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From: sho@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: perfect pitch
Keywords: perfect pitch, ear training
Message-ID: <2865@pur-phy>
Date: 7 Dec 89 07:42:22 GMT
References: <18807@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <365@bbxsda.UUCP> <3289@husc6.harvard.edu> <48907@bbn.COM> <9320@microsoft.UUCP>
Sender: news@pur-phy
Reply-To: sho@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu.UUCP (Sho Kuwamoto)
Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., W. Lafayette, IN
Lines: 39

In article <9320@microsoft.UUCP> camilleg@microsoft.UUCP (Camille Goudeseune) writes:
>Here's my two bits' worth.  From age 6 to about 16 I had quite accurate
>perfect pitch, then lost it (as in I'd be right in guessing a random note
>played by someone on the piano 1 time in 3) until about a year ago, and
>now still have it (age 23).  My main instrument is piano, if that makes
>a difference.

>But my "resolution" is only a bit tighter than a quarter tone.  On the
>other hand, a cellist friend of mine at U of Waterloo (Canada) can tune
>his pride and joy darn near perfectly without aid of an external pitch
>reference;  but his sight-singing ability is almost nonexistent!
>My theory is that either ten years of tuning a 220 Hz A string has ingrained
>that pitch permanently in his head, or that he can hear the slightly
>different harmonics produced by its body (same cello for quite a few
>years) at slightly different frequencies.

>Any similar experiences out there?

I wasn't that bad, but I think it gets a little confusing during puberty.
Maybe more so for males, when their voices change.

Me, I don't consider myself to have perfect pitch.  I can tune a
guitar almost exactly without a pitch pipe, I always remember songs in
the key they were in.  It annoys me when I play a tape I know well in
my parent's car, becuase it is a little slow and lowers the pitch by
about an eighth tone (is there such a word?).  But if I've never heard
it before, it doesn't bother me the way it would some people with
perfect pitch.  Get this.  Imagining an E is easier for me than other
notes because the first note of "Greensleeves" is usually an E, and we
used to sing that song in music class when I was five.  Usually, the
only way I can name a note which is played to me (even an E) is to
imagine a C or an E on a piano, and use relative pitch.  Does this
count as perfect pitch?  Does this not count?  Who cares.  Oh, another
good one.  What is an A?  The first sound an orchestra pit makes
during tuning.

-Sho
--
sho@physics.purdue.edu