute & Relative Pitch

Relative pitch means hearing notes by their relationship to some root, unlike perfect (absolute) pitch, which involves identifying notes by name without having heard a known reference tone. Relative pitch is the primary aural skill NoSheet trains — only one game addresses perfect pitch.

Relative pitch is sufficient for virtually all practical musicianship: playing by ear, improvising, and song writing. Functionally, it is the relationships between sounds that affect your perception of music, more so than the absolute frequency of the contained sounds — hence, recognizing and picking degrees and intervals is more practical than identifying isolated pitches.

Perfect pitch is rare (~1 in 10,000), often seen as innate, and much harder to develop past early childhood. Useful but not necessary — many elite musicians lack it entirely.