@gailcalled
You’re not kidding. When I was teaching in Bklyn. I began playing the Autoharp and it was a brand new one (necessitating frequent retuning until the strings settled in).
One of the other teachers used to help me out and, I’m not exaggerating, she could fully tune an Autoharp (all 36 strings) on a small echoing concrete play yard full of kids playing noisily, yelling, shouting etc. without even a pitch pipe.
Needless to say, she was an Oberlin grad.
That was the first time i had witnessed the amazing skill of perfect pitch and it was pretty impressive indeed. It’s a gift one is either born with or not.
Even tho I was in school choir, band and orchestra and could carry a tune really well, the best I’ve been able to manage is relative pitch. Without a reference point, I’m totally out to sea :)
It was all I could do to tune that damn thing in the absolute silence of a totally empty classroom with a full circular pitchpipe :)