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From: charless@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Charles R. Sullivan)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch as a Birth Defect....
Summary: 'perfect' is a misleading name
Message-ID: <12727@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 13 Apr 91 03:09:15 GMT
References: <3123@esquire.dpw.com> <1991Mar19.134336.23909@ircam.fr> <4123.27fb5354@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <4124.27fb558b@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <346@heurikon.heurikon.com> <3177@esquire.dpw.com>
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Reply-To: charless@cory.Berkeley.EDU
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In article <3177@esquire.dpw.com> rreid@esquire.UUCP (r l reid ) writes:
>
>This is what I haven't been understanding about the whole concept -
>if "perfect pitch" is inborn,  does this imply that 12-to-the-8ve,
>equal temperament is somehow wired into the brain by the Creator?
[...]
>
>     1/1 8/7 3/2 10/7 5/3 12/7
>
>I expect you'd call my 1/1 an E.  But what would your reaction
>be to the 3/2?  It's "about B", but not exactly (or more exactly,
>depending on your reference).  Do you just hear B, or do you hear
>a mockery of B-ness?
>
Those who prefer the terms 'absolute pitch' (what other musicians have is
relative pitch)
or 'pitch memory' have a good point.  
Perfect pitch does not necessarily mean any finer resolution of pitch  
discrimination, just the ability to hear a note out of the blue and
be able to tell what pitch it is, or vice versa.

If you take two trained musicains, one with p.p. and one without,
play them an A 440, and then a slightly out-of-tune E, either one
might be better able to to tell it was out of tune.  It is an interesting
question as to whether one might prefer just intonation, and the other 
equal temperament, but there is no reason that the p.p. endowed musician
would be any less tolerant of slight variations in *relative* pitch than
any other musician.  In other words, once you play them the A 440
(assuming this is what the p.p. musicain is calibrated to), they will be
equally bothered by an E that is, say an eigth tone flat, and equally likely
to tolerate an E that is, say 1/40th tone flat.

The difference is that if you play an A an eigth tone flat, and then an E
equally flat, the p.p. musician will be upset, but the other will think it 
is just fine.

As for equal temperament being pre-wired, you again get away from that
implausable conclusion by considering perfect pitch as absolute pitch.
The newborn p.p. baby doesn't know what pitch the doctor whistled as she
left the delivery room, but next time the baby hears it, she recognizes it
as the same pitch.  If you played her a note a quarter tone higher, she could
remember that too.  But you don't-- the notes you play her are generally
equally tempered steps apart, so these are the ones she learns names for.

Charlie Sullivan                 charless@cory.berkeley.edu