Absolute Pitch: Is It Acquirable?

Absolute pitch, known as “perfect pitch,” is the ability to identify notes by hearing it without any point of reference. According to the Journal of Acoustical Society of America, this ability is considered rare, estimated to be less than one in 10,000 individuals. People with perfect pitch will naturally associate a noise with a note. It is an automatic process performed by their brain. As soon as a sound is heard, the person will associate the corresponding note with it.

Some people believe you can only have a “true” perfect pitch by being born with it. According to Brady (1970), Ward and Burns (1999) and Levitin and Rogers (2005), “Training that begins after the age of nine very rarely leads to [perfect pitch], and there are no known cases of an adult successfully acquiring it.” Most scientists agree that if you don’t use the skill, you lose it. Music instruction in kids ages 4 to 6 is the key to preserving absolute pitch, the kind of musical gift that allow some adults to hear a note and immediately identify it as the right tone.

But there is also evidence that you can develop perfect pitch without having a mystical, innate ability. A study carried out a few years ago at the University of Chicago tested a group of students with varying amounts of musical experience, before and after a period of pitch recognition training. The students showed significant improvement after the training, and those tested a few months later had retained the ability to recreate the notes, without any reference. So, with the correct training, adults can learn to have perfect pitch by practicing a lot.

Scientists who support the acquired perfect pitch theory say that it is more developed in some countries. People’s native languages influence learning perfect pitch. For example, tonal languages such as Thai or Vietnamese would facilitate the acquisition of perfect pitch. These are languages in which the same sound can define several different terms. The words are differentiated by a different tone. Being born into a family with musical background would also be a factor in the development of perfect pitch.

Absolute Pitch and Relative Pitch are two different things. Unlike Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch is the ability to discern note pitch and accuracy using a comparison point. Relative Pitch requires musical knowledge by using interval recognition skills. For example, from G, some people will need to hum several notes to get into D. Even though those two pitches are dissimilar in process, but they do share the same role for defining music tones.

References:
https://www.musical-u.com/learn/whats-the-difference-between-relative-pitch-and-perfect-pitch/#
https://www.3d-varius.com/what-is-perfect-pitch/
https://www.everydayhealth.com/healthy-living/why-are-some-people-tone-deaf.aspx
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/music-theory/what-is-perfect-pitch-which-singers/