7/28/2023 0 Comments Reading musical notea![]() ![]() Last month at the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Columbus, Ohio, Deutsch reported a study that suggests we all have the potential to acquire absolute pitch - and that speakers of tone languages use it every day. Music psychologist Diana Deutsch at the University of California in San Diego is the leading voice. And their work may finally settle a decades-old debate about whether absolute pitch depends on melodious genes - or early music lessons. Some researchers even claim that we could all develop the skill, regardless of our musical talent. ‘Absolute pitch is not an all or nothing feature,’ says Marvin, a music theorist at the University of Rochester in New York state. ![]() But a growing number of studies, from speech experiments to brain scans, are now suggesting that a knack for absolute pitch may be far more common, and more varied, than previously thought. Some estimates suggest that maybe fewer than 1 in 2,000 people possess it. Useful, but much less mysterious.įor centuries, absolute pitch has been thought of as the preserve of the musical elite. They may easily recognise two notes as being a certain number of tones apart, but could name the higher note as an E only if they are told the lower one is a C, for example. Hearing and naming the pitch go hand in hand.īy contrast, most musicians follow not the notes, but the relationship between them. That’s because they perceive the position of a note in the musical stave - its pitch - as clearly as the fact that they heard it. Musicians with perfect pitch - or, as many researchers prefer to call it, absolute pitch - can often play pieces by ear, and many can transcribe music brilliantly. The uncanny, if sometimes distracting, ability to name a solitary note out of the blue, without any other notes for reference, is a prized musical talent - and a scientific mystery. Is perfect pitch a rare talent possessed solely by the likes of Beethoven? Kathryn Brown discusses this much sought-after musical ability. ![]()
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