Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!aero-c!robert
From: robert@aero.org (Bob Statsinger)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: PITCH and COLOUR
Message-ID: <1991Apr15.224139.22117@aero.org>
Date: 15 Apr 91 22:41:39 GMT
References: <1991Apr12.035714.10375@dgbt.doc.ca> <7983@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Sender: news@aero.org
Organization: Ssaymssik
Lines: 45

In article <7983@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) writes:
>>>In article <1991Apr10.031342.27656@dgbt.doc.ca> ted@dgbt.doc.ca (Ted Grusec)
>>>writes:
>>>>[Two identical colors, in different contexts, look different.]
>>>>By contrast, a person with perfect pitch will identify the pitch of
>>>>a given note no matter what very different chords that pitched note is
>>>>presented in.

I love this topic; I just gotta stick my nose in 
on this one :-)

Absolute pitch can be measured by two separate tasks:
	Pitch Production (PP)    and
	Pitch Identification (PI)

The rating on both tasks determines to what extent a subject
possesses AP.   PP is the ability to sing a given test tone "out of
the air", or after listening to a context which does not
suggest the test tone. PI is the ability to identify a played test tone
(identifying tones in clusters or chords is different from
identifying single tones; identification of single tones
is sufficient to suggest AP).

In both tasks, both the accuracy and the response times of
the resonses are crucial. Accuracy is self-evident. Response
time is crucial because a long delay by a subject in responding
could easily indicate that *relative* pitch is being employed;
that is, a pitch is being produced or identified based on the
calculation of an interval from some tone for which the subject
does have absolute memory. For example, violin players may have
absolute memory of the 440 A; assuming they do not have AP in
general, they probably use the 440 A and calculate an interval
to the test tone. This latency in response is a significant
feature of the statistics when analysing subject data on AP.

Identification of musical notes and visual colors are comparable
to an extent. Musical notes may be said to possess tone chroma
and tone height; the chroma is the "C"-ness or "E"-ness of the
note as absolutely identified. The height is the subjective
appraiasal of the octave containing the test tone. Visual
colors do not have this height attribute; there is no cyclic
repetition to visible colors. But visual colors and tone chromas
do seem comparable.

	Bob Statsinger