Perfect Pitch, ET vs. WT, tone color

[Vanderhoofven]

Dear Friends,

I received an advertisement in the mail fram a man named David L. Burge.
He has a course on audio tapes that he claims can teach anyone to have
perfect pitch.  

Quote from advertisement:  "I began to notice faint "colors" within the
tones.  Not _visual_ colors, but colors of _pitch_, colors of _sound_."
and:  "Soon -- to my own disbelief -- I too could recognize the tones by
ear!  It was simple.  I could hear how F# sounds one way, while Bb has a
different sound, -- sort of like 'listening' to red and blue!"  

David L. Burge's Perfect Pitch SuperCourse sells for $99.00 plus $6.00
shipping and handling.  I am wondering if anyone else has ever taken his
course, and what are your thoughts on this matter?  Should I waste my money
on this or is it worthwhile?  (If you want to read his advertisement for
yourself, write to American Educational Music Publications, Inc., Music
Resources Building, Dept AR3, 1106 E Burlington, Fairfield, IA 52556.)

It sounds interesting to think that you could hear musical color in
different pitches.  My thoughts on the matter are that this has to be
bogus, because I have never heard different colors in different musical
pitches.  But just because I can't do it doesn't negate the possibility
that someone else can.
In Equal Temperament as I have been tuning (aided by my trusty SAT), all of
the keys sound much alike, with slight variations as the beat speed of the
major thirds increases.  In various types of Well Temperaments, the keys
all do have a different tone color because the thirds range in speed from
almost no beating to very fast beating.  Isn't the major source of tone
color in a chord based on the beat rate of the thirds?  The chords will
then "shimmer" at different rates, enabling one to recognize different tone
colors.

Okay, but even supposing that David Burge has his piano regularly tuned in
WT, that would allow him to hear the tone color in different chords and
distinguish between them.  But that still would not explain being able to
hear the tone color in different individual pitches.  

Question, does tuning in WT enable one to hear the differences in tone
color of individual pitches?

Additional thoughts:  I have been thinking recently, that piano technicians
are the "GUARDIANS", if you will, of piano pitch.  The standard pitch in
the U.S.A. is usually A-440, or sometimes A-442.  If we are the guardians
of pitch, (choose your own term if you don't agree with that terminology)
could it also be that we are the guardians of tone color?  And if every
time I tune a piano in Equal Temperament as perfectly as I can make it, I
am in a sense diminishing the tone color of the various keys to an almost
indistinguishable level.  So in effect I am destroying the differences in
tone color instead of emphasizing and enhancing the tone color.  The result
would be making music more bland, more like black and white photographs
instead of full color photographs.  But what if the musician wants more
colors to draw from when creating or performing music?  If I was the one
tuning for them with my SAT in Equal Temperament, they would have less
"colors" on their musical palette than if someone else tuned for them in
another type of Well Temperament.

If there was a way to use my SAT to tune Well Temperaments, I would do so
more frequently.  The only way I know to do that is to go through and
change each of the 88 notes in the memory of my SAT one at a time.  Does
anyone know of a way to quickly change an entire SAT generated tuning to
enable one to tune WT?  I just want more options available to me when
tuning, to offer my clients a broader selection of colors to choose from.

Also, does anyone have thoughts on whether or not it is ethical to tune a
piano for someone in WT instead in ET without telling them first?  I would
like to do that to see if anyone would notice the differences between
tuning styles without my telling them about the differences first.

Any replies to my random thoughts are welcome.

David


David A. Vanderhoofven, RPT
Joplin, Missouri, USA        
e-mail:  dkvander@clandjop.com

web page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/
#pianotech page:  http://www.clandjop.com/~dkvander/ircpiano.html