I was speaking to somebody yesterday who played in a youth orchestra back in the days, and the topic of perfect pitch came up.  He said that once they were to join up with a German youth orchestra to play some pieces they had both rehearsed. However, for some reason, the tuning-fork to which the german orchestra were orienting themselves was something of the order of seven hertz lower than what his one was using (I don't know why; neither did he).  They ended up using the other orchestra's "A", but he said that many people (including himself) got quite unpleasant headaches, and several players had to get up and leave during the practice.

I had that gesture made at me many times, George. It seems a fairly usual thing to do for unaccompanied pieces. Maybe because it prepares the listener for the (probably) subtler dynamics of a capella singing - or perhaps, since pianissimo choir singing is the most beautiful musical sound ever (I'm sticking by this, folks), the use of a human tuning-fork psychologically makes the moment even that little bit more special. ?

When I was a boy chorister, we had just such a human tuning fork in the choir.  The fact that the boy concerned was, shall we say, of anti-social tendencies and unencumbered with any sort of work ethic, was neither here nor there; he had perfect pitch, and was therefore tolerated, even feted.  An important lesson for future professional life, I now realise.

...and let's not forget the "human pitchfork for cosmic beauty..."

OK, following on from my mention of absolute pitch in the Christmas presents thread, here's my problem.

For as long as I can remember I've had a mostly good pitch memory - by which I mean that if I heard a note or chord live or on radio/disc etc I would be able to give it a name and notate it accurately; testing it against a piano would confirm my answer. This required no effort - it was analagous to someone asking 'what colour is that'. Sometimes recorded music would fox me (usually in the cinema, where playback speed is slightly different in the UK to Europe or the States - I seem to recall), but I NEVER had any problems getting my bearings in the concert hall. I think I mentioned above listening-in-the-car problem too.)

Things have changed recently. Firstly, working a lot with choirs, I found that after an a capella warmup ending on a chord, I would be a semitone out when I put the chord down on the piano. Recently, I have been bothered by the same semitone discrepancy in live concerts and listening to CDs.

Is this just anno domini? Or is it a peculiarity of connection between my cochlea and my auditory cortex? And could it be a consequence of taking anti-depressants? Difficult to remember when I first started getting the pitch symptoms but the SSRIs have been part of life, on and off, for about three and a half years.

Anyone experienced anything similar?

A cellist friend of mine has also experienced the effect of her normally 'absolute' pitch sometimes being out by a semitone; maybe it does indeed happen with age but she's not of any particularly advanced age (27 if you must know).

I on the other hand used to be able to nail a few notes quite reliably and a few others most of the time; again, there I'm often a semitone out with keys and notes I used to get pretty regularly.

Oh well. What's going to happen with playing music at a'=430 I wonder?