Well, there’s the B flat at the start of the universe …
and the “scientific or physical pitch” of C=256Hz, with all Cs as powers of 2
A Brief History of Musical Tuning
In the late 1850’s, the French government, under the influence of a committee of composers led by bel canto proponent Giacomo Rossini, called for the first standardization of the pitch in modern times. France consequently passed a law in 1859 establishing A at 435, the lowest of the ranges of pitches (from A=434 to A=456) then in common use in France, and the highest possible pitch at which the > soprano register shifts > may be maintained close to their disposition at C=256. It was this French A to which Verdi later referred, in objecting to higher tunings then prevalent in Italy, under which circumstance ``we call A in Rome, what is B-flat in Paris.‘’
Listen to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Choral Movement (Ode to Joy)
Performed at the Verdi Tuning (C=256Hz):
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/revolution.html
I have a suspicion that Perfect Pitch is a form
of Synesthesia. Someone with this condition
might perceive sounds simultaneously as colors
or letters. So only the exact pitch will be
perceived as a particular letter or color.
It does exist, but it’s rare…perhaps as rare as true tone deafness (most of the people I’ve met who claim to be tone deaf aren’t even close to being tone deaf…they can match pitches just fine. They just have poor singing voices, which could easily be improved with training and practice).
I do know a person who has absolute pitch, and frankly, he counts it more a curse than a blessing. Not only do dissonances bother him considerably (a serious problem for a choral singer, as much of 20th century choral music is built on dissonance), but it’s really hard for him when the music director asks the accompanist to transpose a piece (which he’ll occasionally do to accommodate a weaker section or to make the singing easier for the congregation). For the rest of us, it makes no difference, as all we’re concerned about is the intervals between the pitches, but for Robert it’s like being a simultaneous translator, and it drives him nuts!
He is, however, extremely handy to have for a capella pieces, as he can give us our pitches very quietly, without us having to take them from the organ or piano.
Redwolf
I’ve known 2 people with ‘perfect pitch’ or pitch recognition as some have called it that really stand out. One I sang with, and she experienced discomfort when music was transposed. Looking at one note and singing another was nearly impossible at times, she said. Another, a voicer for an organ builder, didn’t use a pitch reference in his work - he did all the tuning of the pipes he voiced ‘by ear’, even compensating for temperature. But I don’t think either really considered it to be an asset by any means.
Reg
I have heard the same thing about things like that which is why I said:
And if only you’d used all the adjectives you
meant to, I might have understood it.
Off? I hate it when I skip a word.
I thought that might be it. But then I wondered
“how can an arpeggio be slightly off?” I mean,
it’s built-in harmony. Is one of the notes off-tune?
Should be, which it feels strange when one of the notes doesn’t quite fit, wish I could come up with a tune where I have heard this for an example.
Arabic maqamat might qualify; is that what you had in mind?
Cool, I have never seen notation like
before. Although it seems like they are trying to round out differences between notes rather than cause them.
I suppose the perception depends on where you’re coming from; in the little I know of maqamat, the gist of it seems to be that those quartertone notes are considered solid in and of themselves, a required aspect of particular scales, and each scale’s purpose is to evoke a consistent emotional idea and no other. Change the prescribed microtones, and you blow the maqam out of the water if you’re not changing it into something else altogether.
In a given maqam, musicians are trained to hear and execute these microtonal nuances. They’re not convenient or sloppy approximations. Wikipedia has some fairly in-depth explanations of that aspect of Middle Eastern musical theory. Very informative, if arcane to a Westerner’s ear. A well-executed maqam by definition cannot be “out of tune”; it just sounds that way to us Westerners who aren’t accustomed to that way of tackling or hearing things.
I thought this was an interesting post and could explain why during the years that my childhood piano was my major instrument my pitch was off. What this doesn’t explain is why even at the time, the F and A above middle C was an extremely pleasant sound to me. The opposite (almost) of the South Park Brown note. I’m guessing when my tribe walked out of East Africa our favorite song was based on those notes and this song is imprinted in my genetic code or collective consciouness. I would like to be a character in a Kurt Vonnegut book. He could provide a reasonable explanation.
I must say, this thread is going in a direction that neither I nor benhall.1 (in your face) predicted. Nice reading.
True, true.
It does seem hard to really say what is “in tune”. The tritone sounds “off” because of the way equal temperament is set up, but composers use it for the feeling of dissonance provokes.
Thanks for the info on Arabian maqam. I must say I never quite understood the tones they were producing in much of the Iranian music I have listened to (still don’t, but at least I know a little more about it).
There are some kinds of music I like but frankly cannot understand. It’s strange, I like shakuhachi music but I cannot wrap my head around the timing or tuning*. Yet I can recognize Shika No Tone when I hear it. I even remember hearing the tune in a movie score once thinking “It’s that call of the deer tune”.
*Edit: Here is the answer, kind of. Shakuhachi musical notation
Sure, as soon as you throw all parameters to the wind. It is systems, and the ears that live by them, that define what is in tune. In short, you have to start somewhere. That said, knowing that the tunings in a maqam are no accident doesn’t help me much; they still sound fundamentally out of tune to me, but then I’m the dyed-in-the-wool product of a Western musical foundation and the canonical interval standards that come with it, aren’t I. Nevertheless I very much enjoy the sound of maqamat for being thoroughly lush and exotic (and you could also say “subversive”) to my ear.
In contrast to how I hear a maqam, to me an equal-tempered piano always sounds just out of tune enough to be only and unrelentingly annoying; there’s no charm to it and that’s my main beef with the instrument right there. All in the context, I suppose one could say, but indulgent relativism aside there IS the fact that equal temperament itself has nothing to do with any given piece; it is a tuning system based on compromise to appease all comers, key-wise, and that is all, so it’s easier for me to feel okay with feeling not okay about it.
Yes,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtonal_music
non microtonal music and the regular sized semitone are modern aberrations.
Interestingly useful but dangerous.
When you slide notes you are netting microtones.
Curious why you have not?
Maybe it’s time to give it a go. 
You’ve both just described me.
But I don’t consider my sense of pitch to be what people call “perfect pitch”, and I, too, consider it as a bit of a curse. I prefer to call it “pitch memory”. I can usually* pull a note out of the air - certain ones are easier. For example, I can almost always get an accurate G or C, based on my recollection of certain songs. For G, I think of Bach’s “Little Fugue in G minor”. For C, for some reason, the Beatles’ “Let it Be” in my memory always give me a near perfect C. And from either of those reference notes, I can get any other pitch that is required.
I have had exactly that experience where a choral conductor chooses to give us music notated in one key, and then, for performance purposes, chooses another (usually lower) key, since much of what we do is a capella. Drives me feckin’ bonkers. It also kills me when we start on pitch, and then invariably, the pitch sinks throughout the performance. What’s odd though, is that happens much more prominently when we sing in flat keys, vs. sharp keys. Weird.
Other ‘symptoms’ of my ailment are the following:
I’m a folk guitarist/singer/songwriter, and for years, I’ve done the bar gigs where I bang out a few hours worth of cover tunes, most of which the crowd will sing along with. I find it unacceptable to learn or perform any of these songs in the ‘wrong’ key. I will always learn the song in the original key it was recorded in. That’s where it ‘fits’ in my brain, and I really believe that’s where it sounds ‘right’ to most other people as well. I will never transpose a song to make it fit my voice better. It’s just wrong. It makes it a different song to my ears, and I often can’t even sing it in a new key, without considerable practice ahead of time. And forget about harmonizing in a different key. Square peg, Round hole kinda thing for me.
This one is very recent. I was a session just a couple of weeks ago. I don’t get to go very often, as my session of choice is on Sunday afternoons, which conflicts with a standing rehearsal I have for a Fife and Drum corps I play with. So, I’m sitting in, and accompanying on guitar, and occasionally playing whistle on tunes that I know well enough. The fiddle player starts a set with a tune that sounds SO familiar, but I can’t wrap my brain around it. I keep listening, banging out the backing guitar, and trying for the life of me to figure out why I know it. Then I realize it’s a tune I know only from playing it on the fife (Bb), so I grab my whistle (D - concert pitch) to try to play along. I found that while my fingers knew what to do, my ear just couldn’t bear the disconnect between what I was playing and what I was hearing, the key of the tune being “off” by a Major Third. I have since “relearned” the tune on the D whistle so that next time around, I won’t be thrown off.
Bottom line for me is that pitches and keys ‘fit’ in a certain part of my brain, when they are associated with something familiar, like a tune or song that I know. The key or pitch is NOT disconnected from the actual song - it’s part of its “metadata”, and even though everything else may be the same, such as intervals, and the like, it just feels wrong if the key is not the same as the key in my memory. Same goes for written music. If I’m singing and reading something in the key of Ab, and my choir director wants to perform it in G, I’m screwed. Reading an Ab and singing a G is very difficult for me, because I know where those notes fit in my vocal range, as well as in my ear/head.
This is not a gift. But it won’t stop me from playing.