Mark & Hornfolks My first answer to Mark's question below is 'who cares?' No one cares, honestly.
I have a lot to say in another planned long post on perfect pitch but would like to answer this one individually, please. My opinion explained; it DOES NOT MATTER about 'having a 440=A pitch because no ensemble on this earth ever keeps to a 440=A unless they are a major orchestra and have a real oboe player with good ears who doesn't use 'the box' and EVERYONE takes time to tune instead of piddling around with valve oil or gossiping with the brass section or showing off with the Siegfried Horn Call. You know what I think of the box..stamp on all of them as far as I'm concerned. One with perfect pitch is 'cursed' as I said because we must adapt to whatever A the ensemble is providing; be it ever so many cents off. I have played in ensembles that gave 3 separate A's, all different. It was absolute torture for me. You have no idea what that was like unless it has happened to you. My father has a Steinway piano tuned to a 440A. I learned for 8 yrs on that piano and my pitch was tuned to that A. However, the moment I got into my elementary school band and jr high band and high school band; the A's changed radically. I could no longer use the 440A as the clarinets were flat; the tubas didn't know where the pitch was; the flutes were sharp, the trumpets played so loudly that no one could hear anyhow, and most of the time I could not hear what I was playing myself and had no idea what KEY the group was in. In my opinion, the only thing distinguishing a true 'perfect pitch' person is this: one can self-generate (ok sing) any tone, IN TUNE within a few cents of the usual identifiable tone, and properly identify the note. I will not even go into 'temper tuning'; that is for pianos, not for people like us and the temper tuning method is complex beyond belief-and the notes are OUT OF TUNE (the piano is in tune with itself but the notes themselves are out of tune in a particular formula in order to make the piano in tune with itself) Weird but true, ask any piano tuner. Unless you sit at your little Steinway the rest of your life or you manage to properly tune your horn in a practice room, your A will change daily. And the moment you leave the practice room to play a gig someplace; you are now at the mercy of whatever A they use there. Unless, they recognize you as someone with perfect pitch and accept your A (but there ARE 11 other pitches too and you cannot 'temper tune' an ensemble at all; the mechanics of doing this are beyond anyone's skill except a piano tuner (and he only does pianos)). The worst part of the curse is if you play in a constantly out of tune ensemble, your pitch recognition will change and your pitch will go off and then you will have to think about what you are 'generating' and wonder if it is even correct. Even worse than this is when your pitch is 'off' and you can no longer properly distinguish some intervals; then you are truly in trouble because now your 'relative pitch' has gone by the wayside. And no one cares about pitch anyhow because in an ensemble, relative pitch is everything and perfect pitch matters not a hoot unless you love to transpose and can hear all the 12 tones and read down all the clefs. At any rate; that is only something a person with good perfect pitch and transposition skills can benefit from. The transposition bit is meant for horn players who get handed trombone or trumpet parts to play at the last minute, or horn players in chamber music workshops who get handed off the viola part to the Dumke Trio (play the thing in D horn and you will be fine). One more thing; if you sing in an a capella choir. Forget it. They will go flat on you; and although YOU are the only one truly on pitch; everyone else is laughing at you because you are the only one they hear who is OFF pitch. I do have a lot of other responses to other posts but wish to incorporate them into one single post in order not to flood the hornlist. This is going to take some time. best wishes Rachel Harvey >question for those with perfect pitch . Within how many cents is >your pitch >perfect to tuned piano with 440=a? _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
