Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!carroll
From: carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <3756@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 27 Mar 91 20:36:12 GMT
References: <18972@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991Mar26.111429.27568@athena.mit.edu> <1991Mar26.121135@Think.COM>
Sender: news@ssc-vax.UUCP
Reply-To: carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll)
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics
Lines: 34

In article <1991Mar26.121135@Think.COM> kathy@Think.COM (Kathy Viksne) writes:

>I have found that these "references" have little to do with my perfect
>pitch.  I sing regularly, as well as play violin, piano and other
>instruments, but I have known that I have perfect pitch since I was at
>least three years old, before I knew how to play these instruments.

>I know of several people who use these references, and thus claim that
>they have "learned" perfect pitch.  I personally don't consider this
>perfect pitch, but rather a memory device.  But then comes the
>arguement, what is perfect pitch in the first place?

	Exactly. What's the difference between those of us who acquired the
skill back when our brains were still young, and those who acquire pitch
memory at a later age? I think it's merely a matter of degree, and that the
same phenomenon is operative. Those of us who have had perfect pitch all our
lives generally have better-developed pitch sense because we've had a lot
more practice at it, and because we learned it before there was a lot of
other stuff cluttering up our minds. Kind of like acquiring languages.

	I have trouble with the concept of using physiological cues in
aiding pitch sense, though. It seems that, except maybe for highly trained
voices, this would be a very crude indicator, although I have to admit
that as I sit here imagining the difference between singing g and singing
a flat, there is a perceptible difference in the feeling in my throat.

	Minor nitpick - now that I've been participating in this thread for
a week or so, what does it have to do with *computer* music?

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

"If it sucks, it sucks because *I* wrote it." - Whoopi Goldberg