"perfect pitch"

[Tom Servinsky]

Dave,
Well put!
My stance also. Should be called "good note recognition".
Tom Servinsky,RPT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Nereson" <dnereson@dimensional.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2001 5:22 AM
Subject: "perfect pitch"


> <<I have perfect pitch.  But you want to know something?  It's not so
> perfect
> that I hear a temperament in my inner ear when writing a piece away from
the
> keyboard.  Is my mental pitch memory tempered?  NO.  It's in just
> intonation.
>     --Tom Sivak >>
>
>     I also have what people call "perfect pitch".  It's the biggest
misnomer
> in the world of music.  Nobody has perfect pitch.  Turn on your ETD, set
it
> to some note.  Now hum or sing that note and see how long the lights stay
> absolutely stopped.  It's very hard to hold a perfectly steady pitch with
no
> wavering, kinda like trying to hold your car exactly at 25 mph with no
> variance at all.  Or, with the ETD set to some note, put it where you
can't
> see the display but can still press the "measure" button.  Sing the note
the
> ETD is set to for a second or two while you measure.  Now check the
display.
> Do it again in an hour or tomorrow, or when you first wake up or after
> you've been listening to music, either on TV or the stereo or the ditty
from
> the ice cream wagon that just went down the street.  Check your A or C or
> whatever against the ETD again.  Still dead nuts on pitch, not even a few
> cents deviation?  I doubt it.  Get a frequency counter, go to someone who
> supposedly has perfect pitch and ask them to hum a note and see if they're
> dead on every time.  Unlikely.
>     Now, singing is one thing and playing in tune on an instrument is
> another, but still, if you ask a "perfect pitch" violinist or whatever
other
> instrumentalist to hit a note, and measure it with a frequency counter,
not
> just comparing it to the nearest piano which you hope is close to being in
> tune, it's highly unlikely they'll be EXACTLY on that frequency every
time.
>     What I (and everybody else who has "perfect" pitch) actually have is
> "very close pitch".  When I hear music on the radio or in a concert hall,
I
> can tell what key they're in.  When I walk into a piano store and
someone's
> tuning, I can tell what notes he/she's hitting without looking at the
keys.
> When my phone rings, I can hear the A flat and C tones of the two bells
> without having to compare them to the piano to see what they are.  It's
just
> from having taken piano lessons since kindergarten and playing cello in
> orchestra since fourth grade.  Everyday the conductor would have us hum
'A',
> first thing, then he'd go to the piano and play A, and we'd tune.
Everyday.
> Since age 9.  Practicing piano every day since age 5.  After a while, your
> brain just memorizes middle C or A or both, along with many other notes.
> But
> there's nothing in nature that makes a baby's brain have a calibrated
pitch
> source or measurement device.  As we tuners know, A 440 or C 523.3 are
> arbitrary pitches set by man, not the universe.  Pitch is an infinite
> spectrum.
>     Many people also have very good "relative pitch", that is, once you
give
> them a note (a reference), they can then sing any other note you ask them
to
> (within a reasonable range).  Or once you tell them what a certain note
is,
> they can then hear what the other notes are.  Whether that relative pitch
is
> in just intonation or meantone or Werckmeister, I just don't know --
> probably pretty close to just, unless they've played an instrument for a
> long time and are used to equal temperament.
>     But "perfect", in terms of Hertz or fractions of a Hertz, or in terms
of
> cents?  Nah!  That'd be like being able to make two marks on a piece of
> paper exactly one inch apart, without the help of a ruler, and no
deviation
> by even a few thousandths, every time.  Or being able to tell how loud a
> sound is, to the nearest tenth of a deciBel, with no meter, or exactly how
> bright the light in the room is to the nearest lumen, with no meter.  I
know
> there are veteran machinists who can look at the thickness of a small
piece
> of metal, or piano technicians who can look at a center pin and tell you
its
> thickness in thousandths, just from having done it for 20 or 30 years, and
> sometimes I amaze myself by the smallest difference in key dip I can
detect.
> But perfect, every time, to the nearest thousandth?  I doubt it.  I'm sure
> many of us can set A, then set a quick temperament just with 4ths and
5ths,
> then check it with the ETD and it's damn close.  But every time?  Dead
nuts
> on,  to the nearest tenth of a cent?  Maybe if you're bionic or god.
>     I really don't like the term "perfect pitch" because it implies that
the
> higher powers above somehow installed a crystal oscillator in some
people's
> brains before they were born, or that pitches on pianos or tuning forks
are
> somehow determined by some immutable standard out in the universe
somewhere,
> like the speed of light or the mass of a hydrogen proton.
>         --Dave Nereson, RPT, Denver
>
> <<However, I do understand the great sense of discomfort that occurs when
> someone discovers that long held beliefs that had no basis in fact are
shown
> to be false, with no foundation, even if they do reflect the most common
> thinking.  This also happened when scientists announced that the world
was,
> in fact, round, not flat and heads rolled for it back then too.
> Bill Bremmer RPT
> Madison, Wisconsin >>
>
>     Yes, it's like people who think if you go outside without a jacket,
> you'll "catch cold", as though you can "catch" a certain temperature
> ("cold"), and that's what makes you sick.  You catch A "cold", not just
> "cold" -- it's a virus you catch that causes the "cold",  which is an
> illness, not a lack of heat.  Perhaps walking around in cold weather can
> lower your resistance to viruses, but it's not the cold air per se that
> makes you
> ill.
>     There are lots of other terms that should be abandoned, like "practice
> piano", "baby" grand, "upright grand" (yes, I know manufacturers used it),
> "high tech" (high compared to what?  What's high tech today will be low
tech
> in a few years), "loud pedal", "tone deaf"  (I don't know how many
> customers, or, usually customers' husbands, claim to be "tone deaf").  I
> play
> a note, then a different note, then ask them if the two notes were
different
> or the same.  If
> they reply "Different", then I can tell them they're not "tone deaf".
>     I know, I know -- this is way too long.  Bye.   --Dave Nereson
>
>
>
>