because i'm happy i don't need to be like my friends playing out of tune instrument hurting their ears, for example, hitting on a C but in fact it's exactly semitone lower. They told me it feels like they're hitting the wrong notes all the time.

I gave up after 60 tones, the test is just tooooo long.

Ryuuga...ya...my ears do have this perfect pitch thingy...but
it's not a big deal. Why? Cos SO MANY people have it! I personally know so many people with perfect pitch ability that it's nothing special anymore to me. Really, it's NO BIG DEAL.

There are a few levels of perfect pitch, IMO. Among all the perfect pitch frens I know...many can't tell if a piano's tuned in 440, 442 or 444. There really are different degrees of perfect pitch ability.

I know 1 'mad' fella who can instantly tell you if the piano's in 440 or not within 2 secs after he plays a note! My niece can  name the pitch perfectly by ear if it it is played on a piano or string instruments. BUT She cant tell the pitch on brass, woodwind and other instruments! That's really crazy!

1 fella can even tell the pitch the neighbour's dog barks! If you dont believe, I will bring him to you and you test him when your dog barks and have a piano ready to check if he's right or wrong. really funny but he's always spot on with his pitching!!

Another fren can easily tell if the guitarist tuned the guitar down a tone or up a semitone just be looking at the guitarist's fretting hand and hearing him play.

2 of my frens sometimes can tell the pitch correctly...but sometimes they TOTALLY dont have perfect pitch! Thats' also crazy. I mean....how can they have perfect pitch on monday and on thursday they TOTALLY dont have it?? Then come Friday they'll have the perfect pitch ability again..only to losei t again the next day. Really crazy!

i studied yamaha JMC at the age of 4.

but i still don't have perfect pitch...maybe i sux...

lol your two last friends really cracked me up. Thats totally crazy man!
I know about the dog barks and they can even tell the pitch of car tyre screeches or alarm/honks.

But i've done some research on this subject before(because i was overly amazed by it and wanted to acquire this ability no matter what)
My findings state that everyone was born with perfect pitch. But as we grow up, we lose that ability because no training was done to 'enhance' the ability, thus we develop what is more commonly known as [relative pitch]
It is not much of an "inborn talent" as it is a highly trained skill. See, it is only about how the brain perceives it for what we hear is the same as what perfect pitches hear. But they way we CATEGORIZE the pitches in our brains is different from the way THEY categorize it.
A good example is when we hear a melodic phrase, we instantly register the ENTIRE phrase whereas Perfect Pitches(PP) recognizes it NOTE FOR NOTE.
This is the reason why we are all addicted to a catchy phrase of a chorus or a cool riff. Because we remember it as a "CATCHY PHRASE" or a COOL RIFF"
Its like if we were reading a book, we remember the whole sentence. Whereas PP would remember it word for word. Justs like that. The power of the brain. If somehow we were able to train the brain to perceive things differently, we will and can acquire the ability as well.

The ideal age to train this ability and to "burn" it into your brain is between the ages 3 and 4. Any later than that, 5 years old perhaps, will have difficulty enhancing the ability. I say difficulty enhancing because it is still not impossible to acquire. i've known people who are 30 over years old but could still acquire this ability due to vigorous training and hardwork. Most took about 2 years of continuos training everyday to acquire it.

Most of the so-called "natural" perfect pitches have early music training at the age of 3 to 4. Either they were sent to yamaha JMC or their parents are music scholars themselves.
Either way, i feel it was unfortunate that i was sent to yamaha JMC a bit later than others. I only started there during my later stages of 4 years old.

I feel the biggest setback of not having perfect pitch is that i am unable to play instantly what i create in my mind. If i would compare, having perfect pitch for a musician is like having photographic memory for an artist.

I'll say, its an amazing ability to have, and i want to understand it more clearly, so could the perfect pitches of this forum describe how do you perceive the tones when you hear them?
Also, would you be as amazed or addicted to a catchy phrase of a chorus or a cool riff as much as non PP people?

nonono, its not that they remember the whole phrase or not, but they way the PERCEIVE it is different. Like i said, if we were reading a book, they would be reading EVERY SINGLE WORD whereas RP people would "speed" read it through.
1) i don't know about your friends who started JMC at an early age but didnt develop perfect pitch, if i knew them i would most definitely ask them more about it, but then again, i didnt say everyone WILL get perfect pitch when they train musical skills at that age. It also boils down to how much they pay attention in the class, or how active are their participation. If they didn't do much during those classes then its the same as not having trained in music at an early stage at all!!
See, everyone goes to school, but not everyone becomes a professor or doctor right?

2)Identifying pitches as colours is an elaborated story. What they REALLY mean was the way PP hear pitches is the same as the way we see colours. When we see something, we can immediately identify the colour of it right? "this is red" "this is blue"
The same thing applies to PP, when they hear something, they immediately recognizes the pitch without second thought.

3)Again, i wouldn't know who you have or have not met, but research have proven that there are people who had acquire this ability GRADUALLY (not suddenly) through vigorous training. They do certain exercises everyday to slowly improve their way of hearing things and the end result they have tuned their brain so much so that they can perceive things differently.
Exactly my point, of course you would hear the whole phrase, but the way you understand it is note by note, whereas they way RP people understand it is the whole phrase.
So if i were to compare it with data, When an 8-note phrase is played, PP would probably register it as 8 separate datas whereas RP people would register it as 1 singular data. And if there was a label function, it would probably be "a catchy phrase of such and such song" whereas for PP, it would be "C C D E F# G A B"
So HOW does this way of perceiving pitches lead to "remembering" all the pitches?
Actually they dont. None of us can "remember" a pitch. But because of constant repetition of a particular pitch, it has become natural to PP that this is a middle 'C' etc.
Let me explain, When you first pick up a book to read, you would probably have difficulty reading every word right?
But after reading many books, and you see the same few words appearing again and again, the word would become natural to you and you can read it without a hesitation.
So same goes to PP.
The reason why RP people cannot "remember" pitches is the same. Because we speed through the whole sentence, we never really "Read" each word. Thus we never can "remember" the pitch ^^

You probably wouldn't realise it since all this happens within a fractions of a second, but this is roughly what is actually happening in your brain ^^
Again, the way we all hear it is the same, but how the brain processes the information is totally different.