Oh yes Gordon! I was visitor at a diploma recital in Zurich recently. She has the perfect pitch. The good thing for her was: she could just starting to sing without a note given by piano or harpsichord. Her program changed between A=415 for Purcell and other early music (I really liked the parts from "Pills to purge melancholy") and A=440hz for schumann and the classic romantic repertoire. So I wondered how she could manage this. I asked her at the beer after the recital and she told me she would "think" in A=440, so the early keys she would need to "think" a half tone down (so imagine a piece notated in G and think it in F Sharp - nothing I would like to do). The viol player, who also has perfect pitch complained the singer would have used a musical clock (for the small intermissions she needed to redress and change position on stage) in A = 437 which would have sound very awkward and completly out of tune to her. I wondered and would liked to ask her what she thinks about the different tuning models (meantone etc.) but discussion went away to Robby Williams whom the piano player from New York didn't knew ...
Best wishes Thomas Am Don, 2004-02-12 um 02.03 schrieb Gordon J. Callon: > I am familiar with perfect pitch; please do not insult my > intelligence or training. (My composition professor at McGill, Bruce > Mather, had moveable / tunable perfect pitch that was entirely > automatic: whatever pitch level the ensemble tuned to - whether > A=440Hz or whatever, he automatically adjusted.) > > The reality is that perfect pitch is not too useful in music where > instruments may be tuned to A=440Hz in one ensemble and 417Hz in > another. > > GJC > > > > > Dear Gordon (and the List) > > > > On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Gordon J. Callon wrote: > > > > > [Singers of early music do not use absolute pitch since early > > > instruments are pitched at various levels in any case.] > > > > Well, when someone has the "absolute pitch", he/she has it! > > The memory of pitches, not the memory of note names... > > There is no way of "not using" it... The pitch which is > > _called_ for ex. f sharp or f, e or e flat, etc. is anyhow > > the _pitch_ you know! Only the _names_ may vary! Well, and > > then there are the different non equal tuning systems... ;) > > > > All the best > > > > Arto > > -- Thomas Schall Niederhofheimer Weg 3 D-65843 Sulzbach 06196/74519 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.lautenist.de / www.tslaute.de/weiss --
