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4/20/99 I have perfect pitch. For you non-music-nerds out there, perfect pitch is a sort of parlor trick, coveted by all musicians who don't have it. We have the ability to identify notes by ear. I discovered this little phenomenon when I was in high school, I guess, though I'd been doing it for years and never thought about it. When my mother played notes on the piano, I could name them without looking at the keys she touched. At the time, I thought everyone could do that. It's not always a good thing. Sometimes it gets in the way--when I'm listening to a live performance, occasionally my mind drifts from the music and I see the letters of the notes hovering. When I'm hearing the notes, I can't hear the music. Musicians with perfect pitch become frustrated when confronted with transposing instruments, like the saxophone and trumpet, to name only two. A trumpet is pitched in Bb. Imagine playing a C and hearing a Bb, and knowing that you're playing the wrong note. The right note? Wait a second.... Others ask, "How? How? How??" All of us have different ideas and manifestations...much the way psychics see/hear/know those spooky things they know in many different ways. Some of us see different colors for each sounding pitch. Some feel various body parts vibrating to certain pitches. I've been asked many times, and I've finally pinpointed exactly what it is that identifies a pitch in my head. I feel tones in my mouth. (Probably just another symptom of my oral fixation.) I hear the pitch, and I feel what it would be like to chew the note, to roll it around in my mouth. To swallow it. Some notes are crisp, some bitter. Others are dry and chalky. Some ring high in my sinuses and some sting beneath my tongue. You think I'm weird. I can tell. --- So anyway. Tonight I was playing through the piano accompaniment for Horovitz euphonium concerto. I've performed this piece (on euphonium) half a dozen times over the past six years. That's months of work I've put in, and I never tried to play the accompaniment before. It fucking rocks. The chords are big, juicy, gushy jazz chords, ooh, I sounded like McCoy Tyner on downers. So I've analyzed the Horovitz, I analyzed the Constantinides, I've chosen pieces by Guilmant, Telemann, and Brahmstedt and figured out why they'd be good for students at different levels. I wish I had just one more day. I don't deserve one more day. But I'd like it anyway.
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