 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Filipe T.
Date: 2001-10-14 22:47
it's me again,
OK, if we got 1000 people that has NOTHING to do with music, and test them to see who has perfect pitch. approximately, What % of the people would have perfect pitch(or relative pitch)?
But if we got 1000 people that HAS to do with music, and test them to see who has perfect pitch, approximately, What % of the people would have perfect pitch(or relative pitch)?
I have another question:
I play the clarinet in my church, and one day we had to play a hymn, but there was no piano(there wasn't a pianist available). And I was assembling my clarinet. So this guy came up and started singing the song, a couple of seconds later, I started playing along with the clarinet, perfect, he was singing the SAME thing that I was playing, without a piano ar any other instrument, and that hymn had like 5 or 6 flats. how can that be, the guy does not play an instrument, doesn't sing for a profession or a hobby and has a good ear like that? How can that be????
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Author: Hiroshi
Date: 2001-10-15 01:21
There are (too) many articles available on this matter on the net.
http://www.google.com/search?q=perfect+pitch+relative+pitch&btnG=Google+%8C%9F%8D%F5&hl=ja&lr=
An institute in Japan asserts that perfect pitch ability can only be obtained
by parents' intentional training their children using piano before they become
3 or 4 years old: that is during their brain is developing.
I also can sing without sheet music or piano, songs from memory or a kind of mimicry in my mind of the memorized tunes and if necessary can sing 3 whole tones higher or lower for chorus. May be a kind of relative pitch plus tone mimicry.
Maybe I am using my right brain. Too my sorry, I cannot dp this by instruments (provably too much dependent on my left brain).
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Author: Jim (E)
Date: 2001-10-15 03:48
I had a friend in college, a bio major with no musical training at all, who sang the popular songs of the day, but transposed the melody into minor intervals. After listening to her for a while and wondering why it sounded odd, I said "You're transposing those songs into minors." She replied that she now knew that she did so only because her violin major room-mate had told her. She added that it drove the room-mate nuts! She had no idea why she did so, or where the ability came from. Some of us it seems have some strange and seemingly inate gifts.
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Author: Rene
Date: 2001-10-15 08:48
Isn't perfect pitch the capability to name any Piano tone at any time and without reference, or the other way around to sing any named note exactly. I wonder what sense this concept makes without musical training.
The only person I ever met with perfect pitch was a singer, who had a hard time to hold the pitch when the conductor did not use 440 Hz. In fact, I myself find it strange to sing a tune in F and see the notes in G, though I can do it using relative intervals and memory. Also, given a note I am very likely to be at least close to the pitch. Probably many, if not most musicians can do this. Of course, this is far from "perfect".
Rene
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Author: HAT
Date: 2001-10-15 14:12
Rene is correct about what perfect pitch is. It is rare (I have perfect pitch) but it is hardly a prerequisite for becoming a fine musician. Without it, you simply have to work harder developing your ear.
David Hattner, NYC
www.northbranchrecords.com
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Author: Stacie
Date: 2001-10-15 18:09
My husband (a double bassist and euphonium player) has perfect pitch. He can name any pitch without reference, in any range (though he's quicker in lower ranges, no doubt due to his experience as a player of low-range instruments). He can also tell you with some certainty how sharp or flat a pitch is relative to A=440 (I've tested him with a tuner; it's really amazing to me). He doesn't know how (or if) he learned to do this; he doesn't remember a time when he couldn't (both of his parents are music teachers, so he had constant exposure from an early age).
He was a music major in college, and sailed through ear training, naturally. Ironically, though, I'm much better than he is at hearing intervals and harmonic function. He didn't have to learn such things to master, say, sight-singing or melodic dictation, so he's not very good at them. Because of this, he finds perfect pitch to be both a blessing and a curse. He also doesn't regard it as particularly useful; he refers to it as his "party trick."
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Author: John Gould
Date: 2001-10-15 20:43
I too have perfect pitch, and it made my life a perfect hell back in college!!! Everyone and his dog would come up and ask me what this or that note (or chord) was, or to sing this or that note. I got around it after I suffered a mild electric shock in an accident. (I'm OK now, or at least that's what the voices in my head keep telling me!). Anyway, after that, I acted like I'd lost my gift (curse?) of perfect pitch. I was then left alone for the next 2 years, and conveniently re-gained said ability in graduate school. Ditto to Stacie's husband and his "party trick"; I know how he feels.
I have found my ability extemely useful, especially as a jazz musician, but I would be the first to say there are some phenomenal players out there who I respect and admire who don't have perfect pitch, and when you hear them play, don't really know or care whether or not they possess it. I suspect those great players without perfect pitch have some form of perfect "sticktoitiveness", which, in the long run, is one of the attributes of great musicians.
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Author: Julia Meyer
Date: 2001-10-15 20:50
There was a thing on NPR about perfect pitch maybe a week ago. There's apparantly a physiological explanation. I'll get more info before I say exactly what it is cuz I don't completely remember...i'll ask my dad.
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Author: Filipe
Date: 2001-10-15 21:30
HOW COME YOU GUYS ARE SAYINGTHAT PERFECT PITCH IS A CURSE??
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Author: Rene
Date: 2001-10-16 11:05
Filipe, imagine you are singing in a choir, which tunes to antique instruments (maybe 435 Hz or so for A). Every new attack seems to be out of tune. Once you start, you must collect yourself and start a bit flat. It must be terrible.
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