Perfect Pitch

[Tom Cole]

Brian,

This was demonstrated at a national convention 4 or 5 years ago. Isaac
Sadigursky gave a class entitled, I think, Demystifying Perfect Pitch. I
don't recall that he succeeded in demystifying anything but, at any
rate, proved that some people do have good pitch "memory". There were 3
people in the class who claimed to have the ability and they were asked
to tune A440 on different strings of the A4 unison on an old grand. Two
of them were successful and one tuned a few cents flat.

My piano teacher, when she was asked what is the prerequisite of
becoming a musician, would answer that one must have a good ear. At the
beginning of a master class with new students, the first order of
business would be to check for perfect pitch. This was how she knew who
was talented.

In my opinion, it is an important ingredient in both tuning and
musicianship. Anyone with ordinary abilities (and the desire) can learn
to play well enough to please most people or tune competently enough to
pass the tuning test and make a good living at it. But to achieve a
level of artistry in either requires a high level of sensitivity to the
audible spectrum and perfect pitch is an aspect of this sensitivity.

Tom


Brian Holden wrote:
> 
> Many people over the years have claimed to me that they have perfect
> pitch. When I ask them to be more specific on this, they start to cool
> off.  One person when asked what note I was playing on the piano went
> cold on the idea altogether.  To me, having perfect pitch means being
> able to detect or aurally produce a note within a maybe a few beats,
> but no one has demonstrated to me that they can get that close.  I
> would imagine that singers would be pretty accurate, but not perfect. 
> Any comments?
>
.
-- 
Thomas A. Cole, RPT
Santa Cruz, CA
mailto:tcole@cruzio.com