(no subject)

When little, I once declared that my mom had "the wrong tune" for a lullaby. I corrected her by singing the same tune in a different key. That was the first hint that I had absolute or "perfect" pitch, rather in contrast to my tone-deaf grandmother.

By eighth grade, I had one friend with absolute pitch and another with relative pitch. The latter mentioned that our hearing eventually changes, throwing off those with absolute pitch. I didn't research his claim, but I took his word for it.

I did not know when in life I could expect it to happen.

I've been dreading the loss from time to time in the last year, when I found myself making an increasing number of mistakes in note identification. I reassured myself by noting that (1) I was out of practice, (2) some of the music was vocal, and (3) some was on a piano that hadn't been tuned in a while.

My dread hit a new high when I borrowed an electric keyboard and heard everything about a half-step sharp. I borrowed a my-dog-has-fleas pitch pipe and found the same thing. As a final test, I got out a somewhat old video game and found the music to clash with my memory of it. F major is not my all-time favorite key after all: E major is my new favorite.

You readers who never had absolute pitch may be hard pressed to sympathize with my loss, but if I'm not careful, my gift will have become a liability. I could try to ignore my memories and retrain myself for note recognition, but that's especially hard for someone who also has synesthetic associations with each note. It'll require constant second-guessing. Maybe I should consider my pitch merely relative.

The silver lining: I'm hearing old tones in a new key. In some cases, I might like them better this way.