[pianotech] OT: Perfect pitch and temperaments

david at piano.plus.com david at piano.plus.com
Tue Mar 17 06:47:45 PDT 2009


The problem with claims of, and discussions about, "perfect pitch", is
that the terms are not defined. People don't say exactly what they mean by
"perfect pitch".

Do they mean they can tell you the fundamental frequency of a reasonably
pure musical sound to within 3 Hz, or 1 Hz, or what?  Or just that if you
play a note on a musical instrument, they can tell you which note it is?

My friend's wife is a fine pianist, and if you play a note on the piano
keyboard, she can indeed tell you what note it is (which I  cannot do). 
But if I were to play to her out of the blue one day, my C 517.3 tuning
fork, I doubt if she would be able to tell me that it was C 6Hz below
concert pitch.

So I think next time someone claims to have 'perfect pitch', it might be
in order to ask "Oh that's interesting - what do you mean?".

Best regards,

David.




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