Absolute pitch shift

Absolute pitch (AP) enables its possessors to identify musical notes and keys by qualities of tone height and tone chroma. With advancing age, an unknown proportion of AP possessors perceives changes in these qualities, usually described as in the sharp direction and to the extent of a semitone or tone. The phenomenon is identified here as absolute pitch shift (APS). Using a cellphone-based tone generator, the writer conducted an N = 1 examination of the APS in his central musical range. The shift was greater at the centre of the range than at its extremes, causing him to perceive incoming tones as 1 to 4 semitones sharper than his recall of them in the A = 440 cps (concert pitch range). The report focusses on the comparative flatness of his AP memories of the tones, expressed with greater precision in cycles per second than by the names commonly given to their physical versions. The altered pitch perceptions are considered due to changes at the basilar membrane level in older individuals, and are labelled here as basilar AP. The internal pitch template’s role in memorising tone frequencies in the inner ear is labelled cortical AP. Implications are considered for further studies of AP and APS latency.