Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!nis!quad!dts
From: dts@quad.uucp (David T. Sandberg)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: perfect pitch
Keywords: perfect pitch, ear training
Message-ID: <372@quad.uucp>
Date: 4 Dec 89 11:56:36 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu: <365@bbxsda.UUCP> <3289@husc6.harvard.edu> <48907@bbn.COM> <3327@husc6.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: dts@quad.uucp (David T. Sandberg)
Organization: Quadric Systems, Richfield MN
Lines: 21

In article <3327@husc6.harvard.edu> elkies@osgood.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) writes:
>Smaller programs might have a harder time fitting into the same class the
>handful of perfect-pitch students if (as one would generally expect) their
>ears are at very different stages of development.

Question - by "different stages of development", do you mean they'd
be more advanced in some areas and less in others?  Some of the
comments made here about individuals possessing perfect pitch being
unable to identify a C and a G as a perfect fifth, for example, have
led me to suspect that at least some perfect pitch students may be
sorely lacking in other areas (chord and interval recognition, for
example).

I wonder if having perfect pitch can prove a liability if one
realizes too early that one has it, as one could come to rely on
it rather than train the ear to hear all facets of music.  Rather
like a fictional child with magical ability who never learns the
things they would need to survive without their magic...

-- 
David Sandberg             dts@quad.uucp or ..uunet!rosevax!sialis!quad!dts