Perfect Pitch

[Evoniuk, Gary E]

>I have several recordings where the tunings for a certain numbers are a
quarter-step flat or sharp of our standard today. Usually these are
old-timey recordings originally on 78rpm records, sometimes in major studios
like RCA, but sometimes on small labels, recorded maybe in a hotel room with
a portable machine, where the artist may or may not have had any reference
to tune to. --Dave Nereson, RPT 
Or where there was a discrepancy in the speed of recording/reproducing
equipment.  An old-style recorder running at 76 rpm (instead of 78) would
push the pitch of the final product sharp by close to 50 cents (if I have
got my math right).

I agree that much of the perfect pitch phenomenon is aural memory.  A few
very fine instrumentalists and conductors have what I would call very *fine*
pitch memory and can hear the difference between 442 and 440 without an
external reference (thinking of Pierre Boulez, some of the principal oboes
in US orchestras).  For every one of them, there are probably hundreds of
BS-artists who claim they can hear the difference.  I don't claim to be in
either camp, but this very second I can remember quite well what pitch my
A-fork sounds (just don't ask me to sing it, as I am a lousy singer).  

Gary Evoniuk
Durham, NC