Perfect Pitch

[Tunethepno@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/13/1999 2:48:37 PM US Eastern Standard Time, 
larudee@pacbell.net writes:

<< I'd take the whole thing with a grain of salt. >>

Way back when, in theory class ear training, I would routinely do better than 
the guy with perfect pitch. He could tell us what note we played on the piano 
from the other side, but apparently two notes at once or in succession 
confused him. Another former friend with perfect pitch would get quite 
confused when I used the transpose function on the Roland keyboard at church. 
He would have to fight the urge to sing the written note instead of the 
transposed note.  On the other hand, when it came time to get the teenagers 
flutes, clarinets, and violins in tune, he would bring them to me.

I suspect there are many and confusing levels of "perfection" in perfect 
pitch.
I always explain to customers who ask me if I have perfect pitch that even if 
I could tell "A" from "A#" I would not necessarily be able to tell 440 cycles 
per second from 444 and, therefore, perfect pitch may not be perfect enough 
for tuning a piano. I may be slightly misinformed on the subject, but it 
sounds plausible enough for the occasion.

John Stroup