# Perfect pitch and Early Music



## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Several members have indicated that they have perfect pitch. Not being blessed (or cursed) with perfect pitch I have a question for those who do. As I understand it, perfect pitch is the ability to remember a pitch without the need for an external aid. With the exception of color-blind people, everyone has the ability to remember color. We look at the sun and say it is yellow although there is no guarantee that we're all seeing the same color. However, whatever color we see we've been taught to call "yellow". People with perfect pitch hear a sound (say, A-440) and are taught to call that sound "A". If you lived in a prior era where the pitch of A was lower or higher than A-440 you would have been taught to identify a different sound as "A". That said, how do people who have perfect pitch handle music from the Early Music period? Can you compensate for the different pitch level?


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

I don't like it at all. If a piece is credited as being in B minor, and the sound played is actually Bb minor, I think it's in the wrong key. That's why I've completely avoided the whole period performance field and look for 'modern' performances of those works. Then again, I try to avoid Baroque/Classical period music altogether. Great music started with Beethoven, imo.

Shallow-minded I know, but that is just how I am, and I don't want to change, thank you very much.

PS. Yes, I have heard Baroque music, and the pieces all sound very similar. There's no variety; they even have the same ending over and over again (the trumpet trill ending as I like to call it)
Same goes with the Classical period.


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## Earthling (May 21, 2010)

There's also the question of modern US and European orchestras. Many European orchestras do not go by A = 440 Hz (I understand even a small handful of US orchestras do not tune to A = 440)...?


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

This is a present day phenomenon in the performance world, and always will be. Singers often find they need to transpose songs into different keys - for example a baritone performing one written for tenor and so on. (Or even an aging singer not quite up to the high notes, who transposes down a second, say.)


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Earthling said:


> There's also the question of modern US and European orchestras. Many European orchestras do not go by A = 440 Hz (I understand even a small handful of US orchestras do not tune to A = 440)...?


As I understand it, there are different levels of perfect pitch sensitivity. I went to school with a girl who could hear the difference between A-440 and A-441. I believe this is unusual and that most people with perfect pitch are not that sensitive to slight differences in pitch. Many orchestras tune to A-442 but I don't think that would cause problems for many who have perfect pitch. There is a limit to how much above or below A-440 modern, fixed pitched instruments can go. This limits the tuning flexibility of modern orchestras. Early music orchestras that normally tune somewhere around A-415 is a different matter.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

A number of recordings I have; historically informed performances, have even lower pitch. Scholars and performers think late 17th and early 18th century may have been around A = 392Hz.


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> A number of recordings I have; historically informed performances, have even lower pitch. Scholars and performers think late 17th and early 18th century may have been around A = 392Hz.


Correct. Today harpsichords are usually built as transposing instruments: A-415 to A-440. Some are made double transposing: A-392, A-415, A-440. I've read where there are places in Europe where the pitch was higher than A-440. I hope no one ever asks me to build a triple-transposer.

Ernie


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## gmubandgeek (Jun 8, 2010)

As someone who does have perfect pitch, participating in a historically accurate performance does present significant problems for me. As a rule of thumb, I will generally take my music and transpose it a half step lower (or adjust as needed) to compensate for this. The last time I performed a Haydn Symphony, I had lots of difficulty doing so. As I've said, and always said, Having perfect pitch is great in theory, but great relative pitch in ensembles is almost always better.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The current use of pitch at around a 440 is a recent phenomenon; prior to the 20th century ,pitched varied a great deal from place to place and over time.
The tendency among period instrument groups to play all baroque and classical period music at about a half step lower than a 440 is not really authentic at all. 
I have perfect pitch, and I've heard a DG Archiv recording of the Well Tempered Clavier by a harpsichordist whose name I don't recall offhand which was a whole tone lower.
The famous C major prelude sounded like B flat major to me. It was very strange.
I remember seeing a harpischord whcih was adapted with a device which could switch its pitch from a 440 to a half tone lower for period instrument performances, but as I said,this isn't really authentic.
In the 18th century, musicians in European cities which were not far from each other would often tune to different pitches, which could create problems for travelling musicians, and 
there is evidence that in Italy during the time of Monteverdi, pitch of a 440 was common.
There are no easy answers to the question of what pitch to use in period instrument performances. Absolute authenticity is a chimera !


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

superhorn said:


> The current use of pitch at around a 440 is a recent phenomenon; prior to the 20th century ,pitched varied a great deal from place to place and over time.
> The tendency among period instrument groups to play all baroque and classical period music at about a half step lower than a 440 is not really authentic at all.
> I have perfect pitch, and I've heard a DG Archiv recording of the Well Tempered Clavier by a harpsichordist whose name I don't recall offhand which was a whole tone lower.
> The famous C major prelude sounded like B flat major to me. It was very strange.
> ...


While some harpsichord builders are sticklers for authenticity, I am not one of them. As you stated, there were numerous pitch levels used in different parts of the world. Early music aficionados generally use A-415 as the early music standard and fixed pitch early music instruments are usually built to that pitch standard. This makes sense as it would be financially cumbersome, to say the least, to have a separate fixed pitch instrument for all of the different historical pitch levels. Harpsichords built today almost always have a transposing feature built in which allows a shifting of the pitch from A-440 to A-415 by sliding the entire keyboard 1/2" to the left. Some instruments allow for double-transposing from A-440 to A-415 to A-390. This is not a difficult feature to add to a harpsichord although, in some cases, it will require the loss of a note or two at the extremes of the keyboard. In spite of the ability to "transpose" a harpsichord to a pitch standard other than A-440, this ability does nothing to allow the person with perfect pitch to live comfortably with music played in a pitch standard other than A-440.

Not having perfect pitch, I've always thought the question of pitch level is of no consequence whatsoever to people without perfect pitch. Some people claim they can hear a difference in timbre when a harpsichord is played at A-415 instead of A-440. This may be true or it may be wishful thinking. All I know is that after 34 years as a choral music teacher, almost 40 years as a piano technician, and 25 years as a harpsichord builder, my ears cannot distinguish whether or not a piece of music is being played at A-440 or A-415 (or any other pitch level). It would take a lot more than a half step before I would consistently notice a difference in timbre. How about you?


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

As I'm virtually tone deaf I can't answer but I thought these articles were quite helpful in summarising the variables:

http://www.kylegann.com/histune.html

http://pages.globetrotter.net/roule/temper.htm


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

What do people with perfect pitch make of auditory illusions like a Shepard-Risset glissando.

This is a good version of a descending one.






I find the ascending version easier to hear when the scale fades in at the bottom and rises audibly again.






If you have perfect pitch, I'd presume it would be a lot easier to here when the start of the scale becomes audible again.






Some other queries for people with perfect pitch.

Can tell the pitch of each partial of a tone or just the fundamental?

Can you allocate a pitch to a noise?

If a lot of tones are sounded at once (as in an orchestra) can you identify the pitch of each tone or only the strongest or deepest?


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## PicklePepperPiper (Aug 3, 2010)

I might be alone in this, but I have absolute pitch, which I suppose is a crummy version of perfect? I find it's simple a matter of tricking my brain to hear the Ab or Bb as an A would sound, in the context of the piece. Apologies if that makes very little sense, but niether does my pitch, so...
-PPP


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Absolute and perfect pitch are the same thing,but some classical music wonks prefer the term absolute pitch for some reason.


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## deSitter (Jan 18, 2014)

Ernie said:


> Several members have indicated that they have perfect pitch. Not being blessed (or cursed) with perfect pitch I have a question for those who do. As I understand it, perfect pitch is the ability to remember a pitch without the need for an external aid. With the exception of color-blind people, everyone has the ability to remember color. We look at the sun and say it is yellow although there is no guarantee that we're all seeing the same color. However, whatever color we see we've been taught to call "yellow". People with perfect pitch hear a sound (say, A-440) and are taught to call that sound "A". If you lived in a prior era where the pitch of A was lower or higher than A-440 you would have been taught to identify a different sound as "A". That said, how do people who have perfect pitch handle music from the Early Music period? Can you compensate for the different pitch level?


I have PP and this is my opinion.

It is extremely annoying that I cannot listen to any modern recordings or concerts of baroque music, or even of say a classical-era pianoforte. All my baroque recordings are from the period before this pitch fetish inspired by dessicated academics began. I don't know about others, but a particular key has an emotional as well as a physical presence. Of course it's arbitrary what you choose as the standard, but once it is chosen, the rest is fixed. You can't just play pieces written in A minor in Ab minor. You might as well choose different colors for the US flag - brown, yellow, and green.

I keep thinking this stupid fetish for detuning to A=415 will go away but I've been thinking that for 30 years. I gave up.

-drl


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## deSitter (Jan 18, 2014)

BTW some people claim to develop PP in two different tunings. Good for them, that's not happening with me. You are fortunate if you lack PP.

-drl


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This business of those with perfect pitch getting out of sorts is a very modern type of distress.

Consider that Bach and Mozart had perfect pitch, and when Bach moved from site to site, the organ he had at his disposal was more than likely not the same pitch level as the last one he played, or the next he would get to.

When Mozart traveled to perform in Prague vs. Vienna vs. some other place, he was subject to variants of concert A from place to place, and that he did not have to 'transpose it in his head to be comfortable' nor did it make him nauseous, etc.

The fact that you have perfect pitch should mean you can instantly and 'perfectly' adjust, the distress coming from anything out of tune, regardless the mean tone frequency of tuning.

I have decent relative pitch. Hip performance at lowered pitch level hits me palpably, but for a moment only. The fact we are used to contemporary tunings and Bach's music means that what you are used to hearing as D was actually closer to Db. Hip performances are closer to the way the composers of the period conceived of it and heard it. I think the current complaints on this point are more of a whinge (where those with perfect pitch get to make rather a public deal of it) than of any real import. The great masters with perfect pitch who were from earlier eras dealt with it 

It is a very first-world and contemporary non-problem.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

I've never understood how anybody could possibly know how many hertz A was in the 17th century.


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