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From: gints@prophet.esd.sgi.com (Gints Klimanis)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.195507.25639@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Date: 18 Mar 91 19:55:07 GMT
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
Reply-To: gints@prophet.esd.sgi.com (Gints Klimanis)
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.
Lines: 36

Hi !!

I too purchased David Burge's Course on the basis that I believed that
we could learn to identify frequency bands of sound.  

The driving force was that I could always sing a D.  And yes, the F#
below middle C sounds TWANGY on every piano, even samplers that
transpose samples all over the place.  Some of the characteristic is
prevalent on sawtooth string sounds.  I believe that there is some other
quality to really listen to.


After two months of about a half an hour a day with my younger sister, I
could reliably recognize the note and octave number of any note on an
88-note keyboard almost as soon as it was played.  I could also somewhat
reliably pick out the note and octave number of all notes of a four note
chord within thirty seconds.  My sister did the same in about three
months.  The learning stopped when I returned from summer college break.

In any case, it is not a perfect ability.  You can handle pitches with
about the same accuracy as distinguishing flavors of vanilla ice cream. 
Sure, they're vanilla but HOW vanilla.  I doubt anyone was able to
recognize pitches in units of Hertz.  There is too much other evidence
that would discredit this type of account.

I do believe that my ability was learned, but I may have always had it.
Perfect pitch is not a characteristic of genius, because I am far from it.  

In college, I tried the training with a roomate for about a month.  He
didn't get past four notes (C, Eflat, F# and A).  However, I attribute
this to lack of patience (I think he had a personality crisis).  Perhaps
it was improper to mix recognition levels.  Cruel but true.

Word of warning:  don't fess up to your abilities on demand, especially
while drunk.  Few people understand what you're talking about, even when
you tell the guitarist that he's a full half step off.