Originally published in David Ellefson YT channel · January 2010
Jordan Rudess interview
InterviewJordan Rudess1 min read
David Ellefson: One of my favorite Jordan Rudess stories is you came in and played at the booth here; you performed. And [there] was either a guitar tuned down or a keyboard was tuned to a different pitch – and you have perfect pitch – and it was driving you crazy. You’re like, “I can’t play.” I’m like, “But can’t you just move it down?” and you’re like, “I can’t play!” because of perfect pitch, so how do you work with that?
Jordan Rudess: The perfect pitch thing is funny – I often tell John Petrucci, “I could never do what you do,” because he goes and picks up different guitars and they’re all different tunings. I pick up a guitar and if it’s not tuned to E, I’m completely confused, because I play a little bit of guitar and when I go to a fret, I’m expecting—
DE: So you don’t do drop tunings then?
JR: I mean you can take the keyboard and transpose it and I can kind of do it, but it’s a whole like weird...
DE: HC act.
JR: Yeah. Sometimes I think relative pitch is a little bit more friendly. The perfect thing is good for certain things, for sure.
DE: Well that’s cool. Not very many people have perfect pitch in this world.
JR: It’s a blessing and a curse. [laughs] Go for a relative pitch!