Posted by PPitch on October 21, 2003 at 12:25:42:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Know any good D's? posted by Rick Denney on October 21, 2003 at 10:52:47:
I was first recognized as having "perfect" pitch when I was 7 or so. That meant, if you played a note for me, I could tell you what it was, just as if you put the color blue in front of me, I could tell you what it was. I grew up with a well-tuned piano, and thus my pitch was on pitch. A friend who grew up with a poorly tuned piano had "flat" perfect pitch.
All was well until I delved into other genres of music to try to make a living back in my 20's. Bluegrass; Irish; even rock and roll. Bluegrass and Irish in particular do not have "classical" intonation, and I had to learn to be "off" in the correct way to sound authentic, if I wanted to be allowed to play for money for that type of music. The Irish seems to use quarter tones, at least I had to go pretty far away from classical intonation to sound authentic. Old-timey fiddle is on the "bottom" of the pitch, just like bluegrass is on the "back" of the beat. It all got so mish-mashed that what sounded "in tune" became much broader than it was before; that is, what would have caused me to cringe pre-bluegrass-Irish, sounded just fine afterwards, to the point where classical people started telling me I played out of tune. I don't seem to be able to go backwards and narrow that slot down again, without some reference to play "in tune with." I still nail intervals because the beats (or lack therof) are still the same, but in free melody playing, I wander quite a bit. I also play with amateur groups now and have had to shut down my hearing somewhat in order to survive.
So, yes I think it can be learned in much the same way that colors are learned, and I can still recognize pitches if they are played for me, either singly or in groups. But it is also clear that pitch recognition is not the same as playing in tune, and can actually be a disadvantage if the PPitch person is unable to bend his "perfect" pitch to be in tune with whatever is going on around him.
Mary "'nuf said" Ann