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From: briang@bari.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: What is perfect pitch?
Message-ID: <128650@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 30 Nov 89 21:02:44 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <365@bbxsda.UUCP> <1989Nov27.212927.3253@agate.berkeley.edu> <7051@portia.Stanford.EDU> <357@quad.uucp> <25742AAA.56CC@rpi.edu> <1989Nov30.014942.3772@agate.berkeley.edu> <389@bbxsda.UUCP>
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Reply-To: briang@sun.UUCP (Brian Gordon)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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In article <389@bbxsda.UUCP> scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes:
>In article <1989Nov30.014942.3772@agate.berkeley.edu> ladasky@codon4.berkeley.edu.UUCP (John Ladasky) writes:
>>	Actually, this is really interesting.  I just finished a piano quintet
>>this month and noticed that I had accidentally written a low B into the cello
>>part.  So I transposed the sequence of the piece up a half-step and played it
>>back.  You have no idea how different it sounded!  I had gotten so accustomed
>>to listening into the piece in one key that, when I transposed it, I seemed 
>>to rediscover all of the voice leading and chord changes.
>
>This is something I wonder about from time to time.  Sometimes the band
>I play in will have to transpose a song for vocals.  I found that
>transposing a mere whole step can sometimes *ruin* a song.  It just
>feels different.  Also, why is it that keys requiring a lot of
>black keys on the piano sound "richer"?  Sometimes I think it's
>psychological since I *know* I'm hitting a high ratio of black keys
>to white keys, but I've heard other musicians acknowledge it also.

Welcome to the world of the "tempered scale".  Naively, it is an attempt to
build a fixed-tuned instrument, like a piano, that is "equally out of tune in
all keys".  In "the old days", an interval of a fifth was exacty the right
ratio (which has been pretty well maintained), as was a third (which has not).
Unfortunately, that meant that a piano (for example) that played perfectly in
C was completely useless in E.  The "tempered scale" was a solution to that
problem.

We moderns (over the last few hundred years) have become used to the
deliberate mistunings of important intervals in common keys as "right", but
really notice the difference in intervals in less common keys -- the ratio of
a sixth in the key of C is really quite different that the ratio for that
interval in C# on a piano.  A common perception is that the sharp keys are
"brighter" and the flat keys are "mellower".

My interest is barbershop harmony, which only works when the intervals are
"correct", hence can not be accompanied.  It is fascinating watching a trained
musician have to "unlearn" the tempered scale to make it work. 
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| Brian G. Gordon	briang@Corp.Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers)     |
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