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From: carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <3719@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 91 07:04:30 GMT
References: <1991Mar18.195507.25639@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Sender: news@ssc-vax.UUCP
Reply-To: carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll)
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics
Lines: 43

In article <1991Mar18.195507.25639@odin.corp.sgi.com> gints@prophet.esd.sgi.com (Gints Klimanis) writes:
>
>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.
>

	I have had perfect pitch since I was a child. Neither of my parents
have it, and I doubt that any of my grandparents did. I do not believe that
it is genetically transmitted, any more than "tone deafness". I believe that
it can be learned by most people through ear training, or just by "osmosis"
through extended exposure to a source of variable-pitch tones.

>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.

	With the aid of my pocket calculator (for taking logarithms to
the base 2^(1/12)), I can get within about 3-5 Hz. I'm sure that I could
get down to 1 Hz with a little practice.

>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.  

	I can't comment on the correlation with IQ - my scores qualify me
for Mensa. However I had a friend in high school who had perfect pitch with
a substantially lower IQ.

>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.

	Until you show him, that is...


-- 
Jeff Carroll
carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com