Re: GG: Re: absolute pitch

[mwilliamson@alston.com]

     Wow, that is an interesting story; I have not personally 
     heard it but I can believe it.  Not only as a musician but 
     also as a lawyer.  Even though the law has traditionally 
     been that the courts will not interfere with this kind of 
     discretionary decision-making, that has not kept people from 
     bringing this kind of lawsuit.  And in the last ten years or 
     so, courts have started to hold athletic and other similar 
     organizations to their own rules and regulations, usually on 
     a contract-type theory.  That's why there's been more 
     litigation recently with respect to allegedly inaccurate 
     Olympic drug-testing, contested race results, etc., etc. 
     etc.  But I think it's still fairly safe to say that a 
     musician could not sue to make the orchestra tune to A-440.  
     By way of illustration, however, if the music director had a 
     contract giving him control over that decision and the 
     business management decided to override his decision, he 
     could probably sue to enforce his contract.
     
     Anyway, this is a great story, because I don't believe most 
     orchestras tune to A-440 anyway.  I think A-443 is closer to 
     the orchestral standard, but it certainly varies from group 
     to group.  Musicians still consider A-440 to be the 
     "standard," but lots of orchestras make a conscious decision 
     to tune a little bit sharper than that to get a "brighter" 
     sound.  No doubt people decide to tune a little bit flat in 
     other contexts.  Even though pitch is relative and "A" isn't 
     anything but what we decide to call it, the tuning does tend 
     to affect timbre because the higher you tune the brighter 
     the sound will tend to be.  Just try speeding up your record 
     player and you'll see.  Besides getting faster, it also gets 
     tinnier.
     
     I'm not sure when A was standardized at 440.  I'll try to 
     look it up when I go home.  I know that in the 19th century 
     there were two different standards that were as much as a 
     semitone apart.  One was close to what we use now and the 
     other was a semitone higher (I think).  I think that one 
     system was called "concert" and the other was called 
     "orchestral," but I'm not sure.  I'll bet we have some piano 
     technicians on our mailing list that could give us chapter 
     and verse on this.
     
     


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: GG: Re: absolute pitch
Author:  Manuel Martinez <Manuel.Martinez@Schwab.COM> at internet
Date:    12/17/96 7:13 PM


Hi! Your discussion on absolute pitch has spurred my memory... 
Some twenty years ago, I read about a certain Joseph(?) Joachim, a
violinist who sued the Royal Conservatory (London, cir. 1930's) for not 
implementing the correct, absoulte pitch. I remember wondering how 
something as preposterous as this could happen to a prestigious musical 
institution. 
     
I don't think its worth my time to research on the matter, but I still 
wonder: Did this really happen? Or was it apocrypha? When exactly did 
A440 become standardized?
     
I would be glad if someone can verify this for me, and tell me (since I 
can't remember the source anymore) I didn't just make this up.
     
     
At 02:37 PM 12/10/96 EST, you wrote: 
>     
>        Whether absolute pitch is important depends on what you are 
>        doing and who you are playing with.  You have a lot of control 
>        over how you process auditory information, and if you want to, 
>        you can train yourself to recognizes pitches without an external 
>        reference (although it is somewhat harder to train yourself to 
>        recognize very small deviations from some fixed standard such as 
>        A-440).  It is certainly easiest if you begin playing at a very 
>        young age or if you have a hereditary knack for identifying 
>        pitches.
>        
>        On the other hand, I started playing about the same time I 
>        started talking and I tend to hear sounds as intervals rather 
>        than in absolute terms.  I can identify a pitch if I want to, 
>        particularly if I hum it to myself after I hear it, but I don't 
>        spend a lot of time doing this.  I like to have my piano tuned 
>        as close to equal temperament as possible because, to me, this 
>        reinforces the impression of floating in the pitch spectrum with 
>        no external reference, of being able to go from one key to 
>        another with a feeling of intense pleasure from the way the 
>        modulation takes place while being indifferent to where I am at 
>        any given moment in time.
>        
>        Most musicians I have worked with, including those with 
>        "absolute pitch," believe it is better to listen for intervals 
>        in music and to tune according to what is going on around you 
>        rather than according to some fixed standard.  In fact, some 
>        wind and string players I know with "absolute pitch" view it as 
>        something of a handicap because they find it gets in the way of 
>        playing with pitch flexibility.  On the other hand, it can be a 
>        signficant advantage in playing with people who have "absolute 
>        pitch" (or think they do) because not only might they expect you 
>        to play to the same standard, but they may be very exacting 
>        about small pitch discrepancies that other people would be 
>        willing to tolerate.
>        
>        The funny thing to me about some musicians that I have found it 
>        most difficult to work with is that some people who claim to 
>        have "absolute pitch" are also the most outspoken about altering 
>        pitches according to the key you are playing in, which is a 
>        completely valid concept but highly subjective.  There is no 
>        question that a perfectly equally tempered scale is not the most 
>        pleasing, but I do not think there is a universal consensus on 
>        how best to improve it.  I think for this task it is more 
>        important to know how to communicate and work well together than 
>        it is to have "absolute pitch." 
>        
>        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.
>        
>        Once again, thank you for a very meaningful post for our little 
>        group.  :)
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
>Subject: More comments on Kazdin
>Author:  Eugene Selig <aq094@lafn.org> at internet 
>Date:    12/10/96 1:07 PM
>
>
>There is a telling exchange between AK and GG involving absolute pitch. 
>GG had stated in another book with another interviewer that the two most 
>important gifts required for one aspiring to become a concert pianist 
>were the ability to concentrate intensely, and the possession of absolute 
>pitch. As for concentration, we know GG had a photographic memory, and 
>his musical memory was remarkably reliable. Kazdin had a layman's awe
>on the subject of absolute pitch. I think GG enjoyed touting his gift 
>before this man. The one thing GG could not abide was the company of a 
>lesser intellect. The fact remains that Wagner, Schumann, Berlioz, and 
>Tchaikowsky did NOT have absolute pitch. Modern research has shown that 
>there are various reasons why otherwise highly gifted musical persons 
>may not possess it. Some people have it through heredity (K. Flagstad), 
>while in most cases it comes merely as the result of starting training 
>at an early age, say before the age of six. It seems that the capacity 
>to "memorize" sounds while identifying their pitch diminishes greatly 
>after early childhood. The composers mentioned got relatively late starts 
>before launching themselves totally into a career in music.
>     
>I think that part of Kazdin's problem is that his idol had the proverbial 
>feet of clay, and as such K. felt that his admiration (adoration) was 
>misplaced and unappreciated, and as a result felt deprived a position
>of special closeness to an non-existent hero. And, as I said before, GG 
>seemed to harbor contempt for anyone who behaved like a toady.
>     
>
>
>