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From: ogata@leviathan.cs.umd.edu (Jefferson Ogata)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <32282@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 1 Apr 91 19:04:04 GMT
References: <3qaBZ2w164w@arkham.wimsey.bc.ca> <3744@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <1991Mar27.122408@Think.COM> <1991Apr1.165504.5325@cs.cornell.edu>
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Reply-To: ogata@leviathan.cs.umd.edu (Jefferson Ogata)
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
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I'd include the previous article, but it is horribly formatted.

As to why humans should have absolute color sense but not absolute
pitch sense, first of all, the methods of detection are wildly
different, so there's really no reason to expect them to be
comparable.

But also the range of the senses is very different. Color is
detected over a frequency range of less than an octave, and
people only identify a small number of colors. Pitch extends
over 8-10 octaves, and there are twelve pitches per octave
to identify, for people who are tuned to 12-tone scales. If
we could only hear one octave, perhaps we'd be able to
identify notes very accurately.
--
Jefferson Ogata        	        ogata@cs.umd.edu
University Of Maryland          Department of Computer Science