Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!codon4.berkeley.edu!ladasky
From: ladasky@codon4.berkeley.edu (John Ladasky;1021 Solano No. 2;528-8666)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: What is perfect pitch?
Message-ID: <1989Nov27.212927.3253@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 89 21:29:27 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <365@bbxsda.UUCP>
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In article <365@bbxsda.UUCP> scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes:
>I remember music theory class back in college.  We would have to do musical
>dictation.  The professor would play something on the piano and we would 
>write it down.  The professor would start by playing a note and saying
>something like, "this is G#".  It was never the note he was actually playing.
>This was to annoy the "perfect pitch" students so they would be forced to
>hear the intervals rather than the absolute pitches.
>

	I have a pretty good sense of absolute pitch, but it can take me
several seconds to identify certain pitches, depending on the context.  Once
I get going, though (e.g., if the piece has an identifable tone center, and
I've identified it), then I tend to listen intervallically.

	I hope that that professor of yours did not discourage the use of
absolute pitch, though.  For a lot of modern works, I find the use of absolute
pitch to be a better guide than relative pitch (for the reasons stated
above - no tone center, strange context, etc.).  Other people seem to think
so too - our choral director is attempting to impart a good sense of absolute
pitch to the chorus, in preparation for the Penderecki piece we're singing 
in the spring.
 
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"Do unto others as you would like		       - John J. Ladasky ("ii")
 to do unto them. " Richard Bach		  (ladasky@enzyme.berkeley.edu)