[linux-audio-user] perfect pitch application

[tim hall]

Last Friday 18 June 2004 15:19, Larry Troxler was like:
> Not an answer (sorry), but I think that you're referring to "relative"
> pitch - the ablitiy to identify intervals.  Well, at least that's what most
> musicians use to transcribe music. If someone knows the instrument well,
> they can also fix the key based on the timbre of the different notes. It is
> true that some musicians and non-musicians have "perfect" pitch, the
> ability to identify an absolute pitch without any context, but this isn't
> the ordinary way people do it, and in fact I had a composition teacher once
> with perfect pitch who said it was a curse.

I agree with Larry's general point here. "perfect" pitch isn't so useful as 
relative pitching. An absolute pitch without context isn't strictly speaking 
musical information. It also generally assumes that "middle" A = 440Hz and 
equal temperament are somehow "right" and good, I find it somewhat 
discordant. The important point is that you would need some sort of pitch and 
timbre reference in order to make sense of the incoming information.

My first thought would be to see what pd can do, but I'm very much a beginner 
with it.

cheers

tim hall