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From: weigel@DPW.COM (William Weigel)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <3126@esquire.dpw.com>
Date: 19 Mar 91 14:45:43 GMT
References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar18.104444.29128@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1991Mar18.214745.6496@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 14


     Someone recently asked whether perfect pitch is really useful to a
musician.  I think that it is enormously valuable to a composer, because
the notes take on different "personalities" which can be recalled while
planning a composition in one's head.  Mozart apparently had an
extremely refined level of this skill,
and it may help explain how he was able to create entire
compositions in his head before writing anything down.

     By the way, I understand that Wagner did not have perfect pitch.  I
wonder if he wouldn't have written more authentic cadences in his operas if
he had had a better ear.  I don't suggest this as a criticism of Wagner.  In
fact, I respect the opinion of him expressed by Mark Twain ("My musician
friends tell me that his music is really much better than it sounds!")