Perfect Pitch

Psalm 40:3

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

                Okay, I know what some of you are thinking, so I’ll get it out of the way first. One definition of having perfect pitch is having the ability to throw an accordion into a dumpster without hitting the sides so that it lands on a pile of banjos!

                There are many legitimate definitions of perfect pitch. I have been told I have perfect pitch. It was discovered when I was in junior high when people found out I could tell what key a song was being played in or could tell the name of a note that was played on a piano. This made me popular at parties: “Hey, what note am I singing?” and that sort of thing. Disclaimer: that does not mean I can tell if a note is perfectly in tune. It also does not mean I am incapable of enjoying music that is not played or sung perfectly in tune. I can certainly enjoy a “joyful noise.”

If you can picture twelve buckets representing the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, I can identify which bucket the note belongs in when I hear it, but I could not tell you how far in the center of the bucket it is.

There has probably been only one drawback to my having perfect pitch, or whatever it is I have: I once owned a piano that was a half-step out of tune. I had no problem playing it if I was reading music, but if I tried to play by ear I found it impossible because the note I was trying to play was not the same note I was hearing.

                Just as God has a standard, there is a musical standard that has been adopted in our culture. The note A above middle C is tuned to 440 Hz (hertz, or cycles per second), which is the standard that was informally adopted by the American music industry in 1926 and made official in 1936 by the American Standards Association, whatever that is. Europe outside of Great Britain uses a different standard, but we won’t go there (we obviously can’t fellowship with someone who has a different standard in tuning).

                So where’s the spiritual lesson in this?

I want to talk about the subject of sympathetic vibration and apply it in a spiritual sense. If you had two tuning forks and struck one, it would cause the other to vibrate. If you depressed the damper pedal on a piano and played a note on a different instrument, it would cause the corresponding string on the piano to vibrate. This also works with guitar stings or probably any stringed instrument. But this will happen only if the two are in tune with each other, if they are tuned to the A=440 hz standard. In our fellowship together, we saints can create the same effect. We can cause each other to “vibrate” in unison to one another. This is one important reason we are not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together. A card or a word of encouragement can cause a sympathetic vibration. A song or a testimony in church can cause a sympathetic vibration.

                An orchestra or group of players must tune themselves to each other before they can play beautifully together. Around the church you’ll notice the musicians tuning themselves to the piano, which has been tuned to the A=440 hz standard.

                If we are tuned to God’s standard, to God’s perfect pitch, we can have sweet fellowship and make sweet music together. If we refuse to be tuned we are simply making a lot of noise.