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I’m not the world’s best singer, despite being in multiple choirs during my student days (I’m not the best dancer either, but that hasn’t ever stopped me from busting out ‘the moves’).

Despite my questionable musical talent, I’ve always loved the feeling of ‘oneness’ that singing in unison brings, and, as an alto, I love trying to fathom out which notes I should be singing to harmonise with the angelic-sounding sopranos.

You see, I never learnt to read music — I’ve always worked out what I should be singing ‘by ear’. By listening very carefully to all the other parts of the choir, I was able to (at least most of the time) ‘find’ the correct pitch.

I had a particularly good friend in the choir. I used to like standing next to her because as well as having a beautiful voice, she seemed so confident in always ‘finding’ the correct note.

‘I have perfect pitch’, she told me one day.

Already distinctly aware of my lack of musical training, I nodded, jerking my head in a way that I hoped would convince her that I knew exactly what she was talking about.

The reality was, I didn’t: how could ‘pitch’ be perfect’? And how does one achieve this nirvana-like state anyway? Or is it some kind of gift, bestowed only to the lucky few?

The physics behind ‘pitch’

Pitch, a term used in music to describe the highness or lowness of a sound, can also be described by the frequencyof a sound wave.

Sound waves are longitudinal, which means that they travel in the same direction as their vibrations. The frequency of a wave is the number of oscillations per second. The higher the number of oscillations per second, the higher the frequency of the sound wave, and the higher the pitch.

‘Perfect pitch’ is ‘absolute pitch’

The other name for ‘perfect pitch’ is ‘absolute pitch’. I find this term more helpful since it inherently distinguishes ‘absolute’ pitch from ‘relative pitch’.

If you play a musical note, a person with perfect pitch would be able to name that note without any other notes being played as a reference. A person with perfect pitch might even be able to sing the note on command. Those with inherent perfect pitch might also be able to name the pitch of non-musical instruments, such as the whirring hum of an air conditioner!

Sounds like a superpower to me.

On the other end of the spectrum, ‘relative pitch’ is where a reference tone, for example, provided by a pitch pipe, is used to help ‘find’ the correct note. Musicians who don’t possess inherent ‘perfect pitch’ can train themselves to use ‘relative pitch’ so effectively that it lends many of the same benefits of perfect pitch.

Can perfect pitch be learned?

True ‘absolute pitch’ is rare, occurring in fewer than in 1 in 10,000 of the population. There has been interest in a possible genetic component of perfect pitch, as there seems to be a pattern of inheritance in families.

Environment and culture may also play a role, with the occurrence of perfect pitch found to be more common in those who speak tonal languages, such as Mandarin.

It has often been assumed that adults are unable to ‘learn’ perfect pitch, as it was thought to be something that must be learnt very early on in childhood. Although, in 2015, researchers published evidence that it is possible to teach adults ‘perfect pitch’ (at least to a certain extent), and found that their ability to be trained is dependent on their auditory working memory.

Our auditory working memory enables us to perform tasks based on auditory information that we’ve heard — for example, following a set of instructions received verbally.

Perhaps there is hope for me after all? Maybe I too can learn to identify musical notes without a reference.

Probably won’t help with my actual singing voice though.

That’s a shame.