April 14th, 2007 pitch recognition

I found this wonderful flash applet that tests your pitch perception abilities:

http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/

The test will gradually increase the difficulty depending on how well you are doing. It gets really tricky towards the end. I took the test twice, and both times it told me I could recognize as low as 1.8 Hz difference for pitches around 500 Hz. Since 30 Hz is a semitone at this range, this means I should be able to tune instruments with no problem. Of course, instruments have harmonics and timbre that make it harder or easier, depending on the situation.

I was learning how to tune a harpsichord from my teacher last week, I found it to be considerably difficult at the higher registers. One technique I was taught was to listen for the beats and make them go away. But at higher pitches, it was difficult to tell between beats or just harmonics. On the other hand, I found it to be incredibly satisfying when I turn the hammer just the right amount and the sound just “clicks in”. I think tuning is really hard to do well. I know many musicians say they can tune, but I’ve found most of them to be highly subjective in the matter. They will say something is in tune when it is not, and will insist that it is not in tune when in fact, its pretty close. Plus, the strings you tune later on tend to be less accurate due to fatigue. While tuning is an important skill for a musician, and many can do it ok, actually being very systematic and scientific about tuning is a very difficult thing to do.