Peter and the Ambulance

Here's one to file into the "curses of the perfect pitch people" file. My parents gave me the gift of perfect pitch when I was a little baby by playing nonstop classical music as I slept. I've yet to flesh this out to a full-fledged talent, but I still often get hit by these unsolicited gems -- I hear something, and the pitches remind me of something else.

For example, somewhere in this past decade, I started hearing Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" whenever I heard an ambulance siren, and I wondered why. I then realized -- oh -- it's the exact pitch contour of the bird theme -- the flute solo!

Say what? Here, let me demonstrate.

We'll start with that flute solo, here ...

 

Okay -- got that? This bird them starts somewhere in the middle -- goes up to a high Ab, and then drops down to a lower G, goes back up to Ab, and back down to G.

And now are you ready for this? Once you hear it, it might destroy your commute home. 

Compare with this typical ambulance siren...

Heh heh heh! Aren't you glad you heard this?

BTW -- some of you with perfect pitch may say, "Wait, Mel. This ambulance sound is actually a half step lower than the flute thing." And that would be correct -- the ambulance siren in that recording goes up to a high G and back down to a lower F#. 

But keep in mind that when you first hear an ambulance, the Doppler Shift is going to push the pitch higher -- bringing it back up to being between high Ab and low G. When the ambulance passes, the pitch will then drop to something lower (like Gb to F), but the ear worm damage will have already been done.

So, there you go. Now when you're driving home and you hear an ambulance, you can think of little birds. You're welcome!