Re: tones & perfect pitch...

On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 02:25:41PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> ...sorry if this is leaning toward off-topic, but some time ago I saw an
> article (in _Time_ or something not particularly scientific) that
> mentioned a study which showed that a very high proportion of
> tone-language speakers ended up with perfect pitch.  Can anyone
> confirm/deny this?  I don't speak any tonal languages (wish I did) and do
> have perfect pitch--it would be interesting to have a society with lots
> of perfect-pitched people, and have it interacting with poor "tone-deaf"
> (from their POV?) people of another society....
Well, I don't really have the standing to confirm/deny this... but at
least I'm another statistic :-)

I speak at least two tonal languages, Mandarin and Hokkien, both quite
fluently. Then on the other end of the spectrum, I speak English quite
fluently, and Malay (close relative of Indonesian) semi-fluently. And I'm
pretty good at telling music intervals, esp. chords (if I do say so
myself!) -- I can play the piano by ear. (Music composition also happens
to be one of my "secret vices", so to speak, like conlanging.)

BUT. I don't have perfect pitch. In fact, I have trouble telling one
octave from another! Play me two notes, and I can tell you exactly how far
apart they are. But play a single note, and I've no clue what it might
be... ask me to guess, and I might be off by as far as an octave, perhaps
even more. In fact, if you play the same melody twice, each time in a
different key, they'd sound exactly the same to me. I'd have no idea what
keys they were in, but I'd be able to tell you how far apart the two keys
are. :-)

So go figure.... :-)

> Yoon Ha Lee, speculating
> and hoping never to have to go to beginning string players' concerts again
Hmmm... I *wish* I've the chance to be in a concert... ANY kind of
concert...


T