Imagine for a moment that your friends all see the world differently. They can see everything fine, the shapes, the shadows, the textures. The colors are there too: the sky glows blue, the leaves on trees look pretty green, and the earth is a homely brown. All is well.

But wait! They look away for a moment then back at the same scene. The sky’s purple now! The trees have turned teal, and the earth’s a sickly yellow. Good thing they’re still all different colors, though, or else it’d probably be hard to see. Your friends look again and now the sky’s green, the leaves brown, and the ground blue. What in the world?! It’s like the color wheels in their heads are rotating!

The world always looks resolutely normal to you, no changing color shenanigans, so sometimes your friends ask you to tell them what color the sky actually is. You say it’s blue. They’re all amazed that you know the sky is blue and you look at them funny, puzzled by how their shifting notion of color doesn’t bother them in the slightest.

That’s what it’s like having perfect pitch. Continue reading What’s perfect pitch like? →