Andrys Basten:

>That sense of discovery where you yourself are involved in the creation
>(even if it be somewhat hideous relative to one's ideals) is just hard to
>beat, though I think it's equalled by the intensity of those who listen
>openly.

I would just like to thank Andrys for this remark.  I read it in a
very blue moment - I don't have perfect pitch, my relative pitch is
...  relative, my musical education is lacking, I had read several very
knowledgeable posts both on this list and a French list over the past week,
I had just massacred Liszt's "Consolation" (one seeks consolation where one
can ;-) on my piano and I was beginning to think that the world of music
was excluding me ... Then, hey, presto! ...

I am an intense listener, not at all of the thumbs-up-thumbs-down,
analytical type, rather of the shot-through variety.  Although I am capable
of attempts at analysis, my 'absolute' listening is pure joy even when
sorrowful.  Andrys allows me to hope that the world of music (musique
savante) will make room for the likes of me after all ...

>Most of all, it's making music with other people and hearing the existence
>of released and sounded notes in the air, in a sort of 3- dimensional sense
>that is very different from just listening to an imagined sound-stage of
>people playing the piece and you realize that no matter how often you play
>this recording they will play it in exactly the same way (though that can
>be wonderful too).

Another touch of blue - I don't make music with other people - but would
it be a similar "3-dimensional sense" which makes me sometimes prefer a
performance to a recording even when the second is superior to the first?
I certainly place myself in the three dimensions, the spatial, when I
listen to a recording - not through superior technical devices, but
automatically, through my sensorial imagination, I think ...

>[Perfect pitch] Conductors will use it to hear new scores in their
>heads with absolute certainty -- while you can do it with relative pitch
>to whatever extent you do, the certainty is the thing.
>
>I like being able to look at a score and know right away how the piece
>sounds.

Composers also undoubtedly.  Does this mean I need no longer sorrow so
because Martinu never heard a performance of his second Cello Concerto,
or because many of Langgaard and Merikanto's compositions were sadly
set aside during their life-times? Does perfect pitch include perfect
(orchestral) textures and colours? Could Beethoven have been musically
happier if, outside himself, he had perfectly heard his ninth symphony -
or Faure (I think so) his second piano quintet, for example?

Candid questions but questions nonetheless ...

Regards,

Christine Labroche