Perfect pitch

[EHILBERT@midd.middlebury.edu]

Holiday Greetings to all,
      Perfect pitch may or may not be something which some people are
"born with".  In talking with people who have it, some say they have acquired
the ability to recognize a specific pitch through years of tuning an
instrument.  I know that at one time I could pick a B-flat our of the air
because I had played trumpet for many years and that was the natural open
pitch of the instrument.  Others learn other pitches - thus string players
may learn an A, flutists a C, etc.  This I would call aural memory from being
exposed regularly to the same pitch.
      However, I know of others who have this ability on all notes, and
not just by recognition of one note and then by interval relating to other
pitches.  Indeed, those I know with "perfect pitch" don't have to do any
intervalic referencing to identify the pitch.  They just plain hear a pitch and can immediatly
name it.
      I have also know of a couple of people who were not musically
inclined and played not instruments, and yet could identify pitches.  So,
I am not so surprised by the ability to recognize pitches as I am by those who
have extremely close pitch discrimination and who cannot be confused even by
repeated attempts to throw them off - such as Daniel Domb, who I described
in an earlier post.
      Ask many of these people about their abilities and they will tell you
that they were just born with the ability, that they did not have to study it.
As for learning it, my wife Emily, whom many of you know as an RPT, is also a very fine
Suzuki(method) Piano Teacher.  She has quite good note recognition for
notes played on the piano, but not necessarily on other instruments.  She can
however, listen to orchestral, piano, chamber ensembles, etc. and can readily
identify what key signature a piece is being played in. (Give her an unfair
advantage when we are betting on what a piece of music is that we are listening
to on the radio!)
      I was just asking Emily about this topic and she had some thoughts,
which she says are her observations, but she had not done any scientific
studies to confirm these observations.  First, teachers who teach pitches to
students have a mucjh larger pecentage of students who can successfully
recognize notes.  Students who start when quite young, namely younger that
(than) 6 or 7, at the oldest, seem to have the best chance of learning to
hear and recognize pitches.  Students, as described above, who tune
regularly to a specific pitch (vioin to A, etc.) develop very acute abilities
to recognize that note accuratly.  As for herself, she doesn't know when she
was first able to recognize pitches but knows that she first realized it when
she was about ten, but hadn't been tested for the ability before then.
      And lastly, for now, Emily just brought me the advertisement for
learning to have perfect pitch and the purveyor of the course is indeed
David L. Burge, as suggested by earlier by Gordon Wilson.  So, Gordon, have
you taken the course, and does it work?
Ed Hilbert, RPT