Perfect Pitch

[Newton Hunt]

Hi Jim,

You must have been reading the archives because I have not jumped into
this latest fray.

I have become old enough and barely wise enough to realize that I do
not know everything dispute my saying I do.  If there are those who
say they can hear tone color in ET then I will concede the point to
them.  For the vast majority of use of people and technicians I doubt
it exists except in HT.  Now _there_ I can hear tone color.  Beethoven
in the Temperaments makes that point for me.  I found the tones
delightful but another tuner/musician was made queasy by the, to him,
uncomfortable intervals.

I like tone color and wish there were more recordings of it.

		Newton

"Jim Coleman, Sr." wrote:
> 
> Hi Newton:
> 
> I have just one thing to add since we were on this subject about a year
> ago.
> 
> I have had it confirmed to my satisfaction that some musicians can hear
> tone color even in Equal Temperament. This came as quite a surprise to
> me. One of the respondents has perfect pitch and I kinda' suspected it,
> but another who does not have perfect pitch also can hear tonality
> color in Equal Temperament.
> 
> My sister had a strange kind of perfect pitch. She could not tell
> immediately what a certain note is, but by (in her mind) singing through
> all the scales, she could then note which ones had sharps or flats and
> then could positively identify the note being sounded. this coupled
> with my other research convinces me that tone color is there for those
> who have ears to hear. PS, I don't hear it.
> 
> Jim Coleman, Sr.