perfect pitch

[D.L. Bullock]

<Flame resistant suit going on>
There is no such thing as perfect pitch.  That is my contention and I am
sticking to it.  What we have in this country masquerading as that is
actually A-440 pitch memory.  Do you think Bach or Mozart had perfect pitch?
They would be lost today since everything is about 1/2 step higher than they
used.  If you go to Europe and play some of the organs there perfect pitch
will become a detriment.  Often the church did not have money 200 years ago
for the metal to make full sized low bass organ pipes.  You will find the
organ pitched several notes higher since those higher pitched pipes are
shorter and take less metal to make.  Someone with so-called perfect pitch
will go nuts trying to play those organs.

Scientists are using "perfect pitch" as a term that denotes memory of an
exact pitch learned as children in countries using tone languages.  Chinese,
Vietnamese, Thai and other Asian languages use musical pitches to speak.
Often the same actual words, characters, phonemes used can mean several
different things as you say them with different musical tunes going up or
down in pitch.  Children learn these musical tones as infants and decades
later are using those same pitches when they say that line as adults.  That
is why Asian men often sound like women by speaking in higher pitches than
male English speakers.  They are using the same pitches they learned from
their mothers.

That is probably a better definition of perfect pitch and musicians should
just call our version A-440 pitch memory.  Look out, they are toying with
A-453 in some musical circles.  We may have to adjust our "perfect pitch" to
a new set of pitches, soon.

D.L. Bullock
www.thepianoworld.com
St. Louis