Perfect Pitch...Matthew

[ANRPiano@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/15/99 9:46:10 AM Central Standard Time, A440A@AOL.COM 
writes:

<< Greetings,
     I hear this statement a lot.  Invariably from "perfect pitch" people 
that 
 have never sat down at an equally tuned piano that is exactly1/2 step flat.  
 However, I have had fresh stringing jobs in the shop that I chipped and 
 pitched 1/2 step flat, and invite those that ascribe colors to ET to come 
and 
 listen.  It never fails that as I play in the key of C, they hear the 
"color" 
 of B. When I get into G, they always tell me that they recognize the colors 
 in the key of F# when they hear it!! 
     If there are different "colors" ascribed to keys in ET, it is a pitch 
 dependant, learned response.  It is not due to the tempering.
 Regards, 
 Ed Foote
 
  >>
Ed,
I think for the most part you are right.  It is difficult to say why I have a 
different sense of color for different keys in ET.  I may be reacting to 
tember as much as pitch.  It could be emotional memory.  I may be remembering 
emotions I felt from different pieces in the same key. (If you look at the 
totality of music written, esp. before the 20th cent. composers seemed to 
associate certain emotional states with certain keys.)

Human memory is so complex it is difficult to always know how much our past 
experience is impacting our current experience.  With that said I will grant 
your point and have to try that experiment out on myself soon.

Andrew Remillard