Matthew As Ed said, there are some people who do have a very good sense of pitch. Whether that's called perfect or not is up for debate. I had a flute/piano player work for me once that had a pretty good memory of pitch. She was able to identify any note on the piano, and sing any note I asked. To test how close to "perfect" she was, I had her tune A 4. She came within 10 cents. She then tuned a piano without the use of a fork or ETD, and probably could have passed the tuning exam. (I only did an aural evaluation). People who say they have perfect pitch can come pretty close to identifying notes. Because we now are able to measure that pitch using electronic means, it give the word a whole new meaning. How close to A440 does one need to be to be called perfect? Even orchestras tune to different pitches. Does that mean those who don't tuning to A440 are not "perfect"? Wim -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Todd <toddpianoworks at att.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Mon, Jul 5, 2010 2:06 pm Subject: [pianotech] Perfect Pitch (revisited) Hi all, I went to tune for a client a while ago, and she begins by bragging what perfect pitch she has. I had asked her when the last time her piano was tuned. She couldn't remember, but then went on to say that it wasn't that far off as she has perfect pitch. I whipped out my ETD and measured. Sure enough, more than -25 cents! I just smiled and told her it would need a pitch raise prior to tuning. She was a little shocked. Anyway, I just said all that to reiterate the fact that there is no such thing as perfect pitch. Relative pitch, yes. Pitch memory, yes. But perfect pitch, no. I know of people who can name a key you are playing in by not looking to see. However, to be perfect, they would need to also tell you how many cents sharp or flat the piano is and/or name the exact frequency of the given tones. Someone may be able to do the latter, I am not sure. BUT, they would need to be 100% right, 100% of the time to be perfect. If there are people out there who can do that, maybe a more correct term would be absolute, instead of perfect. Okay, I am done.....for now :-) TODD PIANO WORKS Matthew Todd, Piano Technician (979) 248-9578 http://www.toddpianoworks.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100706/b45c0e25/attachment-0001.htm>
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