I used to listen to the same roughly five thousand songs, and friends were amazed that I could recognize some of the MP3s by the duration of silence before it began.
Yeah or the acoustics of the recording. I used to be able to guestimate who was the pianist for a given recording and I'm pretty sure acoustics factored in as much as the actual pianism
Teacher: Have you ever learnt Villa-Lobos étude #1? (Reaches for his guitar)
Me: this thing? (I play one note, very possibly a semitone off as it’s a reach past 12th fret on the D string)
Teacher: (with his back to me) No, that’s #4
Me: (wtf!)