Being able to recognise a pitch without an external reference is called absolute pitch, commonly referred to as perfect pitch. This is a rare trait. Studies show around one in ten thousand people have perfect pitch however many never discover they have it.
This video is absolutely fascinating.https://youtu.be/Pkx64H0F9Rk
Is Perfect Pitch Genetic?
Research at the University of California in San Diego found that while many may be born with it, discovering the gift is likely more the result of nurture than nature. In a December 2001 article in Discover, Psychologist Diana Deutsch noted that “Everyone has an implicit form of perfect pitch, even though we aren't all able to put a label to notes. It's as if people suffer from a kind of anomia: They can recognize the note but can't label it. What's learned as a child is the ability to label." Many people who have perfect pitch have had music lessons before the age of six. After six, the odds of discovering perfect pitch decrease significantly.”
According to a study conducted by University of California professor Diana Deutsch, genes play a large role in obtaining perfect, or absolute, pitch. Past research identified early exposure to musical training as a factor that contributes to the development of perfect pitch. This has been particularly true for speakers of tonal languages, like Mandarin, who have traditionally been far more likely to develop a trained ear after early and extensive music lessons than speakers of non-tonal languages, like English.
In order to explore the idea, the researchers conducted a study involving 27 English speaking adults, all of whom had been exposed to musical training before the age of six; however, only seven out of 27 had perfect pitch. They tested all 27 of the subjects’ memory abilities using a technique known as digital span, which measures how many digits a person can remember and immediately recall in the correct order. In the test, the digits are presented in two ways: visually and auditorily. The visual test presents the digits on a computer screen and the auditory test sounds off the digits through a set of headphones.
Deutsch’s digit span test showed that the seven subjects with perfect pitch outperformed all other subjects in the audio portion. But in the visual test, the two groups displayed the similar aptitudes. What does this mean, you ask? Deutsch and Dooley point out that auditory digit span has previously been identified as a genetic component, drawing the conclusion that memory abilities passed on through genes could explain why only some of the children exposed to musical training actually develop a gift for identifying tones.
“Our finding therefore shows that perfect pitch is associated with an unusually large memory span for speech sounds,” said Deutsch in a statement released by ASA, “which in turn could facilitate the development of associations between pitches and their spoken languages early in life.”
Our analysis: Budding piano prodigies take note, because thousands of hours of practice might not be enough. You may also need those pesky memory genes to obtain the flawless intonation we all seek.
There are some interesting blogs I’ve found. Living with Perfect Pitch
This one by composer LJ Rich https://ljrich.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/living-with-perfect-pitch-what-its-really-like/
There is a long forum post on ABRSM started by a string player trying to play with an out of tune piano where the string player “untunes” and then can’t play an untuned instrument. http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=30518
This list is debatable in many ways as perfect pitch sometimes gets muddled with tuning for those not in the know.
Perfect pitch is more common in the special needs community, particularly among people with Williams Syndrome and individuals with other “midline defects.” Science is yet to understand why this is the case. Most — if not all — prodigious musical savants have a high degree of perfect pitch. Interesting.
Henry Kupferstein and Susan Rancher have written a book Perfect Pitch in the key of Autism. Autistic people and musical individuals often have perfect pitch, a gift they were born with. The musical gift may be accompanied with learning differences such as reading comprehension problems, trouble with mathematics, and significant difficulties in learning how to read music. This book was written by a music therapist and an autistic researcher, and is endorsed by leading experts in the field of autism and special-needs education. The Rancer Method addresses perfect pitch, giftedness, autism and sensory issues in music education.from the back cover "By focusing on the abilities rather than the deficits of people with learning, perceptual, motor, and other differences, Kupferstein and Rancer have developed a revolutionary piano pedagogy that will empower individuals with autism and other differences by unleashing the power of what can be done."
Recently a man came to check out a choir rehearsal- this man introducted himself and advised that he had a perfect ear.
Here’s what happened:
After warmups we moved onto a song being learnt without music I Believe I can Fly in the key of F major.
The next song we moved to was “Down By the Riverside” arranged by Moses Hogan in A Flat major with music. We had only started working on this peice the week before so got part way through.
The Man with the Perfect Ear openly addressed the choir questioning the key that we were singing in suggesting I was playing in F major rather than D flat major. I was playing from the same score in A Flat major.
During the break, midway through rehearsal, The Man with the Perfect Ear approached our Musical Director and I, concerned that something wasn’t right, the key we were working on that piece wasn’t correct, the piano was out half a semi tone.
Being a community choir we rehearse in a church hall. There is no air conditioning in the venue and we get ranges of temperature in the year from -3 or -4 to late 20 degrees Celcius- and humidity ranging from 70-97%. Being a string instrument there will of course be movements in tuning with the piano- that’s to be expected. Me more than anyone is aware of that, but A440 is close enough for me and I have certainly played on worse pianos locally.
The Man with the Perfect Ear was convinced the tuning was out significantly- asking me to play notes, he got quite frustrated during this process, blaming the piano’s tuning.
After some other questions he decided that he couldn’t sing with our choir.
This must have been very frustrating for him.
Having played for choirs off and on for 30 years, I’ve not had an experience like this one. It led me to thinking how do those with perfect pitch find making music a pleasure, what kind of instruments do they take up, how do they strategise and cope with this "thing" that they have that most of us don’t?
I do hope he finds an outlet for his musical creativity and can enjoy it.
Me - I’ll continue to play on that out of tune piano on Monday’s at rehearsal!
Karen
Sources
http://www.creativitypost.com/arts/do_you_have_perfect_pitch
http://mentalfloss.com/article/25552/quick-10-10-people-perfect-pitch
http://www.abrsm.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=30518
https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Pitch-Key-Autism-Educators/dp/1532001428
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2706961/
