18 Jun
2004
18 Jun
'04
9:46 p.m.
On Friday 18 Jun 2004 15:19 pm, Larry Troxler wrote:
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.
A voice tutor I knew said the same, and would regularly have problems
when the pianos in practice rooms were drifting off tune.
Surely though, even 'perfect' pitch is relative, since if the scale were
constructed diferently the relevant notes would change their absolute
frequency. It's just that a person with perfect pitch is able to
compare the perceived note to a remembered absolute, whereas with
relative pitch a person needs to be 'tuned' first.
Dylan
--
"I see your Schwartz is as big as mine"
-Dark Helmet