mcv <mcvmcv.DeleteThis@xs4all.nl> writes:
> As far as I know, professional classical musicians train for it. This
> art is also called "solvege", at least in Dutch (and presumably in
> French, because the word sounds French to me). Some people are born
> with it, like my dad, who is by no means a professional musician, but
> has had this ability for as long as he can remember. A couple of years
> ago he realised that his "perfect pitch" (called "absoluut gehoor" or
> absolute hearing in Dutch) was off by half a note compared to when he
> was young.
Solfege and perfect pitch aren't quite the same thing.
Perfect pitch is, as you note, the ability to hear a note and
recognize it in isolation. You hear a B-flat, you know it's a B-flat.
You hear A-440 and recognize it as A-440; you can sing an A-415 on
demand. Recent research seems to indicate that this is a combination
of an inborn trait plus exposure to fixed pitches in childhood -- you
need to have the ability, and you need to learn to use it by the age
of 5 or 6.
Solfege is the ability to hear and recognize the intervals between
notes out of isolation. It's what the Do-Re-Mi syllables are really
used for -- a good musician can hear that the melody goes Sol-Do,
Sol-Mi, Mi-Fa-Sol-Sol-La-Sol-Sol-Fa, and then given another bit of
information (such as that the Mi is a D natural) work out what the key
is. This is something that some people have a knack for, but it's
trainable in just about everyone.
The two skills are complementary, but people with perfect pitch can
have a damn hard time learning solfege:
> Another interesting anecdote: The conductor of my choir also teaches
> at a music academy ("conservatorium" in Dutch, no idea if it's the
> same in English), and he has a student with perfect pitch who insisted
> that a G was always a G. The conductor put the student in the choir,
> and had the choir sing lots of chords with Gs in them, after which
> the student admitted that a G isn't always a G.
This is because the note-name G refers both to a pitch-frequency and
to a function. The function of G is always the same, and in isolation
a G pitch is always the same, but in actual musical context the note
functioning as G changes its precise pitch depending on its context.
When I was in graduate school one of my fellow musicians had perfect
pitch but otherwise a tin ear, and failed to grasp that. For one
thing, even when the choir stays in tune, in some styles of music
pitches get renegotiated all the time. (Think highly dissonant
Renaissance music, which has to have crystal-clear chords in the few
places they occur.) For another, sometimes the choir goes flat or
sharp, and when the lone guy with perfect pitch holds out at the
original pitch, the result is hideous.
Charlton
(who spent, at a conservative estimate, 8 points on
Professional Skill: Music Theory and Musicology)
>> Stay informed about: Challenge GURPS: Absolute Ear. 
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