I've wondered for quite some time about the limits of so-called perfect pitch. I've tried to research this on the internet and not gotten very far in the past. Can individuals with a high degree of this ability discriminate between 440 and 440.5? I imagine this has been researched, and it would be really interesting to know how refined this ability can be. Franz Moore told a story about Horowitz complaining that the pitch of the piano was off before a concert. Franz checked it and it was dead on. Nevertheless, he pretended to tune for a half hour or so and told the Maestro to try the piano. Ah! Much better! was the reply. Along the same line a tuning buddy of mine was tuning in the low bass for a music teacher who claimed to have perfect pitch. After tuning a note the teacher stopped him and said "are you sure that's correct?" My friend said "I'll move it a bit and you tell me where you think it sounds best." He put his lever on the pin and before he had even moved the pin the teacher said "There! That's it!". Of course my friend had not changed the pitch even slightly. There is an interesting gray area between externally perceived phenomenon and internally generated phenomenon: i.e. the imagination. On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:44 AM, <JimWilsonian at aol.com> wrote: > My friend Nate has a child Noah with perfect pitch. From the age of 6 he's > been able to identify notes played on the piano -- without seeing what > you're playing. You can play any note and he'll tell you what it is without > hesitation. He's 8 now and this gift is even more refined. When I was > there 2 weeks ago, I tried it out. I played random clusters of notes and > without being able to see the keyboard he could instantly pick out each note > -- even dissonant clusters. He's also becoming a really good pianist and > beginning to compose. Really amazing. Nate is an accomplished studio > musician, so one assumes that genetics played a role. ... Then you add to > the mystery that Noah's twin sister Sarah, while being a promising musician, > does not share the same gift. Pretty wild, huh? > > Jim Wilson > > > pianotech-request at ptg.org writes: > > "Absolute pitch (AP), or perfect pitch, is the ability to name or > reproduce a tone without reference to an external standard". > > > > > > ************** > Great Deals on Dell 15" Laptops - Starting at $479 ( > http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1220433363x1201394532/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B212935224%3B34245239%3Bb) > -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA www.pianova.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090320/f53101ec/attachment.html>
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