absolute pitch

[David Nereson]

Oh no, here's goes the absolute pitch debate again.  Nobody's perfect, or
"absolute"; we're human.  Take an ETD to her ten times in a row and ask
her to sing or hum an A or a C or any other note and see if she's right on
every time.  I'll bet she's not.  Some people come very very close, but
they, alas, do not have precision-calibrated signal generators or
frequency counters in their brain.  "Absolute pitch" and "perfect pitch"
should be banned from the English language and be replaced with "very good
pitch recognition."  The prof/cellist elsewhere in this thread is one in a
million.
	--David Nereson, RPT

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org]On
Behalf Of Gregor _
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 8:29 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: absolute pitch


I have a customer with an absolute pitch. She called me for a tuning and
complained about one key (E6) which sounded for her more like the F6. When
she told me that, I had no idea about her absolute pitch. I tuned the
piano
and she still complained about that E6. I wondered what she meant: how can
an E sound like F? I checked the temperament again and the octaves,
fourths
and fiths as well. Everything perfect. Then she told me about her absolute
pitch. Aha! I tuned the E for her as she told me (too flat, to sharp, oh
no,
now it´s correct......). The result were inacceptable intervals! I told
her
that and tuned like I felt it´s o.k.

Seems that even an absolute pitch has fluctuations. I always wondered if
an
absolute pitch can differentiate between 440 and 439 Hz and if it´s
related
to mood, weather or so.

Gregor

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