Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!chx400!urz.unibas.ch!gaspar
From: gaspar@urz.unibas.ch
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: <None>
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.100059.1489@urz.unibas.ch>
Date: 7 Apr 91 09:00:59 GMT
References: <1991Mar19.134336.23909@ircam.fr> <4123.27fb5354@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <4124.27fb558b@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <1991Apr6.004426.24266@dgbt.doc.ca>
Organization: University of Basel, Switzerland
Lines: 31

In article <1991Apr6.004426.24266@dgbt.doc.ca>, ted@dgbt.doc.ca (Ted Grusec) writes:
> One comment on this general thread on perfect pitch. Some people seem
> to think that way that we normally deal with visual color is analogous
> to perfect pitch. I don't think this is so. If I show you a "red", and
> then a slightly different shade of "red" at some time later, then you
> are not likely to be able to detect the difference between these two
> different "reds" without having both to compare. 

Maybe not me, but maybe Monet could have done it...

>With perfect pitch, a
> person can detect a slight difference in pitch between two notes
> presented at different times without needing to have both present for
> comparison. Pigeons, and other birds, however, do have a "perfect
> color" sense that IS like perfect pitch, but that's another story.

I think it's very hard to compare perfect pitch to perfect colour sense, since
the ear and the eye have very different capabilities.
As someone already has pointed out the ear is capable to hear a range of up to
10 octaves, the eye about one!
This makes it possible to us to hear all the overtones that enable us to 
distinguish vowels (understand language). 
When you play a chord to a person with a trained ear he/she will be able to
tell you all the notes you played. If you mix yellow with blue colour then
the eye can only see a green and is not able to see the two previous colours.
On the other hand the eye is much better in geometrical resolution.
And then a question I always was wondering about: if I see a red and you
see the same red, who tells me if we see it the same way?

laci