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Babies might be born with
‘perfect pitch’, according to latest
researches. Some studies on babies suggest
that we are all born with the ability but
lose it as we get older. Scientists play
babies a sequence of tones followed by
segments from the sequence. Some of the
segments, however, differ in absolute pitch
from the original tones. The rationale is
that if the segments are perceived as novel,
the babies will attend to them, whereas if
they are recognized as familiar the babies
will be bored with them. Babies responded by
attending to changes in absolute pitch,
whereas adult subjects did not.
The ear can be sure
trained with practice, exercises and ear
training courses. It seems clear that a
training in early childhood and musical
education contribute to the development of
pitch responsiveness. Even among well
trained musicians and members of the same
environment there are differences in the
sense of pitch. It is not wrong to say that
some of us has better ears than others.
Based on the data
gathered from the surveys and the auditory
tests, it is found that most individuals
with perfect pitch began formal musical
training before age 6. This data supports
the hypothesis that early musical training
may be needed for the development of perfect
pitch. However, early musical training alone
is not adequate for one to develop perfect
pitch, as most individuals with musical
training begun before age 6 did not report
that they possessed perfect pitch. It is
also observed that perfect pitch aggregates
in families, indicating a role of genetic
basis in the development of perfect pitch.
Indeed it is found that a sibling with early
musical training of a perfect pitch owner is
as much as 15 times more likely to possess
perfect pitch than is another individual
with early musical training but with no
family past of perfect pitch.
The people who has
perfect pitch roughly seems to fall into two
categories. One group consists of people who
have just always had the ability. Most of
them started playing musical instruments
while very young. They hear a pitch and just
know what the note is. The other group
consists of people who have consciously
obtained the ability after the childhood
having a musical education on ear training.
They usually identify a pitch by using
reference pitches in their head (maybe an
open string on a guitar).
When they hear a pitch, they compare it to
the reference pitch, can see what the
interval between these two pitches is, and
figure out the pitch that they heard from
that. Some people with perfect pitch can
even say a pitch which does not exist on a
standard guitar fretboard. A guitar
fretboard is divided into certain distances
(pitches) with frets. To get this pitches
you need a fretless guitar.
You can imagine how fantastic to have
perfect pitch for a musician and you can
understand why there are lots of ear
training sofwares, books and videos all
around.
The fact is that perfect
pitch can be gained with deliberate
learning, even by older individuals, but not
without considerable time and effort. The
reason why perfect pitch usually appears
early life rather than later may simply be
that children are more likely to acquire the
skill at an age when their attention is
directed to single sounds, instead of being
captured by the combinations of sounds that
form songs and musical phrases. Although
characteristics of perfect pitch differ from
one person to other, genetic basis of
perfect pitch can not be ignored.
Less than one person in
every 10000 has perfect pitch.
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