Perfect Pitch

[Robert Edwardsen]

Dear Ehilbert:

        I have read your discussions on perfect pitch with interest and
thought I would contribute my limited knowledge on the subject.
        I think the term perfect pitch covers a large group of people with
many different catagories.
          At one end of this spectrum are those that have trained hard and
extensively, either at their instrument or at the David L. Burge course or
something similar.
        The other end seems to a high aptitude for pitch memory which can be
unrelated to musical training.  This type of perfect pitch person learns at
a very early age the names of notes and remembers them from from that point
on.  This can be very problematic for such an individual when they learn the
names of notes on a piano that is 100% flat!  I know of 2 people that this
has happened to.  Another example of this level of perfect pitch is a five
year old daughter of a customer who did not yet know the names of notes but
could tell the string, postion and finger number of a note played on the
violin over the radio.  This is what I would call perfect perfect pitch and
is surely a gift.
        In regards to the individual who could not sing what he could hear
there is also the aspect of vocal cord control to be considered.  I believe
that more often than not people are labeled tone deaf when the defecit is
not there ear but there ability to control there voice.

                Regards,
                         Rob Edwardsen, RPT, Rochester Chapter