Gerald, thank you for sharing those anecdotes, which illustrate exactly what I was trying to say. The PTG convention experiment is a superb example of primmary research - a simple, elegant and absolutely valid practical experiment carried out in order to gather data relevant to a hypothesis. Fantastic. Kind regards, David. > I've told this story before, but, not here. I'll tell it again. My > newphew > has a great sense of perfect pitch. He can name of any chords, any notes, > repeat what you just played, doesn't matter he can dod it.. He tried > going > into the tuning business working with me. He went in with the mindset of > hey, I have perfect pitch, no problem, this will be a breeze. When he > realized, he had to actually set pitch with a fork, tune by listening to > beats rather than what his "head" was telling him, he soon found it, that > his perfect pitch was driving him crazy telling him one thing, when he > knew, > he had to listen to another and neither matched. He eventually quit > because > he just couldn't do it and didn't have theh patience to stop listening to > what his head was telling him to do. > > I went to a class over 20 years ago at a PTG convention where Issac > Sadigursky (spelling?) did it. He has perfect pitch. He asked as many > people as possible in the class who thought they had perfect pitch to come > up front and set one and ONLY one note on the piano to the pitch in their > head after which, he recorded it onto RCT and compared it to the real > pitch > that the piano needed to get set at. Somewhere upwards of 15 people came > up > to the front and set 1 pin. Sometimes taking up to 3 or 5 minutes to do > it. > Each person had to set a different note so as not to screw up the other > persons but, otherwise, they were free to pick any other note on the piano > that the desired. > > At the end of the session, he went through each note on an idividual > basis. > 1 string was set 1/2 step flat. Another, 1/4 sharp, another, 1/4 flat, > another 1/8 tone sharp and on it went. Only one, had it dead on and to > that > person, he said, "you got lucky." Had I had you set another, it is highly > likely that you would have gotten it wrong. His point was that for one, > Issac has perfect pitch. For 2., it cannot be used in tuning as it is not > nearly as accurate as people that have it think it is and if they > disagreed > with him, he had them do it again proving them wrong a 2nd time. > > The pitch they had in their heads can be off, he said, by as much as 1/2 > tone in either direction. Depending upon the piano they picked up their > perfect pitch from. If their piano was never tuned, their pitch was off > by > as much as it was flat or sharp. Even one beat difference is to much in > tuning. > > My newphew once, set a bunch of notes with his perfect pitch only. I then > checked them, with him there, with 3rds, 10ths, 5ths and 4ths. It sounded > horrible! And, he knew it. So, for tuning purposes, it is useless.
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