Perfect Pitch

[Richard Brekne]

I keep seeing this tone color thing comming up again and again, and cant help
think that it is used in at least two (undefined yet differerent) meanings. I
wonder if the tone color you refer to in HT is really something quite removed
from tone color purportedly heard in ET. Tone color is another one of these
concepts/words (as "perfect pitch" is) that really has not been so very very
investigated or well defined. Perhaps you might expound a bit on what you
yourself mean with regard to tone color in the two ??

Also, as a third usage, I hear folks refer to different types of pianos as
haveing different tone colors. "I like the color of this Steinway much more
then that Yamaha" one might say.

Richard Brekne
I.C.P.T.G. N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway

Newton Hunt wrote:

> 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.