An Excellent Ear.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 40, 8 March 1884, Page 4

An Excellent Ear.

This lady sat in the distant corner of the room with her back to the piano, while a performer took his station at the instrument. In the first place, in order to produce a confusion of tone and deprive the lady of any pitch which she might be carrying in her mind as a basis of reckoning, the experimenter drew his thumb quickly up and down the key board two or three times, with the dampers raised from the strings. When the noise had subsided he struck a a single note at random; when the lady promptly declared it was " E flat," which was correct. Alter she had been thorughly tested on single tones, without a single mistake, the pianist went through a series of complicated modulations, and when he tested and inquired, "In what key is this chord?" the response came quickly, "G." Although lacking the technical knowledge of harmony, and unable to tell every chord by name, she would mention the component tones ; as once, being asked, " What chord is this?" she replied, "I don't know the name of it, but the notes are C sharp, E, G, and B flat," which was correct.