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Re: "Perfect" pitch and Bb/A clarinets

Author: EaubeauHorn
Date: 2018-04-02 20:01

I call it pitch recognition because so many think that when you label it "perfect" pitch that you can nail all pitches to an exact frequency. I've never met anyone who can do that, but I've met many who can tell you what note or collection of notes (doesn't matter how many there are) you just played for them on the piano. I did know someone with pitch recognition who grew up with a piano that was a half step flat, and his pitch recognition was based on that.

Even back when I was younger and my recognition was not starting to slip (apparently it is common to have it "slip" after age 60, and I am 68 now) if you gave me a tone generator and I turned the knob until it sounded like an A 440 to me, in general I'd hit 438. So maybe my formative pitch years were on a piano whose A was slightly flat of 440. However, with my violin, I could nail 440 when tuning it not only because of the recognition but because over the many years I recognized its 440 resonance. Now, I am often off by half a step when I'm listening to something on the radio, unless I know the piece. I've always listened knowing what key the piece was in that I was listening to, and what the pitches of all the notes were. I admit it is disconcerting to not be absolutely certain of what I'm hearing any more; kind of like losing your color vision and you no longer are sure if it's blue or green you're seeing.

The other assumption I've seen about pitch recognition is that those people are not listening for beats and therefore don't play in tune with others. Not so....the recognition is of the "general" pitch and doesn't lock one into a frequency. At least here; it depends on the pitch's position within the chord, assuming one is playing tonal music. Atonal music, all bets are off and one has to revert to what one does to play with a piano.

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