rwp@hogpc.UUCP (R.PAUL) (05/04/84)
[Posted to net.music since it is applicable to all kinds of music]
This mostly concerns Rich Rosen's question on what makes someone with
absolute pitch (which I had always heard referred to as perfect pitch)
go out of tune. I once played musical guessing games with a music
teacher because she couldn't believe I could tell with an extremely low
error rate what a note was without a reference pitch and without looking
at the piano keyboard. I've found the only things that can really throw
me off are singing next to someone who is (supposedly) singing the same
part as me, but consistently out of tune, or hearing the note played from
certain instruments. If it comes from a piano or a voice, the error rate
is practically non-existent. However, if the sound happens to be coming
from a flute, I am relatively likely to be off. With other woodwinds I
also sometimes have a slight problem, but usually it is due to the
instrument's not being a key of C instrument and with some I will recognize
the note by name rather than by true pitch (especially in the case of Bb
instruments, probably due to my having played clarinet for many years).
A related problem is dealing with a synthesizer with an "instant transpose"
feature. My Roland Juno-60 has one of these. At first I thought it would
be great because it would allow me to easily transpose songs into my vocal
range, but I have since found that it is extremely hard for me to use. The
reason is that I associate the notes I hear with their absolute pitches
rather than their relative pitches and try to play the keys that would sound
right if the synthesizer were tuned to the key of C (where relative pitch
equals absolute pitch). I have pretty much given up on the use of this
feature as a result. It is much easier for me to transpose in my head as
I go along than to try to play the keys corresponding to the written key
while hearing the absolute key.
Has anyone else had similar or non-similar problems caused by having
absolute pitch? Finally, a topic of discussion that transcends musical
boundaries and doesn't include a lot of name-dropping.
Rick Paul
AT&T Information Systems Laboratories
Lincroft, New Jersey
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