Re: absolute pitch

[Tim Conway <tpconway@ozemail.com.au>]

M Williamson wrote:

>I continue to think that for string and wind players, the most 
>important thing is to be intimately familiar with the instrument 
>you are playing at any given time so that, through mechanical 
>means, you can play any note within a certain margin of error 
>before making any adjustments.  Then you make adjustments 
>according to what is going on around you.  That way you're never 
>too badly out of tune but you're always in a position to do 
>better.

On the subject of error but with a more frivolous tone, Ian Wallace, a 
well-known bass-baritone in the United Kingdom who sang both opera and 
lighter musical stuff, about 15 years ago told the story on air about the 
difficulty he had had with an 'aria' from an atonal operatic work. He 
said that the complete absence of memorable tune, harmonious chords and 
regular time signature really did call for absolute pitch (and an ability 
to count) on the part of the singer. The conductor kept admonishing him 
in rehearsals about hitting the wrong notes, but the harder he tried, the 
worse his attempts at hitting the notes became.

In desperation he bought a recording of the work by a 'famous singer' (he 
declined to say who it was) and took it home. He listened to the 
recording and said to himself, 'So that's how it's supposed to be done'. 
But when he sang from the score it sounded very different from the 
recording. A few minutes on the piano revealed the fact that the 'famous 
singer', like Wallace, was missing most of the notes by much more than 
the odd semitone. So Wallace listened to the recording enough times to be 
able to reproduce it roughly. At the next rehearsal he sang his rough 
copy of the recording with as much confidence as he could muster -- going 
for absolutely _any_ note fortissimo if he was unsure what came next -- 
and received applause and congratulations from the conductor and the 
players on his remarkable improvement.

I suppose you could call that absolute-confidence pitch. Would GG have 
approved?

Tim Conway