Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!island!grenada!roger
From: roger@grenada.island.COM (Roger Corman)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch
Message-ID: <140@grenada.island.COM>
Date: 5 Apr 91 17:47:13 GMT
References: <1991Mar27.122408@Think.COM> <1991Apr1.165504.5325@cs.cornell.edu> <32282@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: Island Graphics, Santa Rosa, California
Lines: 38

>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.
>
Absolute color sense would, in fact, be much less common to have--
because it doesn't exist!  Color perception varies from individual
to individual and two people often will not even agree that two
colors are the same.  Our perception of color is very dependent on 
surrounding colors and viewing conditions (there are easy demonstrations
of this if you check the literature on color science). The root of
the problem is that many different frequency spectrums appear as a single
color to our limited visual system.  

By contrast, pitch is *very* straight forward and it is pretty easy to
get two musicians to agree that two pitches are the same (independent
of background noise, room acoustics, etc.)

I know that this isn't exactly the subject of this newsgroup, but I wanted
to set the record straight....


------------------------------
Roger Corman
Island Graphics
149 Stony Circle, Suite 200
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707)523-4465
{uunet,sun,ucbcad!island!roger} 

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