vange@stolaf.UUCP (Erin L. Vang) (05/19/84)
I don't believe perfect pitch is necessarily an acquired "skill." I had perfect pitch when I was younger and only played piano, which is in concert pitch. However, in fifth grade, I began playing the horn (in F), picked up cornet, trumpet, and fluegelhorn in eighth, (all in Bb), then tuba and euphonium (more concert pitch), and so on... Also, I began playing more and more music in which I had to transpose, to horn in Eb, D, C, G, A, Ab, B, Bb, etc. Over these years, I gradually lost my perfect pitch, simply because my brain got confused from having to think in all the different keys--i.e., thinking that concert G was C, or concert f# was b, or whatever. Now, I can no longer reliably give any concert pitch on demand, but I do have relative pitch. Yes, microtone perfect pitch, as someone put it, does exist. I have it, to the extent that regardless of whether I can name pitches, I can infallibly tell whether they are sharp or flat from the accepted scale based on A440. When I could still name pitches (i.e., before taking up the alphabet soup of other-keyed instruments), I could tell that, too... Erin Vang ...ihnp4!stolaf!vange