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A fun prank to play on someone with absolute pitch is to play a favorite recoding of theirs detuned by 20 cents or so. It will drive them crazy.

This same prank would have no impact on someone who memorized approximately where A440 is by listening to a tuning fork every day for 10 minutes.

Absolute pitch and tonal memory are different physical phenomena.



Yes. And btw that is what naturally happens after about age 40, together with presbyopia. So real absolute pitch people stop enjoying listening to music at some point... it is a curse, not a gift!


So we have corrective lenses for Presbyopia maybe you could have corrective 'hearing aids' for whatever phenomenon causes hearing pitch to go bad?


More difficult. Also little people affected, so not much research going there, and most important, is just a nuisance, not a problem like not being able to see.


No. I think a lot of people would notice. Especially string players.

A lot of orchestra musicians don't like listening to recordings that deviate too much from their preferred concert pitch. I don't like listening to British or American recording where a equals 440 or some old German ones at 445-446. That is less than 20 cents.


Should be called absolute bitch!




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