subject: Perfect Pitch In The Brain [print this page] The ability of people to instantly identify the pitch of a note without using any guide is referred to as perfect pitch. They are also able to reproduce this notes (via song or instrument) without the use of guides. Some people believe that this ability is very uncommon.
It is estimated that about one in ten thousand people posses this unique ability. Because of this many people have grown to believe that the ability can only be passed through genes. This is not entirely true. Even though there might be some transfer of personality data between genes, there is no reason to believe that this skill cannot be learnt.
There is a simple reason behind this. Many people are able to easily discern colors even in the most convoluted of scenes. They are able to pick out the individual smells of herbs in meals that are being cooked. If all this is possible with the use of other senses, what is stopping the development of perfect pitch training.
This is perhaps one of the most important bridges to cross in the path to attaining perfect pitchSelf belief. A lack of personal confidence will only increase the odds of people failing. Personal belief is an important ally in perfect pitch training and without it, just like every venture in life, not very much can be gained.
An important factor that supports the notion of perfect pitch training is the discovered relation between perfect pitch and the brain. This relationship encourages the currently held view that perfect pitch can actually be learnt.
For instance, in a research conducted in Australia involving 30 healthy professional musicians11 of whom had perfect pitchit was discovered that a region in the left side of the brain was much larger than those without perfect pitch. This increase was sometimes found to be almost twice in value. This proves that some mental effort is required for the use of this ability.The success of perfect pitch does not lie with genes but with the use of the brain.
Another valued point to note is that almost every musician with the ability of perfect pitch receive some form of training or interaction with music during their earlier years. Many argue that it is this exposure that improved their ability to identify notes and tones without the use of references . With continued research, it is believed that many of the perfect pitch training methods currently in use today will only get better.
