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From: fritz@urz.unibas.ch
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <1991Mar20.221603.1452@urz.unibas.ch>
Date: 20 Mar 91 21:16:02 GMT
References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar18.104444.29128@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1991Mar18.214745.6496@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <3126@esquire.dpw.com>
Organization: University of Basel, Switzerland
Lines: 34

In article <3126@esquire.dpw.com>, weigel@DPW.COM (William Weigel) writes:
> 
>      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!")
-- 

I won't say anything about Wagner's "better ear" (although I would like to)
because it would cause an endless list of answers, flames etc.

Nevertheless I think that perfect pitch is the more useful for a
composer the more "modern" his music is. I think that Schoenberg
and his friends "used" their perfect pitch much more often while
composing. I guess that Bach didn't need one -- his music was much
more independent of the sound of a single note. One could say the
same about Wagner and Mozart.

BTW I'm a pianist and I never had any problems without a perfect pitch.


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	Oliver Fritz
	University of Basel, Switzerland
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