[LAU] Developing perfect pitch

[Charles Henry]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 2:26 PM, ailo <ailo.at at gmail.com> wrote:
> Another note on the subject:
> Some people who have had absolute pitch all their lives may find that
> when they get older their sence of pitch gets out of tune. I know this
> happened to guys like Alexander Glazunov (Russian composer) and
> Sviatoslav Richter (Russian pianist). How fun would that be?

There's some explanation for that effect.  When aging, the basilar
membrane stiffens, which shifts the location where resonance occurs.

Now, there's also the ongoing debate over place vs. rate theories of
pitch, where only the place theory would allow this explanation.