On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Danny Wier wrote:
>I have perfect pitch because of no other reason but the grace of God.
>I was exposed to a lot of music, from classical to hard rock to
>country, from age three or four on. It's those late toddler-early
>childhood years that are paramount to learning something like music or
>language. Muslims often say that the best time to teach a child the
>Quran and the Arabic it is written in is before age seven.
>
>Because I "memorized" (at that age, it's by osmosis) what middle C
>sounds like -- then the other 87 keys of the piano -- I can hear music
>and determine what key it's in, and whether a note is sharp or flat.
Curious. I ended up "memorising" the Bb just below; on account of
having to tune band instruments to it. I have PGP (pretty good pitch),
and with a bit of work can probably sort out what key it's in.
>An off-key trombone player wracks my nerves more than it would other
>people.
It's an easy one to play out of tune!
>So if you want your child to be a linguist, teach it phonics. It's sad
>that good ol' phonics isn't really taught in schools as much as it was
>when I was a grade-schooler (I started kindegarten in 1976). A strong
>point was made that I knew how to pronounce *any* English word by the
>end of first grade, and by that critical age of seven.
I don't even remember learning phonics, though I know we must have.
>After that, you don't absorb stuff; it starts taking effort to learn
>things.
Speak for yourself! :)
Padraic.
>DaW.