[xavriley]

Perfect pitch for a jazz improviser is a bit like a super power. Audiation - the audio equivalent of visualisation - is a key part of jazz improv. Having absolute pitch means you don’t have work quite as hard to translate those ideas onto your instrument (it’s still work though).

I’ve studied Pat’s playing a lot and transcribed several of his solos. The “muscle memory” seems to be a huge part of his playing as he has so much great dorian material under his fingers and he knows how to connect all those ideas really well, and how to repurpose them over various other chord types. WRT perfect pitch I think that must have helped him to build all that vocabulary in the first place. I’m just wondering whether he retained the ability after the op and how he related to it in his playing.

Coda - “absolute pitch” is a biological phenomenon. People recognise a C as easily as we recognise the colour red. “True pitch” is a variation where people play an instrument for so long that they can remember the sound of a pitch on that instrument. It’s a slower, less reliable process. Many people get the two confused

[yesenadam]

Yeah, I'm surprised people without it manage so well! not having it really seems to me like seeing a colour and having no idea what colour it is, very strange.

> Having absolute pitch means you don’t have work quite as hard to translate those ideas onto your instrument (it’s still work though).

I'm puzzled by this though. I play piano (mainly). I don't have 'ideas' then 'translate' them onto my instrument. I hear something (in my head) and play it, as one. It's like breathing. Nothing like 'work', let alone hard work. Also, for me, to hear music, notes and chords, I just know what the notes and chords are as I hear them (most of the time, unless they're super-super-weird chords, or it's very fast or something), like I dont hear a chord and work out that its say C7#11, I just hear a C7#11 chord. And see it being played on a keyboard in my mind's eye.