So why does Beethoven occupy the centrepiece in Western Musical tradition? Glenn Gould answers that his music most deeply exemplifies the central tension within all arts, between imitation or structure and invention or free-form expression. (Gould in 4 minutes of intro before Sonata No. 17 “The Tempest”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPDBcdDGrnE)

And adding Beethoven’s great summa, the Ninth Symphony and how he heroically faced his tragic disability down in silent triumph (ABOVE) would seem to prove it. Or else be the personal and biographical synecdoche to his musical corpus.

Gould is onto something. But in another lecture (See YouTube), somewhere, Gould also says another valid and specific point which elevates him above all other masters of great music.

Gould points out that in Mozart, as in Bach, we hear the inner working logic of a piece. It has an arithmetic or metrical direction and goes there. We can practically foresee it!

And Beethoven is often similar. Yet different — but how? Gould explains, again, that Beethoven is different and trickier than Bach or Mozart, arriving at a different, creative, more inventive musical resolution. And it is that expressive elevation that makes him Beethoven, our musical Michelangelo or Shakespeare.

Gould is right, I think. Beethoven shows us that it is possible to excel the received forms, to go beyond them. And that is why these culture hero’s are worth comparison to God (or the gods, if you prefer). Greatness points this way forward.

We receive the highest possible tie or exalted connection to genius in the arts through them. Therefore we treasure them, celebrate them, and honour and remember them.

Rufus T. Firefly:

I experienced similar chagrin when someone pointed out that Alan Alda copped much of his Hawkeye shtick in “MASH” from Groucho.

Rufus T. Firefly:

Likewise. It was also true to Stokowski — the hair, the intensity and the open-handed conducting. Stokowski performed in Disney’s “Fantasia” btw.

–‘Legends’ – Leopold Stokowski – A Great 20th Century Maestro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C79uZBPfC5w

A different world, where children watching cartoons could be exposed to a great conductor and maybe go on to explore further.

I’m embarrassed to say that the only recent conductor I can think of is Sir Neville Marriner and he died in 2016.

It’s amazing how long conductors tend to live. Stokowski made it to 95 and Marriner to 92.

I think you meant, “Rufus,” rather than huxley, above, (but if you’re mad at the person debating you, I’d prefer you think I’m huxley 🙂 ) I think we have to agree to disagree. I do think pitch matters in voice recognition. And my point regarding voices is that most of us humans are fairly good at recognizing a voice and a lot more goes into that than recognizing a note, or chord. You could hear a recording of a woman whose vocal range matches the exact pitch of your mother’s, yet you would almost certainly know it was not your mother’s voice. To me, that’s even more impressive than recognizing notes from an instrument that is fairly static. If we agree most people can recognize distinct voices, even when they have the same pitch (making the pitch irrelevant), then that must mean we humans are generally very good at aural differentiation*.

I’ve heard it many times, “perfect pitch is rare,” but that just doesn’t seem to reflect the world around us. You wrote a post recently about trios, and harmonies. How did they do that? Pitch. Hearing and manipulating pitch. And those groups of sisters taught themselves to do it from hanging out together, and goofing around. If I played a recording of your mother’s voice with the pitch altered a step above or below, you would instantly recognize it. “That’s my mother, but her voice wat not that high/low.” I think the fact that you might not know exactly how many “steps**” is simply a reflection of a lack of practice and familiarity with terminology. And if my experiment is correct, then that means your ear is able to recognize much more than “perfect” pitch. It’s recognizing the unique timbre of your mother’s voice, breathiness, whether she speaks more, or less through her nose, where she’s placing her tongue on certain consonants…

*On a few occasions I’ve been able to do something that I’ll bet others here have also done. About 10 times in my life I have heard a song I had not heard before, and guessed the instrumentalist based on their tone. The unique signature they produce from their instrument. Hand Dizzie Gillespie and Miles Davis the same trumpet and have them play the same score and there will be a difference in the sound; even if they play the same pitch of notes at the same pace and tempo.

**A man-made construct. Unlike guitars and pianos, sitars are tuned to quartertones. Fretless string instruments (like your cello) and slide brass instruments have an infinite number of tones between notes.

*** (OK, I didn’t have a third asterisk above, but I just thought of something else and I’m sure people are beyond tired of me pounding on this topic.) Back to my original point about Beethoven, and this is exhibited in that clip Beato showed from “Amadeus.” Folks like Mozart and Beethoven are so great at hearing, reading, writing and thinking music they can hear dozens of notes and timbres and tones and vibratos simultaneously in the same, single beat of music. Not only that, but they can read it, or write it. When Beethoven got to the 14th measure of the 1st movement of his 8th opus he knew what he wanted that to sound like and knew what the first, and second and third flute would have to do along with an oboe, and a handful of trumpets, and a timpani… And if you showed what he had written in that measure to Mozart, Mozart would hear it precisely as written in his head. Mozart could write a measure of music in multiple parts for multiple instruments, and without it ever being played, hand it to Beethoven who would know what it would sound like when it is eventually played!! That’s my point about learning to read phonetically. That’s the level of which some people hear music in their brains and read and write. So even with Beethoven losing his hearing he didn’t lose that ability. The ability to read, write and “think” musically. Just as losing the ability to speak the spoken word would not eliminate one’s ability to read the written word.

Not to go on and on about it (and perhaps I already have) – yes, I was using the term “perfect pitch” in its technical sense, and contrasting it with memory pitch and/or relative pitch. And I still think you are confusing perfect (absolute) pitch and relative pitch, at least somewhat. The point is not whether people are musically educated and can name the chord or even the notes perfectly, it’s that they can distinguish the notes in a chord immediately and can be consistent about naming them (they can call each note by whatever idiosyncratic name they want, as long as their system of naming is internally consistent). They actually can hear this instantaneously without any training at all, even with chords.

But comparisons with speech or even voice quality/identity just seem irrelevant to me. Everyone (or practically everyone) who can hear can recognize voices quite well. And each one is different. We don’t recognize voices as a category of things, like a note. We hear the same note and can identify it as such on whatever instrument it’s played. The voice is like the instrument, not the note. Each person speaks in varying pitches; it’s not by pitch that we recognize a voice.

That is one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons. And, that is saying a lot, as there are many Bugs Bunny cartoons I really appreciate.

I’ve always thought one could tell a lot about a person of a certain age by asking who they enjoy more; Bugs or Mickey.

In an embarrassing side note, I did not discover until a few years ago that Bugs was modeled on Groucho Marx. I am a huge fan of both, and the instant I heard it, I realized it was true (the walk, the carrot/cigar, the eyebrows…), but I can’t believe I did not make the association on my own!

OK, so I’ve read the wikipedia entry you linked. (One funny thing I discovered in reference to that; the fifth bullet point… Several decades ago there was an alarm sounding and I wondered to myself, “Self, I wonder if I could guess what note that is?” I thought of a chromatic scale in my head and when I got to F sharp I stopped, as it appeared to match. I walked over to a keyboard. Sure enough, F#!*)

I won’t debate the definitions of “absolute pitch,” or “perfect pitch,” (I cede that ground to you and your argument) and I think this is where we may have been passing each other, asynchronous communication-wise. It seems you are referencing definitions of those, specific terms. And, that’s fair enough. You never claimed otherwise, and words do have meanings. I am writing of a general phenomenon; regardless of terminology. For example, that Wikipedia entry states identifying notes, keys and chords as essential to claiming the ability. So, yeah, I imagine it is rare, because how many people study keys and chords and notes with enough familiarity to reference them casually? As I wrote earlier, I cannot really guess chords. I can get the main note of the entire chord, but I can’t guess the other notes that make it up**. Or, to go back to my Jaw’s theme analogy; the majority of people who would recognize that it is played in the identical key as the movie theme would not know that key is referred to as, “A Minor.” To bring it around to the visual arts; I am rather ignorant of architectural terminology, but that doesn’t mean I am unable to recognize similar structures. I’m not 100% sure I know what a tudor style home is (but I know it’s a “thing”), but I’m 100% sure that if you have 100 photos of various home styles and two and only two are Tudors, I’ll successfully match them.

But regarding the perfect recognition of sounds (whether one knows what it’s called in written music, or not)… I’ve been thinking about this a lot today, and it seems almost foolish to think most humans would not be naturally good at this. A baby who cannot recognize her mother’s face AND/OR voice is in trouble. It’s also good to know what dad and grandma and grandpa and sis and brother’s voices sound like. We know fetuses respond to their parents’ voices while in utero. How do they know it’s mom or dad, and not someone else? They can distinguish pitch. Really well. Of course we humans would typically be very good at that. It is a matter of life and death. There is a sudden catastrophe and dozens of voices are shouting. Which one is my mother and what is she telling me to do?

When Dana Carvey impersonates Johnny Carson how do 80%, 90% of the audience instantly know what he is doing? They have a memory of Johnny Carson’s voice in their minds and the instant they hear Carvey’s spot on impersonation their minds say, “Johnny Carson.” Not, Johnny Carson, but in a different key, or different octave. They know he is spot on Johnny Carson’s actual voice sound, range, intonation, vibrato. It’s much more than even identifying just the pitch of Carson’s voice. Carvey gets it all correct; the pitch AND the pace and pauses and intonations and word choices… It’s ten times more difficult than just the pitch, and a lot of people can do it. And even a lot more of us are capable of recognizing it the instant one of those talented people is doing it.

I think the music world makes a big deal out of the terms, “absolute pitch,” or “perfect pitch” as a test of the ability, coupled with one’s knowledge of music theory, but the actual ability to hear and recognize similar sounds is not rare in the human species.

*The Chinese-made oven my family owned the longest plays a particular melody when the timer is up. When we first got the oven I mimicked the sound when I heard it, and it became a thing my kids and I would do whenever we’d hear that alarm melody. I am confident, right now, I could call any of my kids and mention the oven song and they would instantly sing it back to me, spot on. We humans do stuff like this all the time. One of my kids could probably name the notes (he has studied music formally), and likely guess the key accurately, but the others would still be just as accurate in their aural reproduction. So I guess they would not fit the technical definitions of absolute or perfect pitch, but their brains would be doing the same thing the one who did learn the music theory is doing.

**Although this is improving as I study and learn more about chords. I can often now tell if I need a major, minor, seventh, diminished… And am getting better at knowing what the root should be, but I still cannot “hear” variations. I just have to try different variations until I find one I like. I often can’t even distinguish much among the variations.

When I took up viola in fifth grade, partly to please him, he put the kibosh on my practice at home because he said my playing might damage his perfect pitch.
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Here’s Bugs Bunny in a parody of Leopold Stokowski:

–“Bugs Bunny… ‘Leopold!'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt1V61SPI_w

You may indeed have perfect pitch.

Good musicianship doesn’t necessarily go with it.

Also, virtually all studies on perfect pitch say it is quite rare, and that most people who think they have perfect (otherwise known as “absolute”) pitch actually have good pitch memory and good relative pitch.

I think some of what we are discussing is getting lost in translation, and would likely take a long time to sort out in the delayed, back and forth of the asynchronous method of commenting on a weblog. So, I’ll stop droning on regarding the subject, but for two points.

1. I still think Beato has it wrong. I agree with your point that one loses some musical reproduction ability in time through deafness, as your example of the speech of folks who go deaf as adults becoming more intelligible over the years. If Beethoven had mastered a brass, reed or woodwind instrument that, unlike piano, takes continual auditory feedback to produce a clear tone, it is almost certain his playing would suffer over time. And of course, even with piano, where (if the tuner has done his or her job) Mr. Beethoven will be in tune no matter the profoundness of his deafness; his sensitivity to dynamics would likely diminish. This seems to be reinforced by the video I linked where Ms. Harvey’s speech is a bit muddled, but her singing and (of course) ukulele sound just fine.

2. Perfect pitch. I do not think this is as rare as people claim. First, yes, as I read the notes left to right I reproduce them exactly in my brain. Not in some random key. In the key the song is written. I have always been able to recognize precise notes, and I am not anywhere near as talented a natural musician as many, many, many folks in the world. And I also know people who are “tone deaf.” Play two notes on a piano, even an octave apart, and they cannot tell you which is higher or lower. Their singing voices are gosh awful. There is almost certainly a spectrum among humans with complete tone deafness on the left and absolutely perfect pitch on the right. If we break that line into tenths from right to left; my guess is I am in the top 30% – 40% of the range of the skill. My musical gifts are rather pedestrian, but I have always been able to hear a song, walk over to a piano, or stringed instrument, or the few brass instruments whose technique I’ve mastered, or harmonica, and reproduce the melody in the exact key I heard it. I may have to hunt a bit. I may not know what fret on what string produces which sound, or which valve on the horn, but when I hit the note I’m looking for I know it. Because it matches the sound in my brain. Which also matches the sound I heard in the original. And many, many, many people can do this. Hum a note. Any note. And ask someone to reproduce it on a keyboard. Folks who don’t play keyboard will hunt and peck a bit, but they’ll know when they hit the appropriate key. Think of the first note of the “Jaws” theme. Most all of us here have the exact same note in our head. Play us a random note on a cello and we’ll be able to tell you if you’ve bowed the “Jaws note,” or not. I think you’re saying most folks would know if you play the first four or so repetitions of those two famous notes in any key, as long as you have the right interval between notes, they’ll recognize it, which is true. But play it in a series of keys and when you play it in A minor most folks would also recognize that is the exact key of the score.

And, as you point out, people can improve on this. Some of it is natural gift, sure, but the more one messes around with music the more accurate their pitch recognition gets. You write that the more you tuned the cello, and heard the starting note, you could eventually hear it in your brain without an outside aid. Like most bands and ensembles, my band tunes to two notes; concert A and concert Bflat. While typing this, about 4 miles from my trombone, I can imagine being on stage and the pianist hitting a Bflat and hear it, right now, in my head. If I had my trombone I could tune to that memory. And I’d be right. I’ve done it many times. Look at how many children are gifted singers. What is singing other than using that “perfect pitch” trick in your head to manipulate your vocal cords, jaw, tongue… until you know you’ve duplicated the sound you just heard from the radio. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that, among other skills, great impersonators like Rich Little, John Bynam, Frank Caliendo… must also have some level of perfect pitch? How does Caliendo know he’s close to John Madden’s voice unless he can listen to Madden and hear when his version is in the same range of tone?

Now, there are people in that 10% range of the scale (Paul Shaffer is someone I’ve always admired who seems to be in the 1% range) that can do phenomenal, incredible things. (I’m just a single note guy. I can’t really recognize chords.) They couple their incredible, natural gift of pitch hearing with years of practice mastering an instrument and can do amazing, wonderful things. And some singers are not only great singers, but, when asked, can imitate styles of other singers to remarkable effect. How do they do that? They have a memory of the other singer singing a song in their mind and manipulate their vocal cords, jaw bones, tongues, nasal cavities, diaphragms… to perfectly reproduce the sound that is in their mind. Not just the pitch of the note, but the tone, the timbre, the vibrato… It takes them practice to get the imitation correct, but the sound they hear in their heads is the guide to knowing when they nail it. And some talented folks I know can step that up or down, into different keys. Tell them to play their brain’s memory of “Singin’ in the Rain,” but drop it down three steps to make it easier for a singer’s range, and folks like Shaffer can instantly do that. That’s freaking amazing to me!! They change the version their brain has memorized, the actual version from the movie, and in real time alter the key!

Some people can reproduce things visually. One of my kids is great at this, as is my wife. When I watch them it is like a magic trick. I must be in the bottom 10% of people regarding that skill. When I see someone look at another human’s face, in 3 dimensions, and they pick up a pencil, or pen, or piece of charcoal… and start making marks on 2 dimensional paper… I am dumbstruck. My brain does not do that. Some people can. Some people can to an incredible level. And most of us can improve to some level if we practice. I think “perfect pitch,” or at least “pitch recognition” is very similar. If you play a C scale to a group of 8 year olds, and say each note as you play it, every day for a month, it’s almost certain a majority of them could name any single note you play on that scale at the end of the month.

(O.K. This was still a lot of droning, but it’s a topic that has always interested me. 🙂 )