Re: Perfect Pitch

Hi all.  I've been gone for a week, so I'm just seeing this whole "Perfect
Pitch" discussion for the first time today.

I have perfect pitch...  I was born with it.  I never thought this topic
would come up on this list, but now that it has, I thought I'd share.

Maybe I'm just lucky or unusual or something, but I have absolutely NO
problems whatsoever when it comes to singing or playing a piece of music
in a key other than the one written.  Even when the transposition is NOT
INTENDED (aka singing an a capella piece with a high school choir), I can
very easily (effortlessly...even subconsciously) transpose microtones or
quarter steps without really having to worry about migrating back to the
original pitch.

Also, I personally think that Perfect Pitch relies on neither pitch
reproduction OR pitch recognition.  Pitch recognition (requiring a thought
process to determine the note) is actually RELATIVE PITCH (basing all
notes from one or a few ingrained pitches).  Perfect Pitch, by me, can be
best described as an extra sense...  I don't even put the slightest
thought into determining the pitch.  It happens subconsciously, just as we
don't have to try to activate our five senses.  They are automatically
there when needed and we don't question how they work...  It is the same
with Perfect Pitch for me.

(SIDE NOTE:  rodje iyeda = "Perfect Pitch" in Kartesian...  I felt as
though I had to include SOMETHING pertaining to conlangs in this
message... after all, this IS the conlang list... :) )

questions?  comments?  ask.  tell.

On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, Tim Smith wrote:

> At 05:26 PM 7/24/2000 -0700, Jim Grossmann wrote:
> >Good musicianship doesn't require perfect (absolute) pitch.   There are some
> >great singers out there who have only relative pitch.  That's what pitch
> >pipes are for.
>
> In some situations, perfect pitch is actually a handicap.  My early music
> group does a lot of transposing, because in a lot of the stuff we do, the
> written pitches are very badly suited for our vocal ranges.  (In
> particular, the countertenor parts tend to be too high for tenors and too
> low for (female) altos.)  This would make it really hard for anyone with
> perfect absolute pitch; they'd always be conscious of singing a different
> note from the one that's written.  But if you're like me, with very good
> relative pitch but absolute pitch weak enough so that you can pretty much
> ignore it, transposition is effortless.
>
> - Tim
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Tim Smith
>
> "To live outside the law you must be honest."
>         -- Bob Dylan
>
>