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From: icking@gmdzi.gmd.de (Werner Icking)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <4390@gmdzi.gmd.de>
Date: 26 Mar 91 17:28:40 GMT
References: <3137@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar25.140024.14520@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <1991Mar25.171913.2997@linus.mitre.org> <1991Mar25.190633.11351@en.ecn.purdue.edu> <12497@hydra.Helsinki.FI>
Organization: GMD, St. Augustin, F.R. Germany
Lines: 24

wikla@cs.Helsinki.FI (Arto Wikla) writes:

>One friend of mine, who has perfect pitch, has very clear connection
>between a key and visual colour. If I remember right, F-major was green,
>and E-major blue. But what was most interesting was that when she 
>plyed F-major piece in baroque tuning (so. half tone lower, a'=415), the
>key was still green, not blue according to the absolute pitch!
>She was playing violin, so I suppose the intonation of notes would
>have been different if she would think of playing in (modern) E-major.  

Not depending of the absolute tuning of a violin  it is a big difference
if you play something in different keys. If you play a piece in E-major
open strings like the A-string "add" to the sound. Especially for G-, D-,
A- and E-major the open strings are subdominat (sp?) or dominant. This
is not true for other keys like e.g. F-major or Es-major. 

May be that this is a small explanation for the phenomeon.

Werner
-- 
Werner Icking          icking@gmdzi.gmd.de          (+49 2241) 14-2443
Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung mbH (GMD)
Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O.Box 1240, D-5205 Sankt Augustin 1, FRGermany
                                  "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod."