Re: transcribing
Frank Curran ( frankj@curran.Eng.Sun.COM )
Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:03:36 -0800
On Thu Dec 12 07:29 PST 1996 jenkco@ou.edu wrote:
>
> I ponder:
> That's interesting. I know some people with perfect pitch who can't
> transcribe harmony at all, claiming that there are too many overtones for
> them to seperate the notes. I can usually get something approximate, but
> getting every alteration is a problem.
>
The whole perfect pitch thing has always amazed me. To me its like
trying to comprehend a sense that one does not even have. How would one
explain sight to a person blind from birth? I know that people can
really disassemble several pitches played simultaneously, but seeing it
is still truly awesome. My wife's best friend, her college roomate, can
do it. I've sat at a piano, while she sits across the room, I play any
three notes of my choosing and she names them. It blows my mind. She
was a piano performance major in college and comes from a highly
accomplished musical family. Thus it is certain that she was nurtured
from infancy (at her mother's ...knee) among outstanding levels of
innate musical talent and well schooled skill. She also has outstanding
vocal ability, perhaps there is a connection.
I thought that everyone with "perfect pitch" could do the
disassemble-the-chords parlor trick. Since that is not the case, there
must be different variations on having perfect pitch. It seems to me
this would be a rich research area for musicians, psychologists,
geneticists and educators just to name a few. Does anyone know of
published research into perfect pitch?
Frank