Mozart and Beethoven are both said to have had it.听The same is said of Mariah Carey. Now a study suggests that some adults may be able to learn perfect pitch in just a few weeks of training.
Many musicians can identify notes in relation to a reference note. For instance, if they are played the note C and told it is C, they will be able to identify G. But only a few musicians have absolute pitch 鈥� also known as perfect pitch 鈥� which is the ability to identify any note without any reference note.
It鈥檚 a skill that many are envious of. 听鈥淚t is a tremendous advantage,鈥� says musician Rick Beato. People with absolute pitch can play or write down any tune they hear, or just sit down and compose music without needing an instrument.
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It鈥檚 thought that only around 1 in 10,000 people have this ability, and that if a person doesn鈥檛 learn perfect pitch before the age of around eight, they never will. However, when of the University of Chicago and his colleagues attempted to train six people in absolute pitch, two of them improved considerably.
Tone training
The training involved listening to notes, trying to identify them, and finding out if they were right. At the start of the training 鈥� which took place for four hours a week, for eight weeks 鈥� these two people scored under 40 per cent on tests of absolute pitch. By the end of the training, they were scoring 98 per cent or higher. One of them scored 100 per cent. 鈥淗e passed the strongest test we could throw at him,鈥� says Van Hedger.
But many experts are sceptical. The two volunteers who improved had childhood music lessons, notes Seung-Goo Kim of Cambridge University. 鈥淚n other words, this study shows that absolute pitch can be refined in some adults by training if they already have 鈥榣atent鈥� absolute pitch.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檝e never seen anyone who has developed perfect pitch as an adult,鈥� says Beato, . He thinks the two had absolute pitch already, without realising. 鈥淭here are a lot of people who don鈥檛 know they have perfect pitch.鈥�
Broken baroque
Psyche Loui of Wesleyan University, who studies musical perception and has absolute pitch herself, is more open to the idea that people might be able to learn absolute pitch. But she says it鈥檚 possible that the tests might be giving away clues, and testing for relative pitch instead of absolute pitch.
If it鈥檚 any consolation to those without the skill, knowing exactly what a note should sound like 鈥� and how out of tune something is 鈥� can be a bit of a curse. For example, the way instruments are tuned in different artistic periods and cultures can vary. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 listen to baroque tuning,鈥� says Loui. 鈥淚t bothers me.鈥�
Having perfect pitch isn鈥檛 a guarantee of musical excellence either. Van Hedger discovered he had perfect pitch around the age of eight, when his mother had him tested. Nevertheless, 鈥淚鈥檓 a poor musician,鈥� he says.
搁别蹿别谤别苍肠别:听听
