Quote:
Originally Posted by rllink
It seems that the common belief is that for some reason being blessed with perfect pitch curses that person with pain if they hear a pitch that isn't perfect. Why would it be anymore painful to hear a note out of tune for that person then for the rest of us? I can certainly hear notes that might not be in tune, depending on context, it doesn't cause me pain. Can't most of us hear a klinker? And out of tune in relation to what? Jazz players purposely play discordant notes. Is it impossible for persons with perfect pitch to listen to Jazz? Just thinking about it.
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Not at all.
What you mean by "discordant" notes are notes that have an unusual relationship with other pitches. That's a relative pitch issue, not a perfect pitch one. A Db against a C7 (e.g.) might sound too dissonant (unpleasantly so) for someone not used to jazz harmony, but someone with perfect pitch would not be bothered provided all the notes were in tune with the pitches they know. (They might also be bothered by the relative pitch issue if they weren't jazz fans, but that's different.)
What might bother the person with perfect pitch (and not the person without) would be when a performance or recording is not in tune with concert. E.g., if all the instruments were in tune with each other (so it sounds good to most people) but happened to be tuned to a reference other than 440. Again, the person with PP could certainly tell that the performance was flat or sharp of the usual reference pitches (the ones stored in their head), but they might not be
bothered by that. It would just be an observation they could make, which no one else could.
But it might well bother them if it was a version of a piece they knew very well in the right "concert" key. Then it would sound distinctly "wrong" to them if it was just a little lower or higher. And of course even more wrong if the whole thing had been transposed, by a semitone or more, e.g., to suit a different singer.
It's a fact that some singers with perfect pitch hate singing in unaccompanied choirs, because choirs as a whole can drift flat or sharp from an initial reference pitch. They can still all be in perfect harmony with each other, but every note they sing is either flat or sharp of the A=440 equivalent. To the person with PP this is just totally "wrong" - but to their ears only. They would be attempting to stick to their "correct" reference pitch (the specific notes they know are right), so would be sounding out of tune with everyone else. To them, of course, it's everyone else that is "off key"!
Of course, some with perfect pitch are able to tolerate this by just parking their PP skill in the back of their mind - but they need to have good relative pitch to over-ride the PP instinct.