baer@randvax.UUCP (05/21/84)
I am intrigued by the interest in perfect or absolute pitch. I've always thought that a musician's perfect pitch is comparable to a programmer's ability to recall from memory the first 32 powers of 2: a useful ability if you happen to have it, but given the available tools (pitch pipes & calulators, for example), not worth the trouble of trying to develop. Larry Baer decvax!randvax!baer baer@rand-unix.ARPA
chenr@tilt.UUCP (Raymond Chen) (05/24/84)
>I am intrigued by the interest in perfect or absolute pitch. I've always >thought that a musician's perfect pitch is comparable to a programmer's >ability to recall from memory the first 32 powers of 2: a useful ability if >you happen to have it, but given the available tools (pitch pipes & >calulators, for example), not worth the trouble of trying to develop. > Larry Baer > decvax!randvax!baer > baer@rand-unix.ARPA Take it from me, good relative pitch can be a real pain. Having studied classical piano since age 5 and playing violin for 6 years, for a long while, I had concert-A memorized, and could tell you whether an A was off by as little as 2 hertz. (other notes, also, to a lesser degree) Do you know what a *pain* it can be, having to perform on a piano where you *know* that most of the notes you have to play are slightly out of tune? It's hard to concentrate on performing a piece when you're busy gritting your teeth trying not to scream. Today, although I can't give you an A on demand, I can tell you if you're not on key. This can cause real pains when a horn player tunes the entire band a few hertz flat. The band was in tune, all right, with itself. It was a good performance for a college band, but I almost died listening to it. Talk about *PAIN*. Arggghhhh. Bad memories. Time to go to bed and dream about perfect fourths.... -- The preceding message was brought to you by -- Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr
ron@brl-vgr.UUCP (05/29/84)
Try listening to a pop radio station that insists on running their turntables 5% fast. We even had one engineer at WLPL in Baltimore who was contemplating changing the crystals in the quartz locked SP10's to accomplish this. Seventy minutes of music every hour! -Ron