Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!mjs
From: mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: What is perfect pitch? (Was re: New tunings)
Message-ID: <7180003@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Nov 89 15:43:06 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Lines: 32

>From my point of view, relative pitch (which is far more common than absolute 
>pitch) seems more practical.  I've always considered those with absolute
>pitch to be "gifted".  They have an extra tool in their little bag of
>tricks but I don't think it replaces the need for relative pitch.

It actually gets in the way at times; for example, as you pointed out, when
transposing.  It makes the nifty auto-transpose feature of my electronic
keyboard less useful than it otherwise would be.  I am a jazz player, and I
often accompany singers who like to do tunes in keys other than they are
written in, and it can be annoying to "hear" in my mind a line to play, but
find it is wrong when I go to play it.  Luckily, my sense of pitch is not *too*
perfect.  But that, combined with the feeling that I am "cheating" (and the
fact that I can never remember how do get it to work!), keeps me from using the
transpose feature.

On the other hand, there is one occasion I can remember hearing someone with
absolute pitch do something no one else could probably do, in a musical
context.  Marcus Roberts (Wynton Marsalis' pianist, at least until recently)
was in the middle of a solo, playing around the middle of the piano, when he
suddenly reached up and hit a note in one of the upper octaves.  It is
impossible for me to describe how *right* that note was, but all the musicians
I was sitting with let out audible gasps at that point.  They were impressed
that he was able to find that note, at such a distance that the relative pitch
most musicians have would have failed.  They were impressed without even
knowing the man was blind, so it was not a case of "how did he find that note
without being able to see it"; it was just "how did he find that note?"

--------------
Marc Sabatella (marc%hpfcrt@hplabs.hp.com)
Disclaimers:
	2 + 2 = 3, for suitably small values of 2
	Bill and Dave may not always agree with me


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com