Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!merlin.usc.edu!aludra.usc.edu!alves
From: alves@aludra.usc.edu (William Alves)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: perfect pitch
Keywords: perfect pitch, ear training
Message-ID: <6801@merlin.usc.edu>
Date: 2 Dec 89 02:25:39 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <365@bbxsda.UUCP> <3289@husc6.harvard.edu> <388@bbxsda.UUCP>
Sender: news@merlin.usc.edu
Reply-To: alves@aludra.usc.edu (Bill Alves)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 29

About the drawbacks of perfect pitch: I definitely consider perfect pitch to
be a liability if it sets up such strong expectations that changes of key or
tuning systems are "painful." And like other posters, I could offer such sto-
ries, like the musician who was couldn't enjoy an original instrument perfor-
mance of the Eroica because they had tuned down to A 415 (making it sound like
D major). I have already written of the professor who winced at my 7/4 ratios.
I tried learning perfect pitch, and had it to within a semitone for a long 
time. But I listen to the intervals, the ratios in harmony and did not see 
the value in learning perfect pitch, apart from having a way of checking my 
answers on ear training exams and having a keen party trick.

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.

This is standard practice in our ear training classes.
I had a friend who taught ear training, and for a preliminary exam he gave an 
interval identification in which the student was to write down the name of
the played interval and, optionally, the absolute pitches on an adjacent staff.
One student got every one of the absolute notated pitches correct, and every
one of the named intervals wrong. (i.e. the student would write C and G on the
staff, but call it a minor third or something).

Bill Alves
USC School of Music / Center for Scholarly Technology


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