Absolute pitch has long been viewed as a kind of musical superpower. It refers to the ability to identify or produce a tone, like an A or a C-sharp, without any provided reference point.
Author
- Yetta Kwailing Wong
Lecturer in Psychology, University of Surrey
With only 12 possible answers, naming the pitch of a tone may seem easy. However, it is somehow incredibly difficult for most musicians , including the professionally trained ones.
Adding to this mystery, for gifted musicians and composers such as Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven, absolute pitch can feel as intuitive as recognising the colour red, reinforcing the widespread belief that absolute pitch - also referred to by many people as perfect pitch - is a rare, exceptional talent.
For decades, many scientists and musicians believed that you either had absolute pitch - or you didn't. If you are not the lucky ones who carry special genes and have started musical training during early childhood, you were thought to have missed the opportunity entirely. Our new research , however, suggests this isn't actually true.
Our research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that absolute pitch remains a learnable skill in adulthood - many adults can train their way to levels of performance comparable to individuals who naturally possess this skill in everyday life.
Intense training
To help adults progressively learn to identify tones, our research team designed an eight-week online training programme. On average, 12 musicians dedicated 21 hours and completed over 15,000 pitch naming exercises. These involved hearing a piano or guitar note (within three octaves) for 800 milliseconds and having to name it within a certain amount of time. The participants had to complete 25 hours of training online over eight weeks. The training included a total of 288 training levels, with 24 levels for each additional pitch.
The training required really hard work - participants did not only learn to name the tones accurately, but also very quickly. Over time, the difficulty ramped up as more tones were introduced, and the time allowed for response was further tightened.
We carefully avoided common pitfalls in previous studies. By including a wide range of tones, we ensured that they learned to identify the pitch class - the fundamental quality that makes a note sound like a C, D or E, regardless of whether the tone sounds high or low.
This approach truly captures the essence of absolute pitch. We eliminated feedback during testing, so participants could not rely on their working memory as a crutch. To rule out "lucky guessing," we required participants to repeatedly demonstrate their abilities with strict criteria for success.
Effort vs talent
By the end of the training, participants had made remarkable progress. On average, they could correctly identify more than seven musical notes almost every time, taking as little as one or two seconds to respond. Their ability to identify the correct notes more than doubled.
Even when they made mistakes, their responses got 43% closer to the correct answer. These impressive gains were also found for notes they hadn't been specifically trained to recognise, suggesting they were learning something deeper about pitch perception.
Notably, two participants mastered all 12 pitches with performance comparable to that of possessors of absolute pitch in the real world.
What made learning absolute pitch in adulthood possible now, given a century of unconvincing findings ? The human brain and perceptual systems are highly adaptable , and this holds well into adulthood. Through practice and feedback, adults can improve their ability to recognise and distinguish sensory inputs, such as visual patterns and speech sounds.
Our training takes advantage of this amazing potential of the human perceptual system to learn. What we have done differently from previous efforts was ultimately that we designed an effective learning experience, including the right learning materials, effective feedback and changes in difficulty for each learner - all while making it fun.
Together with motivated learners, learning absolute pitch in adulthood was made possible.
Music training and beyond
The fact that absolute pitch was previously thought to be locked behind a genetic lottery or early musical exposure has sadly discouraged countless musicians and music educators from learning or teaching it.
Our findings offer an encouraging counter-narrative - absolute pitch is not just for the lucky few. With a well-designed learning tool, it is a skill that many adults can cultivate.
More broadly, our findings demonstrate how science can challenge deep-rooted assumptions about human abilities. Instead of being fixed by biology or early experiences, many skills can still be developed and improved well into adulthood.
This shift in understanding could inspire us to adopt a growth mindset, showing that it is never too late to learn and improve, no matter what you think might hold you back.
So, if you have ever dreamed of identifying musical notes like a virtuoso, it is not too late to work on it now.
Yetta Kwailing Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
