Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!carroll
From: carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Keywords: perfect pitch, absolute pitch
Message-ID: <3720@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 91 07:14:34 GMT
References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com>
Sender: news@ssc-vax.UUCP
Reply-To: carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll)
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics
Lines: 43

In article <3123@esquire.dpw.com> weigel@DPW.COM (William Weigel) writes:
>
>     Not long ago the New York Times reported on several studies which were
>supposed to have confirmed that perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) cannot be
>learned but must be inherited.  I am curious as to the reactions of other
>musicians to this statement.  For the sake of starting a discussion, I will
>briefly summarize my own experiences.

	I would like a reference to this article. As a person with perfect 
pitch, I believe any such studies to be utter nonsense.


>     I tried Burge's techniques for a period of several months.  (The
>process requires about fifteen minutes each day.)  The bad news is that I'm
>only about half way through the process, and that it is less magical than
>the advertisements would have the reader believe.  The good news, however,
>is that I have developed at least a modest degree of perfect pitch.  By
>"modest degree" I mean that, although
>I cannot sing 12-tone music reliably at sight,
>when I hear unfamiliar tonal music, I usually can identify what key
>it is in.  If I hear a single tone on the piano, I cannot identify it
>instantly (the way Mozart could have), but I almost always can identify it
>correctly after thinking about it for ten seconds or so.

	At fifteen minutes a day, it'll probably take you several years to
acquire a Mozartian pitch sense, but you are IMHO making good progress. 
(Mozart and I share the same birthday. Any net.astrologers who want to touch
that?)

>
>     Has anyone out there tried these techniques or anything like them?
>Does anyone have any scientific evidence as to whether or not perfect pitch
>can be learned?

	Neither of my parents have perfect pitch, though my mother played
several instruments. I have had mine since I was old enough to know what it
was; nonetheless, I am convinced it is a learned skill.



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