<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1561" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Bookman Old Style" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3> <DIV>In a message dated 7/2/2008 6:40:19 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, cousins_gerry@msn.com writes:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#1f497d size=2> <P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'">....I always wondered which standard a person was referring to when describing their perfect pitch. Pre 1920’s  A-435? Post 1920’s A-440? New a-442? 443, 445? European? Eastern? Other?</FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3>Right on the mark, Gerry. My Music Theory prof in college (even some 40 years ago) would not let us use the term "perfect pitch." She herself used "pitch recognition" (the ability to name a note with any degree of accuracy) which is in turn based on "pitch memory" (the ability to remember and reproduce pitches with some degree of accuracy, and which, incidentally, she had in spades). </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3>She thus nicely skirted arguments about the word "perfect," since there are all degrees of pitch memory, some better than others. "Pitch recognition" is based on the ability to remember artificially-named arbitrary bands of frequencies, like A=440, A=435, etc., or for that matter, A=whatever-their-piano-was-tuned-to. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3>No one is born with an absolute "A", since there isn't one. Whether one is born with the ability to remember pitches, or learns it, I'll leave for others to answer.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3>Bob Davis</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style" color=#000000 size=3></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial></SPAN> </DIV></FONT></FONT></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient <A title="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" href="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" target="_blank">used cars</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>