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From: anderson@uwmacc.UUCP (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: tone deafness?
Message-ID: <502@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Nov-86 12:41:22 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.502
Posted: Thu Nov 13 12:41:22 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Nov-86 21:46:49 EST
References: <2376@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> <3808@columbia.UUCP> <210@mind.UUCP> <3817@columbia.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: UWisconsin Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 41
Summary: Absolute/relative pitch recognition


Radouch and especially Harnad have been giving us the technical lowdown
on so-called tone-deafness (I do not believe it exists), pitch discrimination,
and allied topics. As always, very useful and illuminating. I'll try to
add something, since I have some relevant experience. As a freshman in
college (you don't want to know when! :-), I entered the School of Music
(Urbana). We were given very extensive hearing/apptitude tests. On the
basis of the test, the new freshpersons with "perfect" pitch were all
(about 16) placed in a special theory class and taught by the theory chair,
a composer named Gordon Binkerd. I most assuredly do not have perfect pitch,
but I had three jobs, and this special class was the only one I could fit
into my schedule. That meant that the instructor and I were the only ones
in there who did *not* have perfect pitch. For sight-singing we did
madrigals by Gesualdo the first day; rather a large challenge. Among other
things, from this atypical experience I got fairly good relative pitch
(interval recognition) fairly quickly (one has to survive :-). While I am
a great believer (word used advisedly) in talent and innate abilities,
I think we've been making too much of the matter here. While there are
people who have almost no trouble finding the correct label for what they
hear, I think it's 99.9% a matter of training *in hearing* (this is my
big point!). As for one's ability to differentiate two adjacent tones,
Zdenek may have the right ratios. According to what I've learned and
directly experienced the resolution of the ear seems to be in the
neighborhood of 4/100 of a semitone. BTW, now that I'm a harpsichordist
for a longish time and have had to tune instruments countless times,
my ear is somewhat better than it used to be. "Out of tune" is how
I'd characterize almost all performances (shockingly, most recordings!).
Finally, there are A's and there are A's -- that's a pitch that can be
anywhere from 385 Hz to 448 Hz. Since I usually tune to 415, most
people's A is my B-flat, and the first thing that annoys me about hearing
Baroque music on modern instruments is that it's all too high and 
piercing. Last of all (promise), is sci.med the place for this? Of
course, the medical community are among the more ardent amateurs (root
sense) of music, and the hearing questions are to a degree matters of
physiology, but are our *musicians* tuned in? --- Sorry to run on at
such length.
-- 
==ARPA:====================anderson@unix.macc.wisc.edu===Jess Anderson======
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