by RandeDager » Thu Jun 09, 2011 9:31 am
David, one of my irritations is for people NOT to notice when the notes aren't "right on". My guess is that the fact that this bothers you would indicate that you may have close to, if not exactly, perfect pitch yourself. I know that there are degrees of sensitivity and people don't have to be off by an entire half-step to be noticeable by most listeners, but many listeners don't seem to mind hearing notes that are off by enough to really bother me. Of course, I'm not in their heads but when I mention it and those with me claim that it "sounded fine" to them, that tells me something. Of course, there are those who might assume that I was just imagining things.
In the "Museum of Science and Industry" in Chicago there used to be an electronic "pitch sensitivity tester" where you pushed a button to randomly generate a reference tone and then you'd push another button to hear a comparison tone which you could alter by turning a dial until you felt that the two tones matched. When you were finished you would push third button to give you a numerical result to see how far off you were in trying to match the tones. It was based on a percentage of "distance" there was between the two tones. It registered from an octave below the reference tone to an octave above. Anything outside this range wouldn't be indicated. Most people would continue going back and forth between the two tones until they sounded like they matched and then push the third button to find out their score. What I enjoyed doing was to push the reference tone button only one time and then never touch it again, while I tried to match the second tone against what my memory told me. I usually got 100%, which was right on. I was 13 and had been playing the guitar for 8 years when I last did this. I haven't been back since and I'm not even sure if it even still exists.
It is also believed by some that "perfect pitch" can be learned or developed. A friend of mine purchased a perfect pitch course a number of years ago and allowed me to look at it. Just as I saw in the posts here, the developer uses the term "colors" to describe the differences in notes and their characteristics.
There wasn't much more I could do about that since the age of 13 but I have managed to greatly develop my sense of "relative pitch", which allows for me to know the structure of the chords and harmonies when I hear them. My "downfall" (if you want to call it that) is not knowing what they are called. But finding them doesn't seem to be much of a problem these days, but that's after many many years of trial and error. Anyway, my friend told me that the same company that sells the course in perfect pitch also claims to have a relative pitch course. I always knew that this could be taught, but I've been skeptical about just anyone developing their sense of perfect pitch, which the course developer claims that "anyone can do". But then I guess there are other skills that some people are born with that be developed by others who aren't. Sorry about the "long-windedness".
Rande
