I don't have it -- hadn't met anyone who did until this 11 year old daughter of a friend visited last weekend. She was just learning classical flute, could hardly play it at all. But I noticed she putlled the flute joint out a bit, and she said she did it to put it in tune. What did she know about being in tune that she would adujust the head joint by 1/4 inch on a classical flute.
Her father then said that her daughter had perfect pitch.
For the next 20 minutes or so I played every instrument I had. I tried every trick. I would stop in the middle of a tune, a rocking reel, on a note and ask for the note -- I played a Bb whistle, a flute, a guitar, banjo, mandolin. She got every note instantly and boom, 100% correct. I have honestly never seen anything like it. And she can hardly play a note on the flute. Her dad says she hates to practice.
Oh well, I guess it was a bad day to give up prozac.
Bodhran Bliss, does, and with nothing but a dead goat to express it on.
Eliot, through my music-degreed brother, I've met a few people with perfect or "absolute" pitch. As musicians, they've said it can be a hinderance as much as a help because anything that's even slightly off grates on their ears like the Terminator's metal fingernails on the proverbial chalk board.
In their recent books, Daniel Levittin (This is Your Brain on Music) and Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia) both cite research that suggests absolute pitch is not all that uncommon, but that most people lose it through lack of use. Where language is pitch-oriented (as in, say, most dialiects of Chinese, where meaning is pitch-specific), people are much more likely to retain absolute pitch into adulthood.
I have relative pitch, which works well for me as a double bass player (but not in sessions.) I always wondered what happens to people with perfect pitch if that pitch is calibrated to something other than A440; or, how they adjust in sessions to whatever pitch is accepted by the group. I have heard that many older boxes can't get anywhere near 440.
I have the thing where I involuntarily make a pained expression when someone is out of tune. Will's description with the Terminator's fingernails is good, but I've always preferred: 'It feels like having a hot butter knife stuck in my ribs over and over and over...'
This joke was doing the rounds at the Priddy Folk Festival (Somerset, UK) a few weeks ago...
Q. What is the definition of perfect pitch?
A. Being able to drop a piano accordian down a 30ft well without it touching the sides!
(Don't blame me for this - is wasn't my joke - and apologies to all piano accordian players)....
I know one guy who has perfect pitch. He used to sing in my school choir, and whenever we sang an acapella piece, he would sing the first note for all of us. He sounds very much like this girl you're describing - play a note, he'll tell you what it is; ask for a note, he'll sing it. He also doesn't need anything to tune by. Again, he's not a exceptional musician. He's good, cos he's been playing quite a few years, but nothing special.
I don't have perfect pitch, but I have found that when I hear a tune I don't know being played - especially on the fiddle - I can very often correctly say what key it's in. Also, when I start humming a tune, then I pick up my fiddle or whistle to play it, I often find that I was humming it in the right key. I think that just comes from playing for a long time.
I think D.J.F. on this site has perfect pitch (that's right Dan, I'm name-dropping ), but I don't know the details of it...
Yep, Bliss, thinking of you, the drum, and the diameter of that well Mix O'Lydian mentions....
From years of playing, I have decent relative pitch (although my fingers often betray me). Also, when restringing a fiddle, I can usually tune up to a cent or two within A=400 without some outside reference point. And like Joe CSS I can usually tell what key a piece is in just from hearing it.
Well, there aren't THAT many different keys we play in so it's easier to hear the key. =P
It's definitely easier for me to figure out the key on the fiddle since there are a number of signs that give it away... a double stop, an open string, etc.
I don't have perfect pitch but if there's a badly tuned instrument in a recording or performance it can completely wreck my enjoyment of the music no matter how good the band. I have to leave. And there's no excuse for poor tuning given electronic tuners.
someone tossing a banjo from about 20m and managing to get it to land inside a rubbish skip (dumpster?) on an accordion.... totally destroying both.
I've heard that some singers who have perfect pitch find it difficult to sing with piano accompaniment, because the piano is not tuned with just intonation. (At least I think this is the way pianos are tuned - Greg?)
Also I've heard a fellow on the radio talking about his sense of perfect pitch, saying that, hey it's not that weird or unusual really - excepting people who are colourblind, most people are able to exactly describe colours, even to a fine degree. And in his opinion these abilities are not that different, just using different senses.
Pianos are not tuned in just intonation---you are correct. The even temper for piano is what they use, and it allows darn close intonation in all 12 keys, a necessity for chromatic music. But this is why perfect fifths, and major and minor thirds are out of tune on pianos. I believe the only absolutely perfect interval on the piano is the octave?
Has anyone else noticed that since the advent of electronic tunes, we are still getting guitars and banjos woefully out of tune - some people (who never learned about tuning) taking even longer to tune it with a gadget, than without.
[rant alert]
And then there is the clown who decides to "tune" his banjo in the middle of a tune, ensuring that the tune is ruined, and that he takes twice as long to tune it as he can't hear what is going on.
As well as the other clown who starts to tune it JUST before the tune starts, rather than immediately after the previous tune has finished.
[/rant]
Not even the octave is perfectly tuned on a piano, but we try really hard. If you tuned a piano so that every octave would be twice the frequency of the one before it, on an oscilloscope, it would sound horribly out of tune to our ears.
Instead, we tune the octaves beatless by bringing the target note slightly sharp, then settling it down to the point where beats disappear. Fourths and fifths are almost beatless (but not completely) so they can fit within that beatless octave.
Alert! Banjos at 6 o'clock!
Nothing wrong with banjos, providing that they've got four strings (although I do like to listen to bluegrass).
And hey guys - I've got nothing against piano accordian players - not even if they are Kiwis or Morpeth ranters! In fact, an accordian player was the source of much amusement in our local shopping mall the other day. A policeman approached him and asked to see his busker's licence. When he said that he didn't have one, the policeman said: "In that case, you'll have to accompany me". "Fine" said the accordianist: "What would you like to sing?"
perfect pitch is simply a good memory for sound. I had a roomate who was doing his masters thesis on microtonal music and Steve could hear like a bat. He had perfect pitch, and he believed he could teach it.
I think his secret was his fridge hummed at exactly 440 cycles a second
I've noticed instruments like fiddle and low brass and things where you have to pull the note out of the clear blue without frets or buttons or keys tend to help the sense of pitch.
I also knew a girl who played piccolo flute and she had the rare form of perfect pitch where she actually saw colors.
Interesting, Nate. I also once had fridge that hummed by default at 440hz. Not only that, after it finished its defrost routine, it used to hum "The Frost is all Over". The manufacturer's name was "Murphy", by the way.
Blues is one of my favorite colors of music.
I am one of these people who has to use an electronic tuner because I have relative pitch instead of perfect pitch.
What really aggravates me is people who have a lousy sense of rhythm and timing and cannot play at a steady speed or tempo to save their life.
Great book on the evolution of tuning in (mainly) western music: "Temperament," by Stuart Isacoff. A rich philosophical history lies behind this quirky little topic.
Hey Pure Drop - You beat me to it, fantastic book!
-let's not forget that electronic tuners aren't perfect, AND they don't always agree with each other, AND sometimes things like boxes and harps are a bit out of tune, anyway.
Which is why I prefer to use a tuner to get close, and then use my ears.
Besides, what I've heard called "loose" or "wet" (I like to refer to it as "session") tuning can be fun, with the right players.
IMHO
my uncle (who I have never actually met because he lives half way around the world) spent several months attempting to learn perfect pitch by constantly listening to a recording that played A440, he eventually gave it up in disgusted. But developed perfect pitch several years later on his own. Go figure.
I have imperfect pitch, but once in a while I can pick notes out because I know notes' timbre on certain instruments that I play and i can match timbre to tone, even not on these instruments. Outside a certain range though this method goes kaput.
This makes me wonder---do people with perfect pitch have that talent in a certain range or from woofy bass to shrill high?
Geoffwright wrote:
>Has anyone else noticed that since the advent of electronic >tunes, we are still getting guitars and banjos woefully out of >tune - some people (who never learned about tuning) taking
>
>even longer to tune it with a gadget, than without.
>[rant alert]
>And then there is the clown who decides to "tune" his banjo >in the middle of a tune, ensuring that the tune is ruined, and >that he takes twice as long to tune it as he can't hear what is >going on.
Electronic tuners take a regular thumping on this board. At our session we have usually about a dozen plus musicians, none of whom play fixed reeds. We use electronic tuners a lot since there is no automatic concensus note to tune to from an accordeon/concertina. This speeds up tuning and makes it much less intrusive since we use the newer ones which are vibration sensitive. This means you can tune a banjo (or whatever) during someone elses set without playing any audible notes. It also helps with quiet instruments such as mandolins where it can be very difficult to hear yourself when tuning up. Not everone uses the tuners directly, but those who don't tune up to others who have already tuned to a tuner.
Personally I use tune my banjo up to the clip on tuner, then adjust by ear (if I can hear myself). I usually end up with the E slightly sharp according to the tuner & the G slightly flat IIRC.
Sure it'd be nice to just tune up to a box, but we don't have that option & the electronics works fine for us.
Fair play to the folks that don't like the electronics, don't use them. But electronic tuners can be a bit of a straw man on this board and I get quite fed up with all the rather superior sounding messages that they attract. I'm not targeting this at you personally Geoff, and hope it doesn't come across that way.
I have the same sort of experience as Will mentioned. I’ve replaced guitar strings literally hundreds of times and when I start bringing them up to pitch, I usually plant the low E string within one or two cents of perfect. But, outside of that context, I have no useable absolute pitch. Play me a note, and I’ll probably name it within a semitone or two, but that’s not at all unusual and I rely on humming the note to locate it by how it feels within my vocal range.
I have no idea how I know the low E string is right. As I’m cranking it up, it just suddenly sounds familiar. I’m not aware of any particular tone color that makes an E an E. Next time, I should try tuning a different string first.
Wouldn't have perfect pitch drive you bonkers at a standard Irish session? Don't tell me that every instrument in every session is tuned to a perfect concert, flutes being probably the worst offenders, sometimes they're not even in tune with themselves! And that flat bottom D that is so popular!!!! don't get me started. I pity the perfect pitchers of the ITM world.
Hey, come on gtag....flutes aren't THAT bad...you know, as long as there's only one...
I was too lazy to read all the comments in this discussion so I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but I know that some people who do have perfect pitch have it because of coloured-music synesthesia. Each note or key has a specific colour in the person's mind, or the person actually sees the colours, and it's the same every time, so for example a person with coloured-music synesthesia might see dark blue when ever they hear an A major chord and bright orange for C minor, etc. So they know what notes are being played and how in tune they are because of the colours they see along with the music.
Eliot, has your daughter ever mentioned anything about colours with the music?
Greg the piano tuner, I'm interested in what you say about tuning using an oscilloscope and how it wouldn't work if the octaves represented double the frequency of the one below. Surely by tuning so the beats disappear, that's exactly what you're doing - tuning so the frequency is exactly double? I absolutely agree with you that looking at waveforms is never going to be that accurate as our visual perception of sound waveforms doesn't require as much resolution as our hearing (by which I mean, a waveform will look exactly the same rendered at 8 or 16 bits, but it will sound different at 8 or 16 bits) so maybe what you're saying (and I'd agree with) is that we rightly trust our ears more.
Let's drop this oscilloscope thing. From my days in electronics back in the sixties these items were bulky and had to be plugged in so musicians would need an extra chair at the session, that is in addition to the one they already use for their notes! Seriously though although I don't think I could hum a note at 440, when tuning a fiddle from scratch I usually recognise the correct pitch for "E" or "A" when I've reached it.
Mark, on a scope you will see an octave as exactly two cycles per wavelength of the fundamental. When things are in tune, they will make a good clear picture as the two vibrating systems reenforce each other. When they are out of tune, the image will look fuzzy since the overtones will note be in phase. This interference is exactly what our ears detect directly.
Remeber that with our ears, I believe humans can't tell the difference within 5 cents. A "cent" is 1/100th of a chromatic half step.
So what that means is the definition of a cent changes with the pitch. At a higher pitch, it is easier to hear the difference because a "cent" will represent more cycles per second than at a lower pitch.
this also explains why somedays you just can't tune up.
Since we have both myself with my electronic keyboard and a button accordion player at our local session, what we usually do first is to make sure that my electronic keyboard and the accordion are in tune together and don't clash with each other.
Then the other musicians tune their instruments to my keyboard and the accordion.
gtag, I have already been driven "bonkers" because I made the mistake of watching a cartoon about a certain bobcat.
True perfect pitch...
True perfect pitch...
I don't have it -- hadn't met anyone who did until this 11 year old daughter of a friend visited last weekend. She was just learning classical flute, could hardly play it at all. But I noticed she putlled the flute joint out a bit, and she said she did it to put it in tune. What did she know about being in tune that she would adujust the head joint by 1/4 inch on a classical flute.
Her father then said that her daughter had perfect pitch.
For the next 20 minutes or so I played every instrument I had. I tried every trick. I would stop in the middle of a tune, a rocking reel, on a note and ask for the note -- I played a Bb whistle, a flute, a guitar, banjo, mandolin. She got every note instantly and boom, 100% correct. I have honestly never seen anything like it. And she can hardly play a note on the flute. Her dad says she hates to practice.
Oh well, I guess it was a bad day to give up prozac.
Do any of you have this level of ability?
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Eliot
Re: True perfect pitch...
Only on the bodhran.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: True perfect pitch...
No, but my eldest sister has. Jealosy rules OK!
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Ebor_fiddler
Re: True perfect pitch...
Bodhran Bliss, does, and with nothing but a dead goat to express it on.
Eliot, through my music-degreed brother, I've met a few people with perfect or "absolute" pitch. As musicians, they've said it can be a hinderance as much as a help because anything that's even slightly off grates on their ears like the Terminator's metal fingernails on the proverbial chalk board.
In their recent books, Daniel Levittin (This is Your Brain on Music) and Oliver Sacks (Musicophilia) both cite research that suggests absolute pitch is not all that uncommon, but that most people lose it through lack of use. Where language is pitch-oriented (as in, say, most dialiects of Chinese, where meaning is pitch-specific), people are much more likely to retain absolute pitch into adulthood.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: True perfect pitch...
LOL at the cross post! Bliss responded while I was typing my post. Hahahaha!
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: True perfect pitch...
I have relative pitch, which works well for me as a double bass player (but not in sessions.) I always wondered what happens to people with perfect pitch if that pitch is calibrated to something other than A440; or, how they adjust in sessions to whatever pitch is accepted by the group. I have heard that many older boxes can't get anywhere near 440.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: True perfect pitch...
Wow, that's insane! A gifted little girl.
I have the thing where I involuntarily make a pained expression when someone is out of tune. Will's description with the Terminator's fingernails is good, but I've always preferred: 'It feels like having a hot butter knife stuck in my ribs over and over and over...'
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: True perfect pitch...
This joke was doing the rounds at the Priddy Folk Festival (Somerset, UK) a few weeks ago...
Q. What is the definition of perfect pitch?
A. Being able to drop a piano accordian down a 30ft well without it touching the sides!
(Don't blame me for this - is wasn't my joke - and apologies to all piano accordian players)....
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: True perfect pitch...
I know one guy who has perfect pitch. He used to sing in my school choir, and whenever we sang an acapella piece, he would sing the first note for all of us. He sounds very much like this girl you're describing - play a note, he'll tell you what it is; ask for a note, he'll sing it. He also doesn't need anything to tune by. Again, he's not a exceptional musician. He's good, cos he's been playing quite a few years, but nothing special.
I don't have perfect pitch, but I have found that when I hear a tune I don't know being played - especially on the fiddle - I can very often correctly say what key it's in. Also, when I start humming a tune, then I pick up my fiddle or whistle to play it, I often find that I was humming it in the right key. I think that just comes from playing for a long time.
I think D.J.F. on this site has perfect pitch (that's right Dan, I'm name-dropping
), but I don't know the details of it...
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: True perfect pitch...
All publicity is good publicity, Will.
Nice to know you were thinking of me
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: True perfect pitch...
Yep, Bliss, thinking of you, the drum, and the diameter of that well Mix O'Lydian mentions....
From years of playing, I have decent relative pitch (although my fingers often betray me). Also, when restringing a fiddle, I can usually tune up to a cent or two within A=400 without some outside reference point. And like Joe CSS I can usually tell what key a piece is in just from hearing it.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: True perfect pitch...
Well, there aren't THAT many different keys we play in so it's easier to hear the key. =P
It's definitely easier for me to figure out the key on the fiddle since there are a number of signs that give it away... a double stop, an open string, etc.
Cheers,
Armand
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by fiddlinviolinin
Re: True perfect pitch...
I don't have perfect pitch but if there's a badly tuned instrument in a recording or performance it can completely wreck my enjoyment of the music no matter how good the band. I have to leave. And there's no excuse for poor tuning given electronic tuners.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by clogstepping
Re: True perfect pitch...
classic definition of perfect pitch:
someone tossing a banjo from about 20m and managing to get it to land inside a rubbish skip (dumpster?) on an accordion.... totally destroying both.
I've heard that some singers who have perfect pitch find it difficult to sing with piano accompaniment, because the piano is not tuned with just intonation. (At least I think this is the way pianos are tuned - Greg?)
Also I've heard a fellow on the radio talking about his sense of perfect pitch, saying that, hey it's not that weird or unusual really - excepting people who are colourblind, most people are able to exactly describe colours, even to a fine degree. And in his opinion these abilities are not that different, just using different senses.
An interesting perspective.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Brown Creeper
Re: True perfect pitch...
Pianos are not tuned in just intonation---you are correct. The even temper for piano is what they use, and it allows darn close intonation in all 12 keys, a necessity for chromatic music. But this is why perfect fifths, and major and minor thirds are out of tune on pianos. I believe the only absolutely perfect interval on the piano is the octave?
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by samiam590
Re: True perfect pitch...
Cue the instrument prejudice jokes:- what's the difference between a squashed hedgehog and a broken banjo?..............
No skid marks in front of the banjo...........
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by mike the box
Re: True perfect pitch...
Who is this Mick Solidian fellow?
Has anyone else noticed that since the advent of electronic tunes, we are still getting guitars and banjos woefully out of tune - some people (who never learned about tuning) taking even longer to tune it with a gadget, than without.
[rant alert]
And then there is the clown who decides to "tune" his banjo in the middle of a tune, ensuring that the tune is ruined, and that he takes twice as long to tune it as he can't hear what is going on.
As well as the other clown who starts to tune it JUST before the tune starts, rather than immediately after the previous tune has finished.
[/rant]
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: True perfect pitch...
Not even the octave is perfectly tuned on a piano, but we try really hard. If you tuned a piano so that every octave would be twice the frequency of the one before it, on an oscilloscope, it would sound horribly out of tune to our ears.
Instead, we tune the octaves beatless by bringing the target note slightly sharp, then settling it down to the point where beats disappear. Fourths and fifths are almost beatless (but not completely) so they can fit within that beatless octave.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: True perfect pitch...
Alert! Banjos at 6 o'clock!
Nothing wrong with banjos, providing that they've got four strings (although I do like to listen to bluegrass).
And hey guys - I've got nothing against piano accordian players - not even if they are Kiwis or Morpeth ranters! In fact, an accordian player was the source of much amusement in our local shopping mall the other day. A policeman approached him and asked to see his busker's licence. When he said that he didn't have one, the policeman said: "In that case, you'll have to accompany me". "Fine" said the accordianist: "What would you like to sing?"
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: True perfect pitch...
LOL MIx!
I get more good jokes from this site, I'm telling ya...
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: True perfect pitch...
perfect pitch is simply a good memory for sound. I had a roomate who was doing his masters thesis on microtonal music and Steve could hear like a bat. He had perfect pitch, and he believed he could teach it.
I think his secret was his fridge hummed at exactly 440 cycles a second
I've noticed instruments like fiddle and low brass and things where you have to pull the note out of the clear blue without frets or buttons or keys tend to help the sense of pitch.
I also knew a girl who played piccolo flute and she had the rare form of perfect pitch where she actually saw colors.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: True perfect pitch...
Interesting, Nate. I also once had fridge that hummed by default at 440hz. Not only that, after it finished its defrost routine, it used to hum "The Frost is all Over". The manufacturer's name was "Murphy", by the way.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: True perfect pitch...
Blues is one of my favorite colors of music.
I am one of these people who has to use an electronic tuner because I have relative pitch instead of perfect pitch.
What really aggravates me is people who have a lousy sense of rhythm and timing and cannot play at a steady speed or tempo to save their life.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: True perfect pitch...
Great book on the evolution of tuning in (mainly) western music: "Temperament," by Stuart Isacoff. A rich philosophical history lies behind this quirky little topic.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: True perfect pitch...
Hey Pure Drop - You beat me to it, fantastic book!
-let's not forget that electronic tuners aren't perfect, AND they don't always agree with each other, AND sometimes things like boxes and harps are a bit out of tune, anyway.
Which is why I prefer to use a tuner to get close, and then use my ears.
Besides, what I've heard called "loose" or "wet" (I like to refer to it as "session") tuning can be fun, with the right players.
IMHO
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by tomw
Re: True perfect pitch...
Ive never met a musician with perfect pitch, but have met horse shoe players who had it down.
Or do you mean "perfect pitch" as in pitching a bodhran into a fire?
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by The Merry Highlander
Re: True perfect pitch...
Should have known that "perfect pitch" would quickly digress to well known banjo, accordian and bodhran jokes.
So, what's the difference between a banjo player, an accordian player and a bodhran player?
About a buck fifty.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by Eliot
Re: True perfect pitch...
And I thought "perfect pitch" was mentioned only when discussing baseball.
# Posted on August 5th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: True perfect pitch...
my uncle (who I have never actually met because he lives half way around the world) spent several months attempting to learn perfect pitch by constantly listening to a recording that played A440, he eventually gave it up in disgusted. But developed perfect pitch several years later on his own. Go figure.
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by Nopstavon
Re: True perfect pitch...
I have imperfect pitch, but once in a while I can pick notes out because I know notes' timbre on certain instruments that I play and i can match timbre to tone, even not on these instruments. Outside a certain range though this method goes kaput.
This makes me wonder---do people with perfect pitch have that talent in a certain range or from woofy bass to shrill high?
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by samiam590
Re: True perfect pitch...
Hi Folks,
Geoffwright wrote:
>Has anyone else noticed that since the advent of electronic >tunes, we are still getting guitars and banjos woefully out of >tune - some people (who never learned about tuning) taking
>
>even longer to tune it with a gadget, than without.
>[rant alert]
>And then there is the clown who decides to "tune" his banjo >in the middle of a tune, ensuring that the tune is ruined, and >that he takes twice as long to tune it as he can't hear what is >going on.
Electronic tuners take a regular thumping on this board. At our session we have usually about a dozen plus musicians, none of whom play fixed reeds. We use electronic tuners a lot since there is no automatic concensus note to tune to from an accordeon/concertina. This speeds up tuning and makes it much less intrusive since we use the newer ones which are vibration sensitive. This means you can tune a banjo (or whatever) during someone elses set without playing any audible notes. It also helps with quiet instruments such as mandolins where it can be very difficult to hear yourself when tuning up. Not everone uses the tuners directly, but those who don't tune up to others who have already tuned to a tuner.
Personally I use tune my banjo up to the clip on tuner, then adjust by ear (if I can hear myself). I usually end up with the E slightly sharp according to the tuner & the G slightly flat IIRC.
Sure it'd be nice to just tune up to a box, but we don't have that option & the electronics works fine for us.
Fair play to the folks that don't like the electronics, don't use them. But electronic tuners can be a bit of a straw man on this board and I get quite fed up with all the rather superior sounding messages that they attract. I'm not targeting this at you personally Geoff, and hope it doesn't come across that way.
- Chris
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: True perfect pitch...
I have the same sort of experience as Will mentioned. I’ve replaced guitar strings literally hundreds of times and when I start bringing them up to pitch, I usually plant the low E string within one or two cents of perfect. But, outside of that context, I have no useable absolute pitch. Play me a note, and I’ll probably name it within a semitone or two, but that’s not at all unusual and I rely on humming the note to locate it by how it feels within my vocal range.
I have no idea how I know the low E string is right. As I’m cranking it up, it just suddenly sounds familiar. I’m not aware of any particular tone color that makes an E an E. Next time, I should try tuning a different string first.
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: True perfect pitch...
Wouldn't have perfect pitch drive you bonkers at a standard Irish session? Don't tell me that every instrument in every session is tuned to a perfect concert, flutes being probably the worst offenders, sometimes they're not even in tune with themselves! And that flat bottom D that is so popular!!!! don't get me started. I pity the perfect pitchers of the ITM world.
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by gtag
Re: True perfect pitch...
Sorry last comment should read 'wouldn't having perfect pitch drive you bonkers....'
# Posted on August 6th 2008 by gtag
Re: True perfect pitch...
Hey, come on gtag....flutes aren't THAT bad...you know, as long as there's only one...
I was too lazy to read all the comments in this discussion so I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but I know that some people who do have perfect pitch have it because of coloured-music synesthesia. Each note or key has a specific colour in the person's mind, or the person actually sees the colours, and it's the same every time, so for example a person with coloured-music synesthesia might see dark blue when ever they hear an A major chord and bright orange for C minor, etc. So they know what notes are being played and how in tune they are because of the colours they see along with the music.
Eliot, has your daughter ever mentioned anything about colours with the music?
# Posted on August 7th 2008 by Tasia
Re: True perfect pitch...
Greg the piano tuner, I'm interested in what you say about tuning using an oscilloscope and how it wouldn't work if the octaves represented double the frequency of the one below. Surely by tuning so the beats disappear, that's exactly what you're doing - tuning so the frequency is exactly double? I absolutely agree with you that looking at waveforms is never going to be that accurate as our visual perception of sound waveforms doesn't require as much resolution as our hearing (by which I mean, a waveform will look exactly the same rendered at 8 or 16 bits, but it will sound different at 8 or 16 bits) so maybe what you're saying (and I'd agree with) is that we rightly trust our ears more.
# Posted on August 7th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: True perfect pitch...
Let's drop this oscilloscope thing. From my days in electronics back in the sixties these items were bulky and had to be plugged in so musicians would need an extra chair at the session, that is in addition to the one they already use for their notes! Seriously though although I don't think I could hum a note at 440, when tuning a fiddle from scratch I usually recognise the correct pitch for "E" or "A" when I've reached it.
# Posted on August 7th 2008 by Bannerman
Re: True perfect pitch...
Mark, on a scope you will see an octave as exactly two cycles per wavelength of the fundamental. When things are in tune, they will make a good clear picture as the two vibrating systems reenforce each other. When they are out of tune, the image will look fuzzy since the overtones will note be in phase. This interference is exactly what our ears detect directly.
Remeber that with our ears, I believe humans can't tell the difference within 5 cents. A "cent" is 1/100th of a chromatic half step.
So what that means is the definition of a cent changes with the pitch. At a higher pitch, it is easier to hear the difference because a "cent" will represent more cycles per second than at a lower pitch.
this also explains why somedays you just can't tune up.
.
# Posted on August 7th 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: True perfect pitch...
Since we have both myself with my electronic keyboard and a button accordion player at our local session, what we usually do first is to make sure that my electronic keyboard and the accordion are in tune together and don't clash with each other.
Then the other musicians tune their instruments to my keyboard and the accordion.
gtag, I have already been driven "bonkers" because I made the mistake of watching a cartoon about a certain bobcat.
# Posted on August 7th 2008 by fauxcelt