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From: suhre@trwrb.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: tone deafness?
Message-ID: <1416@trwrb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Nov-86 12:40:05 EST
Article-I.D.: trwrb.1416
Posted: Thu Nov 13 12:40:05 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Nov-86 21:59:09 EST
References: <2376@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU> <3808@columbia.UUCP> <210@mind.UUCP> <3817@columbia.UUCP>
Reply-To: suhre@trwrb.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre)
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Organization: TRW EDS, Redondo Beach, CA
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In article <3817@columbia.UUCP> zdenek@heathcliff.columbia.edu.UUCP (Zdenek Radouch) writes:
>Anyway, back to my original question. We have three people here.
>1. "musical ignorant" that clearly identifies ratio of 30.
>2. Me, identifying ratio of 2 after some training.
>3. Person with absolute pitch identifying ratio of 1.06 after some training.
>
>It's clear that (3) remembered or learned more than (2) and somebody said
>that there is an evidence that the skills of (3) are inherited.
>I'd like to know what's that evidence.
Operating on supposition, the evidence might be that many many people learn
to play the piano.  Of those who have had lessons, very few "learn" absolute
pitch.  It would seem that if it is a learned skill, very few have the
ability to learn it.  Mine just happened.  One day I knew I could identify
notes from the piano without seeing them (or having a previous reference).

Obviously, the absolute pitch capability cannot pick out 400.132956 Hz :-)
However, someone who is good can identify pitches, and probably also
identify them as "flat" or "sharp" from the true pitch.

Finally, my ability (i.e. accuracy of determination) as declined with age.
I think it first went when I started playing in the high school band,
which seemed flat to me.

-- 
Maurice Suhre

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