 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: theclarinetist
Date: 2003-12-02 02:40
This is a stupid question probably, but I was wondering this today. If you have perfect pitch, does it drive you crazy to play an instrument not pitched in C?? I think it would bother me a lot! Any funny stories?
Don Hite
theclarinetist@yahoo.com
PS - this isn't about my having perfect pitch, but once I had a pianist with perfect pitch who was frustrated because the clarinet part in the score was transposed and she was trying to follow along and all my notes were off a step off... I guess perfect pitch could be a handicap as well as an asset in some situations.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Anon
Date: 2003-12-02 02:50
It doesn't drive me crazy but it is funny how things become "adjusted" over the years of playing clarinet...I hear the actual notes as they are "named" on the instruments now. B-flat and A are no problem, E flat I'm not as OK with. I still hear piano notes as what they are.
PP is not all it is cracked up to be - I found it extremely helpful in dictation sections of eartraining class until some smart a** professor or grad assistant would tell the class it was in one key and then play it in another...supposedly to throw off "people like me" (as I was once told when I asked what the deal was with doing that) So I guess people like me should have to hear what's written and then transpose it to the key they asked for???
I also find that since I tend to hear individual pitches instead of the collective whole, it is sometimes harder for me in chamber ensemble settings.
Overall, a neat party trick but not the end-all-be-all that some people would have you think!!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-02 02:57
Yes - it worries me when I play clarinet or any other transposing instrument, but mostly the pitch is still 440Hz ... what I really find hard to take is playing on a baroque instrument pitched at (say) 415Hz ... shudder.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ralph G
Date: 2003-12-02 03:00
I'm not sure, but I think I have perfect pitch (if not perfect, then it's spot-on relative pitch). But I'm so used to the clarinet I think in Bb when I hear something.
Some time back, after hearing Weber 2 for the first time (I'd never actually heard it even when I was a clarinet major for a year in college), I gave it a couple of listens and wrote out about half of the first movement on notation software to see if I could get it right. I got it mostly right -- some of the runs were tricky. Don't know if that's any great feat or anything, but it was fun goofing around with it
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ned
Date: 2003-12-02 03:17
So all 'perfect pitch' people can do the blindfold test and name the note, no matter what instrument? How about train whistles and the like?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-02 03:24
Sure ... piece of cake ... although I've not heard a monotonal train whistle for a while.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: ned
Date: 2003-12-02 05:17
Hey Mr Diz that seems to be quite a talent.
Can it be aquired though or does one have to be born with it? This is a serious question, there seem to be a number already who have this advantage!
I would say that I have a very good 'ear' but perfect pitch evades me. I sometimes can hazard a guess as to the key being played by a band on a CD (and sometimes I'm right), but that's about as far as it goes for me. It's never been a problem on the bandstand fortunately.
Certainly I wonder about some (whom I know) who regularly play out of tune and seem not to notice it. I suppose that in a room full of musos, there will be a similar percentage of those with perfect pitch as there are those with no sense of pitch - is this a reasonable supposition?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: graham
Date: 2003-12-02 08:22
Colin Lawson said that at one time he had perfect pitch, but in the course of playing transposing instruments he lost it.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2003-12-02 15:04
I do occasionally say the Bb transposed note name when I hear a pitch. I probably do have to think about it a bit more than I did when I was quite young and taking piano, before I started clarinet.
I also remember in college it threw me a little when, during an audition with the director of the Women's Chorus, she put music in front of me in one key and played the intro in another key!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: msloss
Date: 2003-12-02 15:38
There is nothing inherent in perfect pitch that screams "A" when you hear a 440Hz pitch. That is just an artifact of our notation system. If you are facile with transposing, perfect pitch is not an impediment. You learn to recognize the frequency and peg it in either relative (transposing) or absolute (C) terms.
The mechanism still works when you dig into "alternative" pitch systems as long as your ear is trained to hear the notes and intervals.
Great tool for teaching, conducting, playing lead sheets in whatever key the band leader calls, etc.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2003-12-02 18:28
msloss wrote:
> There is nothing inherent in perfect pitch that screams "A"
> when you hear a 440Hz pitch. That is just an artifact of our
> notation system
Quite true. The old "name that note" trick is only one manifestation of perfect pitch. Pitch sense (perfect or relative) certainly comes into play when one is learning and playing some of the many types of music around the world that are taught primarily by ear.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: diz
Date: 2003-12-02 20:52
Good point, Mozart afterall had perfect pitch and in his Europe, there was no standard. The A of Paris in 1780 was vastly different in Salzburg, Vienna or London for that matter. One does just adjust.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-12-02 23:38
It doesn't really bother me, I will hear C on the clarinet as C because that's what I learnt it as. Occasionally my sense of pitch will swing between hearing it at concert pitch and written pitch. The A clarinet can get confusing because if you play, say, a G, I will hear it simultaneously as a G because that is what they are playing, an F# because that is what note it corresponds to on the Bb clarinet, and an E because that is the note at concert pitch.
My sense of pitch responds to what written pitch the note on a particular instrument corresponds to. If I don't play the instrument it gravitates to concert pitch.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Rachel
Date: 2003-12-02 23:42
I have the same problem that Don's piano player did when I am following the cues in accompanied music- they always transpose them to Bb, but I always hear the piano at concert pitch, so I will be thinking "ok, I come in after the 3 Cs" and then miss my cue because I should have been listening for 3 Bbs. (I really should learn to count)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: LeWhite
Date: 2003-12-02 23:59
I have really good timbral pitch - I can hear a pitch, and in my head it is heard as the sound of the clarinet, and from that I can get the 'feel' of the note and tell you what it is. When hearing bass notes, it is converted in my head to Tuba - as I played Tuba before I played clarinet.
Strange, I know. I didn't know timbral pitch existed until about a year ago, nor that I had it. I thought I had relative pitch or something!
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-03 00:44
I think I just have very good relative pitch. For instance, if I'm listening to a CD and one song ends, before the next song begins, I can dead on sing the pitch of the first note of the next song. And right now, in my head, I can hear and sing the pitch of that song right as well (so long as it's a song I've heard many times). I can't tell you the name of the note, but I do know that it's the first note played.
I can always be spot on for the first note of a song (such as the first note the clarinet plays in Weber's Concertino which is a Bb on the clarinet, or the first note the orchestra plays in Weber's Concerto #2 first movement). But that's only cause I have played/heard it so many times.
So if you were to ask me, "Sing the first note of the Concertino" I'd be dead on. But if you were to ask me, "Sing an A." or "What's the name of this pitch" and play it, I'll never be right. What I'll probably end up doing is singing a Bb in my head and trying to figure out how many steps away it is.
Don't know if this is perfect pitch or relative pitch or what.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Wes
Date: 2003-12-03 01:22
Perfect pitch is when you hit the wastebasket with that old worn out reed.
There are many aspects to pitch recognition that have not been studied. If you play a lot, you develop a feeling for pitch and color of notes that allows you to recognize them without being able to name them. It may be an asset sometimes, but whether you can name notes or not should not be of concern to the performer. Nevertheless, as a player of the oboe, I always set a tuner on the stand so that I can always tell people that they get a genuine A440, which they deserve.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: msloss
Date: 2003-12-03 13:02
Perfect pitch is actually lobbing an accordian into a dumpster and hitting a banjo.
Hey, Wes started it...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2003-12-03 15:55
I wonder if that feat would be more difficult if the accordion were a transposing instrument. Or, what if the banjo has a capo on it?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: theclarinetist
Date: 2003-12-03 16:41
I've noticed that when listening to clarinet music, I am able to guess the notes more accurately than if I hear another instrument (though I'm rarely dead on - I can usually nail it within a few notes).
What might be some explanations for this? The obvious one seems that I'm just used to the way the clarinet sounds in different ranges...
Could there be also something about the harmonics of the clarinet sound or something that I might be more used from hearing so much clarinet?
DH
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Lisa
Date: 2003-12-03 22:39
And I thought perfect pitch was tossing a viola in the metal trash can "without hitting the rim!"
Anyway, I don't know what I have, but I have something. After years of hearing a concert A and Bb for tuning in orchestras and bands, my brain "remembers" and can identify them without a problem. Same for middle C on a piano, from my choral days.
I can usually figure out piano notes in a couple seconds (ok, not perfect pitch then), and right away if you play me the full major or minor chords. Like people with perfect pitch do with single notes, entire chords sound like different colors to me. When I hear a D chord, it sounds "majestic" to me, for example.
Now on clarinet, I can sit back to back with another clarinetist and match their notes pitch for pitch. I tried this same thing with a ten year old, and he was able to also do it, so it mustn't be too hard. Every single note on the clarinet sounds like a different color to me. I think you'll agree that a low E or third line B sounds "closed" since every finger is down.
I can also tell when the church organist plays a hymn in a different key than what is written in the hymnal, but maybe it's related to my vocal range. ("There's no way that's a high E since I can't hit it that well. Must be down at least a half step.")
But like Rachel was saying above, it's hard (almost impossible) for me to pick out an alto part in a song if it isn't played in the same key I'm reading it in. Like I said, I doubt I actually have perfect pitch, so this must say something for my level of vocal training, or lack thereof.
I'm also wondering about the fact that many large church organs can transpose up or down at the touch of a button. Now wouldn't that really screw up organists with perfect pitch, to play in one key and hear it in another? Or would it be just like us, who don't hear our notes as being concert pitches?
VERY interesting topic, by the way...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
