Comments about:

The perfect pitch

Most of these things are true. To me there is no real downside to having this amazing capability that I contain. As long as u can turn it on and off u should be ok if u have it. I have had perfect pitch since I was 12. I am now 16.

I don't really have perfect pitch, but I do have some fun audio tools. The dial tone in America (not sure about other places) may have an A in it, but it's not a pure pitch; it's actually a two sine waves of different pitches superimposed. Sine waves are tricky because they don't have any overtones; a chord of sine waves creates other waves that people with perfect pitch might hear a single note. Psychoacoustics are tricky. Even those with not perfect pitch can hear tones formed by chords. Try playing any two close high sine waves together, and concentrate on hearing a lower note; that note is really there, formed by the interference two waves being out of phase.

In any event, in America, the dial tone is two sine waves; an F and an A above middle C played together. Presto. Dial tone. The numbers being pressed on touch tone phones are also more than one note. If you download a sine wave generator, you can actually recreate all the sounds of a telephone. Here are some links for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_tone
http://hypertextbook.com/physics/waves/beats/

How do systems such as just intonation, mean-tone and so on, sound to those superior musicians blessed with perfect pitch? I only wonder, since 12-tone ET came rather late. How do they feel about mean-tone temperment, or just intonation? I assume 'perfect pitch' corresponds only to the twelve notes of the modern piano keyboard. Doesn't everything else just sound out of tune, then? Seems more of a handicap to me than, say, absolute pitch.

Anyway, most music today seems to be more about rhythmic congruence, rather than perfect pitch matching. Most of the DJ's I listen to now don't seem to care much about whether 'this' melody falls into the key of 'that' harmony.

I prefer frequencies up above 10k anyway, and I don't think they teach alot of that in French conservatories. Too bad, since that would probably make a lot of academic music, where PP still seems to serve minor purpose, a lot more interesting.

Oh well, sorry about the rant, just can't help thinking since PP kinda ruined my ability to enjoy music over the years. Maybe that's why I combine so many frequencies in my music, which is more often than not described to me as perversion of harmony, rhythm and noise.

This post has been edited by chinupkid: Wed 12 Oct 2005, 20:37