Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.[1][2] AP may be demonstrated using linguistic labelling ("naming" a note), associating mental imagery with the note, or sensorimotor responses. For example, an AP possessor can accurately reproduce a heard tone on a musical instrument without "hunting" for the correct pitch.[3][4][5]
About
The frequency of AP in the general population is not known. A proportion of 1 in 10,000 is widely reported, but not supported by evidence;[6] a 2019 review indicated a prevalence of at least 4% amongst music students.[7]
Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of these abilities, achieved without a reference tone:[8]
- Identify by name individual pitches played on various instruments.
- Name the key of a given piece of tonal music.
- Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other tonal mass.
- Name the pitches of common everyday sounds such as car horns and alarms.
Absolute pitch is distinct from relative pitch. While the ability to name specific pitches can be used to infer intervals, relative pitch identifies an interval directly by its sound. Absolute pitch may complement relative pitch in musical listening and practice, but it may also influence its development.[9]
Adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in a way that superficially resembles absolute pitch.[10] Some people have been able to develop accurate pitch identification in adulthood through training.[11]
Scientific studies
History of study and terminologies
Scientific studies of absolute pitch commenced in the 19th century, focusing on the phenomenon of musical pitch and methods of measuring it.[12] It would have been difficult for the notion of absolute pitch to have formed earlier because pitch references were not consistent. For example, the note known as 'A' varied in different local or national musical traditions between what is considered as G sharp and B flat before the standardisation of the late 19th century. While the term absolute pitch, or absolute ear, was in use by the late 19th century by both British[13] and German researchers,[14] its application was not universal; other terms such as musical ear,[12] absolute tone consciousness,[15] or positive pitch[16] referred to the same ability. The skill is not exclusively musical.
Difference in cognition, not elementary sensation
Physically and functionally, the auditory system of an absolute listener evidently does not differ from that of a non-absolute listener.
Influence by music experience
Evidence suggests that absolute pitch sense is influenced by cultural exposure to music, especially in the familiarization of the
Linguistics
Absolute pitch is more common among speakers of
African level-tone languages—such as Yoruba,[35] with three pitch levels, and Mambila,[36] with four—may be better suited to study the role of absolute pitch in speech than the pitch and contour tone languages of East Asia.
Speakers of European languages make subconscious use of an absolute pitch memory when speaking.[37]
Perception
Absolute pitch is the ability to perceive pitch class and to mentally categorize sounds according to perceived pitch class.[38] A pitch class is the set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart. While the boundaries of musical pitch categories vary among human cultures, the recognition of octave relationships is a natural characteristic of the mammalian auditory system.[39][40][41][42][43][44] Accordingly, absolute pitch is not the ability to estimate a pitch value from the dimension of pitch-evoking frequency (30–5000 Hz),[19] but to identify a pitch class category within the dimension of pitch class (e.g., C-C♯-D ... B-C).
An absolute listener's sense of hearing is typically no keener than that of a non-absolute ("normal") listener.[45] Absolute pitch does not depend upon a refined ability to perceive and discriminate gradations of sound frequencies,[46] but upon detecting and categorizing a subjective perceptual quality typically referred to as "chroma".[47][clarification needed] The two tasks— of identification (recognizing and naming a pitch) and discrimination (detecting changes or differences in rate of vibration)— are accomplished with different brain mechanisms.[48]
Special populations
The prevalence of absolute pitch is higher among those who are blind from birth as a result of optic nerve hypoplasia.
Absolute pitch is considerably more common among those whose early childhood was spent in East Asia.[49][50][51][52] This might seem to be a genetic difference;[53] however, people of East Asian ancestry who are reared in North America are significantly less likely to develop absolute pitch than those raised in East Asia,[52] so the difference is more probably explained by experience. The language that is spoken may be an important factor; many East Asians speak tonal languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, while others (such as those in Japan and certain provinces of Korea) speak pitch-accent languages, and the prevalence of absolute pitch may be partly explained by exposure to pitches together with meaningful musical labels very early in life.[50][51][52][54]
Absolute pitch ability has higher prevalence among those with
Nature vs. nurture
Absolute pitch might be achievable by any human being during a
One or more genetic loci could affect absolute pitch ability, a predisposition for learning the ability or signal the likelihood of its spontaneous occurrence.[23][25][24]
Researchers have been trying to teach absolute pitch ability in laboratory settings for more than a century,[69] and various commercial absolute-pitch training courses have been offered to the public since the early 1900s.[70] In 2013, experimenters reported that adult men who took the antiseizure drug valproate (VPA) "learned to identify pitch significantly better than those taking placebo—evidence that VPA facilitated critical-period learning in the adult human brain".[71] However, no adult has ever been documented to have acquired absolute listening ability,[72] because all adults who have been formally tested after AP training have failed to demonstrate "an unqualified level of accuracy... comparable to that of AP possessors".[73]
While very few people have the ability to name a pitch with no external reference, pitch memory can be activated by repeated exposure.[74] People who are not skilled singers will often sing popular songs in the correct key,[75] and can usually recognize when TV themes have been shifted into the wrong key.[76] Members of the Venda culture in South Africa also sing familiar children's songs in the key in which the songs were learned.[77]
This phenomenon is apparently unrelated to musical training. The skill may be associated more closely with vocal production. Violin students learning the Suzuki method are required to memorize each composition in a fixed key and play it from memory on their instrument, but they are not required to sing. When tested, these students did not succeed in singing the memorized Suzuki songs in the original, fixed key.[78]
Possible problems
Musicians with absolute perception may experience difficulties which do not exist for other musicians. Because absolute listeners are capable of recognizing that a musical composition has been transposed from its original key, or that a pitch is being produced at a nonstandard frequency (either sharp or flat), a musician with absolute pitch may become confused upon perceiving tones believed to be "wrong" or hearing a piece of music "in the wrong key". The relative pitch of the notes may be in tune to each other, but out of tune to the standard pitch or pitches the musician is familiar with or perceives as correct. This can especially apply to Baroque music, as many Baroque orchestras tune to A = 415 Hz as opposed to 440 Hz (i.e. roughly one standard semitone lower than the ISO standard for concert A),[56] while other recordings of Baroque pieces (especially those of French Baroque music) are performed at 392 Hz. Historically, tuning forks for concert A used on keyboard instruments (which ensembles tune to when present), have varied widely in frequency, often between 415 Hz to 456.7 Hz.[79]
Variances in the sizes of intervals for different keys and the method of tuning instruments also can affect musicians in their perception of correct pitch, especially with music synthesized digitally using alternative tunings (e.g. unequal
Synesthesia
Absolute pitch shows a genetic overlap with music-related and non-music-related synesthesia/ideasthesia.[25] They may associate certain notes or keys with different colors, enabling them to tell what any note or key is. In this study, about 20% of people with absolute pitch are also synesthetes.
Correlations
There is evidence of a higher rate of absolute pitch in the
Correlation with musical talent
Absolute pitch is not a prerequisite for skilled musical performance or composition. However, there is evidence that musicians with absolute pitch tend to perform better on musical transcription tasks (controlling for age of onset and amount of musical training) compared to those without absolute pitch.[84] It was previously argued that musicians with absolute pitch perform worse than those without absolute pitch on recognition of musical intervals;[85] however, experiments on which this conclusion was based contained an artifact and, when this artifact was removed, absolute pitch possessors were found to perform better than nonpossessors on recognition of musical intervals.[86]
See also
References
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External links
- Comprehensive historical bibliography of absolute pitch research, 1876–present
- Another bibliography of absolute pitch, with +300 papers