Jazz Musicians with Perfect Pitch??
Abbedd4
Abbedd
r1
(piano w/ Clark Terry)
"Abbedd4" <abb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020329154609...@mb-md.aol.com...
kokopuff
there is a great biography by i-forgot-who.
"r1" <r1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:UE4p8.7015$SG2.6...@news1.news.adelphia.net...
Greg M.
Ella Fitzgerald.
Greg M.
PIANORUTH
>From: abb...@aol.com (Abbedd4)
>Date: 3/29/02 3:46 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Who are they past and present???
>
>
>
>Abbedd
>
>I have always considered the best
pitch in the business to be that of
Mel Torme.....also....even though he
isnt in the jazz catagory,,,,that of
the late Sammy Davis.....I heard both
in person,,,and was so impressed with
their perfect pitch...esp...Sammy!
>
>
>
>
Gary Smiley
scott_m
Glenn Wilson
of your Musicians Union paper EVERY FREAKING MONTH!!!
Glenn
www.jazzmaniac.com
"Abbedd4" <abb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020329154609...@mb-md.aol.com...
Marc Sabatella
> >I have always considered the best
> pitch in the business to be that of
> Mel Torme.....also....even though he
> isnt in the jazz catagory,,,,that of
> the late Sammy Davis.....I heard both
> in person,,,and was so impressed with
> their perfect pitch...esp...Sammy!
Singing in tune is a completely different thing than perfect pitch,
which is the ability to instantly name any pitch heard. It would be
impossible to tell just by listening to someone sing if they had this
ability or not, but the ability is very rare, even among professional
musicians, and I have never heard that either of these singers had it.
-------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Check out my latest CD, "Falling Grace"
Also "A Jazz Improvisation Primer", Sounds, Scores, & More:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
lpogost
Hendrix (not jazz)
Loudon Briggs
>"PIANORUTH" <pian...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> >I have always considered the best
>> pitch in the business to be that of
>> Mel Torme.....also....even though he
>> isnt in the jazz catagory,,,,that of
>> the late Sammy Davis.....I heard both
>> in person,,,and was so impressed with
>> their perfect pitch...esp...Sammy!
>
>Singing in tune is a completely different thing than perfect pitch,
>which is the ability to instantly name any pitch heard. It would be
>impossible to tell just by listening to someone sing if they had this
>ability or not, but the ability is very rare, even among professional
>musicians, and I have never heard that either of these singers had it.
>
>-------------
>Marc Sabatella
>ma...@outsideshore.com
As you say, perfect pitch is not something that can be told by
listening to someone sing. As a non-musician, I simply respond to what
my ear finds enjoyable, and of the two mentioned, Torme's voice is
more palatable. I've had people who are musicians, tell me that Davis
sang sharp... perhaps that's why I found him to be less enjoyable...
my ear told me.
Mark Eisenman
Smiley" <gasm...@nospam.attbi.com> wrote:
Don Thompson,
Ed Bickert,
Gary Williamson
These are guys, that I know of, just from ONE TOWN!! (Toronto)
And they're still alive!
Mark
Kev
Derrick Hodge
Nicholas Payton
Paul Sanwald
>
>impossible to tell just by listening to someone sing if they had this
>ability or not, but the ability is very rare, even among professional
>musicians, and I have never heard that either of these singers had it.
>
I sometimes suspect it's not so rare among really great musicians,
especially those that were really good at a very young age. chris
potter and brad mehldau both have perfect pitch.
--paul
Ryan Conlon
very acute sense of tuning?
I notice him frequently fiddling with the tuning knobs (if that's the
technical term) on his bass.
- Ryan
Mark Eisenman <eise...@yorku.ca> wrote in message news:<B8CF3B95.6147%eise...@yorku.ca>...
Rohan Parkes
says...
I heard a radio documentary a while back about psycho acoustics, and
several participants stated that the term "perfect pitch" is misleading.
What you can have is better termed a pitch memory. One psychologist
mentioned that there is a stream of thought that all people are born
with this ability, but progressively lose it, as we get confused by
hearing tunes in different keys.
I can confirm that it is possible to gain a pitch memory through
training (something my piano teacher had told me years earlier). I did a
lot of transcription a few years ago, and could accurately pitch certain
notes (but not all). Unfortunately, it seems that you lose it if you
don't keep doing it.
--
Rohan Parkes
Melbourne
Australia
Glenn Wilson
to propose a hypothesis. I think most good jazz musicians have perfect
pitch when it comes to their instrument. My main axe is baritone sax and if
someone plays a note on the bari , I can tell you which note it is. Of
course, this is not the same as 'hearing' a pitch from a named note, but I'm
wondering if this is all one needs in the way of perfect pitch to play jazz.
If one can hear a pitch and duplicate it on their axe, isn't that more
useful than 'perfect pitch'?
Glenn--
www.jazzmaniac.com
"Abbedd4" <abb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020329154609...@mb-md.aol.com...
r1
have it. Same if you have to think hard about it and can guess right most of
the time, it's still a guess. IOW, if you're not 100% sure, immediately upon
hearing it, you don't have it. That being said, there are degrees of perfect
pitch. You may be able to tell a "B" from a "C", but not able to tell a 440
"A" from a little flat 338 "A".
"Glenn Wilson" <glenn.wil...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:R%Eq8.210$Wv2...@nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
Greg
>That being said, there are degrees of perfect
> pitch. You may be able to tell a "B" from a "C", but not able to tell a
440
> "A" from a little flat 338 "A".
>
man-made standard, there is nothing inherently "right" about it. That's why
I've always been skeptical of stories where young children, supposedly
untrained in a musical sense, hear a note and say "that's A", or whatever.
Greg
Mark Eisenman
"Ryan Conlon" <con...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Does Steve Wallace have perfect pitch (Mark's bass player), or just a
> very acute sense of tuning?
No, Steve doesn't have perfect pitch.
That fiddling you noticed is mostly a strange habit!!!
Mark
Kev
> to propose a hypothesis. I think most good jazz musicians have perfect
> pitch when it comes to their instrument. My main axe is baritone sax and if
> someone plays a note on the bari , I can tell you which note it is. Of
> course, this is not the same as 'hearing' a pitch from a named note, but I'm
> wondering if this is all one needs in the way of perfect pitch to play jazz.
> If one can hear a pitch and duplicate it on their axe, isn't that more
> useful than 'perfect pitch'?
>
> Glenn--
> www.jazzmaniac.com
>
I tend to think that the skill you describe is one very small step away from
perfect pitch, all you really need to be able to do is hear the pitches, for
lack of a better term, *absolutely*. That is, in a way that is not dependent on
timbre. I'm trying to get there myself, trying to hear apart from the sound of
the guitar. I think this other step is a little more useful in improvisation
in that it simply connects you more with what is being played around you. I
long to be able to hear literally *whatever* voicing a pianist plays and be
able to weave a melody around it on the spot, without any of the "fishing" that
I sometimes have to do now. Likewise to be able to hear an melodic idea, of any
level of complexity, and play just the right voicing to complement it is
something I strive for. I also think anyone interested in composing would
benefit from accurate pitch perception. I personally am at a wierd stage where
I can name a note from hearing it, but I couldn't tell you if an "A" being
played is good old 440 "A" or 438 or 442, if the note is heard in isolation. I
can't hear a "C" by itself and know whether it is a "proper" C or one just a
hair flat or sharp. Imperfect pitch, I guess, I don't know. I will say that it
started as good relative pitch and has only reached this other stage in the last
three years or so.
-Kevin
SomeGuyOnTheInternet
better name. As someone else in this thread mentioned, there's no such
thing as a perfect pitch. In North America, A below middle C is typically
440, but in Europe, it's typically higher. Pitching A at 440 is just an
agreed-upon convention. In Europe, tuning to 446 is common. So, which
pitch is perfect, 440, or 446? If the world suddenly decides to pitch A at
430, does that suddenly become perfect?
** The only good velocity-switch is an inaudible velocity-switch **
Paul Sanwald
<glenn.wil...@pobox.com> wrote:
>I've been reading this thread and thinking about perfect pitch and I'd like
>to propose a hypothesis. I think most good jazz musicians have perfect
>pitch when it comes to their instrument. My main axe is baritone sax and if
>someone plays a note on the bari , I can tell you which note it is. Of
>course, this is not the same as 'hearing' a pitch from a named note, but I'm
>wondering if this is all one needs in the way of perfect pitch to play jazz.
>If one can hear a pitch and duplicate it on their axe, isn't that more
>useful than 'perfect pitch'?
>
I agree 100%, although I think it would be really cool to go hear
great players on any instrument at a club and know exactly what notes
they're playing all the time. just out of curiosity glenn, can you do
the same thing for piano? in other words, hear a note on piano and
play it on bari? I play guitar, and if I hear a note played on the
guitar I know what it is, but if it's played on piano (especially an
octave outside the range of the guitar) I have a much harder time. I'm
working on it though :).
I think perfect pitch is really interesting though, and have often
wondered how many of the giants of jazz (trane, bird, etc) had it.
--paul
John Sharp
John Dankworth. John.
Glenn Wilson
news:3cab4973....@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> I agree 100%, although I think it would be really cool to go hear
> great players on any instrument at a club and know exactly what notes
> they're playing all the time.
Yeah, it would be!
>just out of curiosity glenn, can you do
> the same thing for piano? in other words, hear a note on piano and
> play it on bari?
I can hear a note on any instrument (well, maybe not any) and play it on the
bari, but I can't hear a note on another instrument and know which note it
is. I suppose it's simply a matter of transposition, but I never really
conciously worked on it. It's a whole different skill, I guess.
I play guitar, and if I hear a note played on the
> guitar I know what it is, but if it's played on piano (especially an
> octave outside the range of the guitar) I have a much harder time. I'm
> working on it though :).
>
I'm sure it will improve the longer you play. I've been honkin' on a sax
for 35 years and I still have a lot to learn!
Glenn
www.jazzmaniac.com
Glenn Wilson
with and recorded with several times Marc Copland. Marc has the most
amazing ears. When he's accompanying a soloist, it's almost uncanny how
he's right there with the soloist. Somone will play a note and almost
immediately he's on it, or even better yet, almost immediately he's voiced a
chord that matches your note exactly and also fits the changes of the tune
(or doesn't as the case may be). It's sometimes so uncanny that he's even
been criticized for it by some. One critic called it 'cutesy'.
Glenn
www.jazzmaniac.com
Richard Thurston
Mr. Copland has a new cd on the French label Sketch. A solo effort
featuring mainly original material but including a gorgeous reading of
'Love Theme from Spartacus'. Some interesting music on the label
including the Italian pianist Giovanni Mirabassi (his solo effort
Avanti from 2001 is a stunner) and the French pianist Michel Grailier
(played with Chet Baker)
Both are standouts.
Great packaging as well. Sketch is also a graphic design and book
design firm.
Richard Thurston
Kev
Payton...
Dan Adler
> Who are they past and present???
It seems to me that a more measurable skill for a jazz musician is
being able, in real-time to play any melody they hear whether by
perfect or relative pitch.
There's a cute little free program that demonstrates this here:
http://www.alfredpub.com/copycat.html
It's only one octave of major scale, but I would say that anyone who
can't complete this consistently (without looking, of course) should
spend more time on ear training.
Glenn Wilson
recognition.
Glenn
"Richard Thurston" <ric...@groverthurston.com> wrote in message
news:agbnauodmcul3lrsg...@4ax.com...
Dan Adler
> Richard - thanks for the heads-up. Marc is a great player and deserves more
> recognition.
>
> Glenn
>
> --
> www.jazzmaniac.com
Glenn,
I listened to your duets with Rory Stuart on your website - sounds
great! You guys have such great time and it sounds very
conversational.
Glenn Wilson
quartet that hasn't been released yet. Most of the music is originals by
Rory. Fantastic stuff! Of course, Rory being the perfectionist that he is,
doesn't want to release it right now. Either it will come out soon or we're
going to re-record some of it this summer.
Thanks,
Glenn
--
www.jazzmaniac.com
"Dan Adler" <d...@danadler.com> wrote in message
news:820e87.020404...@posting.google.com...
Paul Sanwald
listening to "lee's keys, please" the other day in class. nice playing
on that record! the guy who wrote the liner notes sounds like he may
have been on crack though. he says something like "rory does a maypole
dance and knows every subway in town" about one of the solos.
--paul
Glenn Wilson
whacked things , but the label messed up his notes and put them all out of
order, which further confused the issue. Alan wrote the liner notes to one
of my CDs and did a great job.
Say Hi to Rory for me.
Glenn
"Paul Sanwald" <pcsa...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:3cacd11f....@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
user2048
relative pitch = if you somehow know one pitch, then you can
determine the others. Ex. if I know a tune is being played
in F, I can tell an A by its sound relative to the tune, not
by anything special about A's in general. Or put another way:
If someone plays one pitch then another, relative pitch will
tell you that the second pitch was a minor third higher than
the first, or a fifth lower, or whatever, but it won't tell
you if the first was an A, B, or whatever.
Or turned-around: relative pitch will tell you a melody uses
the following steps of the major scale: 5 5 6 5 1 7, but it
won't tell you if the first not is an A, B, or whatever.
I think it's this skill (relative pitch) that most jazz players
use (in addition to the imitate-a-pitch-on-my-instrument skill
discussed elsewhere).
user2048
> ... if someone plays a note on the bari , I can tell
> you which note it is.
I think there's a couple of things going on here:
I can recognize particular notes when played on some instruments,
because of their timbre, I think. Like a throat Bb on clarinet,
Low Bb on sax, open C# on flute, etc. (This works for instruments
that I play.)
Besides that, I can often tell pitches by imagining how I'd play
them on my instrument. It's easiest if the horn is in my hands,
but just imagining it there and thinking about the fingering helps.
I think these must be quite common skills.
Paul Sanwald
>How come nobody has mentioned "relative pitch" in this thread?
>
because it's a thread about perfect pitch :).
>
>I think it's this skill (relative pitch) that most jazz players
>use (in addition to the imitate-a-pitch-on-my-instrument skill
>discussed elsewhere).
right, but most of what you described in this thread is something
that's (at least for me) learned and practiced. also it's something
that you can be good at in different degrees and different ways,
whereas perfect pitch is much more of a "you have it or you don't"
thing. in other words, you might be able to hear an F and sing an A,
but you might not be able to pick out an F if I plunked down 8 notes
on the piano at once, and told you one of them was an A.
it always confuses me when people say they "have" relative pitch.
everyone "has" it, but people have developed it and practiced it to
all sorts of degrees. it's sort of like saying you "have piano
skills". it doesn't tell you anything about the ability of the player.
a teacher of mine has such good relative pitch that it's virtually
indistinguishable from perfect pitch, but he claims to have worked on
it for 10 years to get to that point.
--paul
RCRJAZZ
>>How come nobody has mentioned "relative pitch" in this thread?
>>
>
I was wondering when this thread would get around to that. Music theorists no
longer speak of "perfect" pitch. According to recent writings, pitch is either
relative or absolute. Few individuals have absolute pitch. Whether they're
born with it or develop it early isn't yet clear. But the point is that they
hear notes instantly as what they are. They just name them as if they were
colors or something.
I'm coordinator of the theory program in a music department of about 200. On
the average, we get a student every two years or so who has absolute pitch.
These students still have to take our classes to improve their ear. Their ears
aren't trained yet. But, when I call on them in class to ask what key we just
sang in, they respond with something like "We were in Ab, but nearly a quarter
tone sharp." And they're always right. It's an amazing phenomenon.
Bob Rawlins
George Ziskind
I think our terms have to be tweaked and honed a bit. Here's how it is with me:
If first tumbling out of bed in the morning, I can't always sing a definitive Ab.
But If I turn on the radio and anything at all is playing, then I can make an Ab
because I can tell what key the tune on the radio is in - and t hat, for me, lets
me compute an Ab.
So - for myself, I always assume that it would be inaccurate for me to profess
having perfect pitch because of what happens when I wake up and try to do a given
note; but I consider that I do - at all times - have relative pitch.
George Ziskind
RCRJAZZ
and then he would have "perfect" pitch for the rest of the day. That makes
sense to me. I can't find absolute pitches until I've played an instrument
(I'm a woodwind doubler). Then, for the rest of the day, I translate whatever
I hear into notes on my instrument.
I suspect that when people say "perfect pitch" they have an idealized vision of
someone who can retain and transcribe without limitation. No one can do that.
Even famous stories such as the one about Mozart hearing a Mass one time and
then writing it out completely have to be within reason. Obviously the work
wasn't that complex, and four voices move in predictable ways. No human being
could listen to a movement of a symphony one time, for example, and then write
out the score.
True, there are people with incredible ears. But the important point is that
there is no such thing as "perfect pitch" (unless we mean absolute pitch).
There is a broad spectrum of abilities among musicians, pertaining to various
parameters, and ranging from merely competent to absolutely amazing.
Bob Rawlins
Michael Fitzgerald
>But the important point is that there is no such thing as "perfect pitch" (unless we mean absolute pitch).
Perfect pitch means absolute pitch. End of story.
http://www.provide.net/~bfield/whatabs.html
All this rambling on and on seems to be avoiding this simple fact.
One source for the original question -
http://www.perfectpitchlist.com/
Mike
fitz...@eclipse.net
http://www.eclipse.net/~fitzgera - Gigi Gryce book is now out!
SomeGuyOnTheInternet
>> Michael Fitzgerald <fitz...@eclipse.net> wrote:
>> Perfect pitch means absolute pitch. End of story.
That just replaces one vague definition with another vague definition.
In my opinion, the term pitch memory more accurately describes the
phenomenon.
*****************************************
*** The only good velocity-switch ***
*** is an inaudible velocity-switch ***
*****************************************
Michael Fitzgerald
(SomeGuyOnTheInternet) wrote:
>>> Perfect pitch means absolute pitch. End of story.
>
>That just replaces one vague definition with another vague definition.
The two phrases are synonymous. If you like, there's only ONE vague
definition for both of them, NOT two, as was being implied. There is
no difference between "pefect pitch" and "absolute pitch." They are
different names for the same thing. Absolute pitch is the preferred
term.
> In my opinion, the term pitch memory more accurately describes the
>phenomenon.
At least one psychologist who is researching this disagrees with you.
http://ww2.mcgill.ca/psychology/levitin/pitch.html
Pitch memory is just the more common of two abilities that fall under
the heading of absolute pitch. The less common is pitch labeling.
gomesbu...@gmail.com
> On Mon, 1 Apr 2002 14:46:44 -0700, "Marc Sabatella"
> <ma...@outsideshore.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >impossible to tell just by listening to someone sing if they had this
> >ability or not, but the ability is very rare, even among professional
> >musicians, and I have never heard that either of these singers had it.
> >
>
> I sometimes suspect it's not so rare among really great musicians,
> especially those that were really good at a very young age. chris
> potter and brad mehldau both have perfect pitch.
>
> --paul
wrong, chris potter don't have perfect pitch. I don't know about Mehldau
H Shlom
Each has perfect pitch - and - photographic memory!!
https://www.vinyl-magic.com/blog/milt-jackson-and-me#:~:text=This%20guy%20had%20the%20capacity,photographic%20memory%20and%20perfect%20pitch
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/25/magazine/christian-mcbride-godson-of-soul.html