APMUS: Is absolute (perfect) pitch a hindrance for musical ability?
Do we know what is necessary to make a musician a good performer? Which skills must they have to be considered a successful instrumentalist or singer? Among musicians, it’s an age-old desire to have so-called “perfect pitch” – the ability to name notes without an external referent – known in the scientific community as absolute pitch (AP). It is a relatively rare ability with estimates of its prevalence typically less than 0.01% of the general population. Most musicians do not have it, and yet it is viewed as a virtuoso trait: some people believe AP gives musicians a musical edge that people with just relative pitch (RP) cannot master. In the last decade, the number of studies and research about AP has increased considerably. However, a relatively small number of studies have been dedicated to non-global AP possessors (individuals who have limited AP). The novelty of this project comes from focusing the research in 3 main subgroups: a) the AP possessors who can not differentiate sharps and flats, b) the AP ability related to the timbre (ISAP) and c) the AP ability related to the frequency range (bass, mid, treble). We will test AP possessors and non-possessors on a suite of musical perception tasks in order to assess the incidence of these subgroups, the difference between global and non-global possessors in the task realizations and the extent to which RP has developed in each subpopulation. The way possessors relate to music and code pitch are central to our understanding of music language and have clarified the extent and limits humans approach music, how we categorize acoustic stimuli, how the brain plasticity adapts to different ways of hearing and the impact it has in the music culture and the traditional music education. Because of its central role in this process, understanding the way possessors subgroups develop their skills can greatly enhance our understanding of AP ability itself and the differences and similarities of human hearing.
