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From: jsc@athena.mit.edu (Jin S Choi)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.215252.21611@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 18 Mar 91 21:52:52 GMT
References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar18.104444.29128@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
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I've also managed to 'burn in', as someone said, perfect pitch. In my case, it comes from having played the violin for fifteen years and tuning it to a 440 A just about every day. You kind of get to know what an A sounds like, and not only that, playing an instrument, you also start to remember what pitch sounds when you play certain notes. I used to have to think about what note I would play in order to produce a given pitch in order to identify notes. Now, I can identify pitches in a second or so, a litt






le longer if a pitch is between semitones and I have to make up my mind which one it's closer to.

I've found that a lot of my musician friends have the same ability, and I really do think perfect pitch can be learned. It's more a matter of remembering sounds than any mystic inborn ability. I think the reason a lot of non-musicians and singers don't develop it is that they don't have to deal very often in absolute pitches. If you really want to develop it, try holding a tuning fork to your ear for a few hours a day. After a few months, you're probably going to remember what it sounds like.

--
Jin Choi
jsc@athena.mit.edu
617-232-3257