Disclaimer: English isn’t my first language, and I don’t know all the correct terms for the musical stuff I’m now going to ask about.
A friend of mine has absolute hearing – I tell him I need to sing a C, and he sings a C, which I can then sing, too, once I heard it. Then we go through the song, no problem. Now I go and have a drink, and then I want to sing the same song again, start, and am told that I’m not actually singing a C, but a D or something. I just can’t remember what a C sounds like.
The question: why can’t I remember what a C sounds like, and sing it?
I started playing piano when I was about five, and also played a little clarinet and French horn in grade school. I could never do it.
My brother did nothing but choir - and that only once he got to junior high - and can, while in a different room, tell me what note I’m playing on the piano.
I’m guessing what you might be referring to is close to “absolute pitch” or “perfect pitch.” Here’s one study on such by UC San Francisco and a news report on researchers who are studying the location in the brain responsible for absolute pitch.
Being that this is the Straight Dope, I also offer a column by Cecil on perfect pitch and some discussions in Comments on Cecil’s Columns about it (here, here, here, here and here). There’s also some discussions about it in GQ and it wouldn’t surprise me to find some in perhaps even GD or IMHO. (Again, try the terms “perfect pitch.”)
I am not knowledgeable about this myself (and most assuredly do not have perfect pitch), but it looks like there’s quite a bit stuff out there (again, try the terms “perfect pitch” or “absolute pitch” – I remember trying to learn a second language and when I’d try to search on a term and I didn’t know exactly what the term was in another language, it made searching difficult!) Good luck!
It is kinda strange but my father, a man who is generally regarded as having absolutely no other aesthetic sensibilities what so ever, has some form of perfect pitch.
He sings in his church choir and while his voice isn’t great he is frequently called on by the choir director during practice to start the other in each song do to this ability.
Neither he nor I can give any accounting for this skill, something he never practiced in his youth or even noticed until it was pointed out to him at his church. In light of that I would presume it was closer to something innate rather than a developed skill.