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From: ark@rabbit.UUCP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical
Subject: How I feigned absolute pitch
Message-ID: <2778@rabbit.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-May-84 13:57:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: rabbit.2778
Posted: Mon May  7 13:57:09 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 8-May-84 00:47:55 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 31

When I was a fairly small child, my parents decided they
wanted me to take piano lessons.  So they bundled me into
the car and we went to visit a piano teacher.

One of the first things he wanted to know was whether or not
I had perfect pitch -- whether I could hear a completely
isolated note and know what note it was.  I had already heard
a lot of music by that time, and knew that I could not remember
a note over a long period of time, but that I know what all
the intervals were and could hear them accurately.  I tried
to tell him that but he wouldn't listen.

Instead, he decided to give me a test.  I got to cover my eyes
while he played notes.  After each note, he would ask me what
it was, and I would try to tell him.

I got the first note wrong, but every one after that was right,
thus convincing him that I had perfect pitch.  He was wrong.

His misconception resulted from a mistake.  When I got the first
note wrong, I asked him what it was ANE HE TOLD ME!  After that,
it was just a matter of hearing the interval between the note he
had just played, whose pitch I didn't know, and the note he had
played before that, whose pitch I did know (and he had just confirmed
by telling me that I had gotten it right).  While I could not remember
a pitch across the space of an hour (and still can't), I could
definitely remember it long enough to compare it with the next one.

I learned a lesson from this episode that I doubt the piano teacher
ever imagined:  if I ever get to give music lessons to children,
I will NOT underestimate their intelligence.