To Ear is perfect?

[sarakass <sarakass...>]

I would like to throw out to you musically whiz kids a discussion I had
w/ a guitar player last night at a gig I sat in on.....

I'm a want-to-be up-and-coming Trombonist.  I was invited to play w/ a
friends R&B band... I put on my 'klezmer' ears and heard the notes/chords
and jumped in. 

In discussion w/ the guitar player later, I explain that Klezkamp help me
to understand both how to listen and reproduce sounds (trying Ear band
for the first time in one's life will do that to ya... and trying to pick
something up from Sue Sanderling when she's at full speed ahead works as
a 'nice' trial by error.... mine was more error then anything else. ) And
it helped me understand what to listen for to play within the chords.
This was also in part due to 2 wonderful Trombone teachers, Brian Bender
and Dan Peisach. (Ok, for some of you this is probably second hand. But
for me, this was the revelation that I hoped to glean from Klezkamp.) 

The guitar players response was, "You have perfect pitch." I thought to
myself,... if only Sue could hear this guy now, she'ld be rolling on the
ground after watching me trip over my 'bone  when the trombonist joined
her trumpet class that one day. I was painfully unsuccessful greatly due
to my neophytic-ness. 

I had read an article in Discover Magazine, I believe, saying that
languages which have intonation as part of speech, such as Chinese,  have
speaker who are much more likely to have 'perfect pitch' since they've
been listening for tones all their lives. One's ear is 'naturally'
trained to tones. Thus, I figured, maybe if I worked at it, and was
sensitive to it, I could better achieve 'musical nirvana' and play better
by ear.

My response to him was that I was working on what I called note
recognition. I would sing a note and find it on my trombone and just
memorize the sound/play correlation. 

"But that's what perfect pitch is!" He said. Arguing, that since I could
tell that I was or wasn't on the note I was playing, ie I could tell if
my E was truly an E and not a bit sharp or flat, I had perfect pitch.
But, then again, that's part of playing a trombone. It's not just feeling
where your arm should be. But, also hearing it and adjusting before the
conductor reams you out. 

Ok gang, so what is the difference between 'perfect pitch' and as I'm
calling it, note recognition. (Got a better name for it?)

I understand that most historical Klez, from the old country, was handed
down father to son without any music. If this is the case, how can it not
have been 'note recognition' rather then perfect pitch. Lori Cahan-Simon
had told me of an article she'ld read basically saying that musician did
more then hear the music, they felt the music. I know when listening to
music which I could readily play, I'll feel my trombone. I should say
that this data also backs the recognition concept over perfect pitch. (
I'm far from perfect pitch.)

Thanks for your input!

SAK

ps. The guitar player's 'day job' is tuning pianos.

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+