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An interesting subject, undeniably.
I was born with perfect pitch, which is probably the reason why I learned writing music before playing it. :) As a kid I was listening to Bach's organ works all the time, and for some reason my dad had the scores for most of them, so I listened and read. That made an easy connection. And ever since, my only "musical problems" so to speak has been pure mechanical issues (achieving a certain degree of technical skill on an instrument). I am now 26 years old and in the last 20 years I have only met two other people with perfect pitch, despite the fact that I've spent most of my life in different music schools. This does seem a bit odd.
Anyway, most of the friends I've made in such places has asked this very question, among others...how to obtain perfect pitch, what it's like and so on. Though I was born with it I do believe one can train oneself to it, but I'm not really sure how. Some things come to mind, though...
First, make sure you are truly aware of what perfect pitch is; it's much more than simply being able to tell the note(s) you're hearing. It's an ability to totally connect with the musical universe; you could think of music as the world, and perfect pitch as all your senses - sight, smell etc. Just as a hamburger and a hot dog taste different (heh, tacky comparision but wtf), there's a difference to, say, e minor and f minor. And I don't mean simply the difference in pitch; the personality of the keys are different. A piece can be completely fantastic in e minor while it's totally wrong in f minor.
Second, with that in mind, you may engage in training such as described by ripl3y above. And I really mean "with that in mind". :) This is about EAR, and that's...well, that's sort of where everything's at. So don't take this as a simple technique exercise or similar - you have to really dig really deep into what you're doing. Relative pitch would be quite easy to develop I believe - what you want to do here is to sort of incorporate the reference points into your head, and developing perfect pitch would mean that those reference points were always there. Listen very closely. Experiment with transposing songs and try to notice a change of "feel".
This will take an extraordinary amount of time and dedication. Perhaps it is possible to "brain wash" yourself with a certain reference tone (hey, if you've got a 440 Hz A sounding in your headphones 24/7 for a couple of months, you might as well get perfect pitch, and probably go crazy too as a bonus) but I believe, as with most things, that you get out what you put in. And if you really, REALLY dedicate yourself...well, maybe you'll be surprised. :)
Oh well...quite a lengthy post, and I hope I didn't sound like an ******* or something. :) Please ask if there's anything I can help you with. Good luck.
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