View other
comments. |
Date: 01:18:11 A.M., May 17, 2001 Name: Jordan Cohen Email address: jordancohen@students.wisc.edu Comments: So, you really have perfect pitch? Most of my friends insist that they would rather have excellent relative pitch than perfect pitch, although it must come in handy sometimes. Except when the piano is out of tune. You bastard. I'm still an unabashed Doors fan, though I only own 'In Concert' (which has great sound and performances imo). My old band even recorded a decent arrangement of Not to Touch the Earth (probably their most 'metal' song). The reunion thing on VH1 was freakin' hilarious however, though it showed that Scott Weiland can pull off a surprisingly convincing Morrison. |
Date: 04:07:09 A.M., May 18, 2001 Name: Phil Email address: phil-at-masstransfer-dot-net Comments: Yep, it's true. My sister has it too; we actually participated in a perfect pitch study together, sent in cheek scrapings for genetic analysis, the whole nine yards. In some ways it's just a parlor trick; scads of great musicians (the majority?) have gotten along just fine without it. But I won't lie -- it can be really useful, especially when doing transcriptions, learning parts by ear, or composing in your head. As for the piano-out-of-tune: people always say that ;-), but it actually isn't the case. I actually grew up with an out-of-tune piano, and partly in consequence I can "adjust" my pitch benchmark to compensate for A not being 440 Hz. (Listening to bootlegs with tape speed problems has also helped!) Or do you mean a piano that's out of tune with itself? That doesn't bother me overmuch; at times I'm actually more partial to oddities of intonation that a lot of musicians I know. It's more of a relative pitch issue anyway, and I don't have any "genetic" advantage in that department. The one thing I can't do very well is tuning down -- either by lowering all the strings on my instrument, or by using the transposition function on a synthesizer. I can handle a half-step, but only barely; more than that and I'm lost. It'd be like trying to go through a flowershop and name the colors of all the flowers, but using the word "blue" for orange, "purple" for yellow, and so forth. I may or may not have heard "In Concert" -- is it the same as Absolutely Live? I think so, and I have that on vinyl. I actually wasn't able to get into it, but I need to give it a few extra spins. I'm definitely still an unabashed Doors fan, my criticisms aside. I didn't see the reunion; was it incompetent, or just overblown? |
Date: 06:57:35 A.M., May 18, 2001 Name: Jordan Cohen Email address: jordancohen@students.wisc.edu Comments: I meant a piano that's out of tune with itself...I've heard stories of Keith Jarrett and other 'perfect-pitchers' not being able to deal with the small discrepancies. Anyway, must be covenient at times...so you can, for example, hear a 5 note chord and identifyout the notes pretty easily? I believe Absolutely Live makes up part of In Concert, but I've only heard IC. The reunion was hilarious...Ray and Densmore being pretty pretentious about the whole thing, and they brought in singers from The Cult, Days of the New (or some such band, who did a horrible rote version of The End), Scott Weiland (who was great), and Creed (who can't hit his notes and was arrogant as hell). They had assorted guest bass players, tabla players etc...good for an hour of entertainment. Too bad they didn't air Perry Farrell's guest slot, that could have actually been interesting. |
Date: 05:52:54 A.M., May 24, 2001 Name: Phil Email address: phil-at-masstransfer-dot-net Comments: 5-note chord: yep, pretty much, though difficult timbres and tone clusters can slow me down. Doors reunion: Creed. Yikes. |