People with absolute pitch can identify any tone instantly. They don’t need a reference note or a tuning fork. Composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are believed to have had this special gift. Yet researchers still don’t fully understand why some people have this talent and others don’t—or whether absolute pitch can actually be trained.
When it comes to entrance exams at music schools, applicants with absolute pitch have a clear advantage. Only about 0.1 to 1 percent of the population possesses this ability, though the proportion may be higher among musicians. But does that mean they are necessarily more talented? Or can absolute pitch also have drawbacks? Ébano Resende de Souza of the Acoustics Research Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) observed during his time as a music teacher that people with absolute pitch often present specificities related to musical enjoyment. At the OeAW, he is now exploring this phenomenon in the framework of a Seal of Excellence project. In this interview, he explains what lies behind it.
How did you become interested in this research topic?
Ébano Resende de Souza: Absolute pitch is still something of a mystery. Even people who work with music often can’t explain it in scientific terms. Many think of it as a kind of superpower, a talent that some people are simply born with, while others are not. All of these ideas made me want to take a closer look.
Absolute Pitch vs. Relative Pitch
How is this phenomenon defined scientifically?
Resende de Souza: A standard definition of absolute pitch is the ability to identify the pitch of a tone precisely without any external reference. With colors, we don’t need any external comparison. I don’t need to see red nearby to recognize blue. With tones, it’s more complicated. Most of us have relative pitch, meaning we can identify or reproduce a note only in relation to a reference tone. What we’re really using is the interval between the reference and the target tone.
Do people with absolute pitch recognize notes regardless of the instrument being played?
Resende de Souza: There are musicians and composers for whom that’s true. But in research, we’re especially interested in absolute pitch with limitations, often referred to as non-global absolute
pitch. These are individuals who have absolute pitch only in specific contexts. For example, someone might recognize notes accurately only on the violin or the piano, but not on other instruments. Others may be precise only in higher frequency ranges, or they might be able to identify seven notes but not all twelve. These particularities and limitations help us better understand what absolute pitch actually is and how it functions in the brain.
In recent years, neuroscience has advanced. When we listen to music, almost the entire brain becomes active. Still, there are clear distinctions: with relative pitch, regions in the right hemisphere show stronger activation, whereas with absolute pitch, regions in both hemispheres are involved. We can also observe structural differences in brain anatomy when comparing absolute and relative pitch.
Innate or learned?
Can absolute pitch be learned?
Resende de Souza: In the literature, there is an ongoing debate about whether people are born with absolute pitch or whether it can be acquired. A more recent and increasingly accepted view lies
somewhere in between: some individuals have a genetic predisposition that becomes activated during a critical phase in early musical training. At a young age, this process is much like learning a second language. Adults, on the other hand, find it much harder to master a language without an accent.
What advantages come with absolute pitch?
Resende de Souza: One benefit is being able to compose without an instrument at hand. If you hear a song, you can later write it down because it’s easy to remember the correct key. But there aren’t only advantages. Relative pitch is essential for creativity and emotional expression, both of which are central to composing. People who rely solely on absolute pitch often struggle, for example, to improvise with others. They may identify every note with mathematical precision, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can truly feel the music. In some cases, instead of experiencing an emotional response, they simply recognize and label the tones. This can even take away some of the joy of music. That’s why it’s important for them to understand the limitations of this ability and to train their relative pitch as well, so their musical sensitivity doesn’t suffer.
Should music schools rethink their approach?
Resende de Souza: With our research, we hope to spark a conversation in music education about how to deal with absolute pitch in music schools and conservatories. Students with absolute pitch
often have a significant advantage at the beginning of their studies, since specific tasks come more easily to them—they can hear a melody and write it down immediately. But it’s just as important to train emotional perception of music, to encourage improvisation, and to strengthen the ability to recognize harmonic functions. Absolute and relative pitch can both be present—or absent—in the same individual, opening up a wide range of ways to hear and perceive sound. This broad spectrum needs to be explored and taken into account in teaching.
Project page at the Acoustics Research Institute
Ébano Resende de Souza