4 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2017–2025score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN points to it as the standard explanation of why perfect pitch is a childhood window, in threads about absolute pitch training.
Rick Beato argues that adults cannot develop true perfect pitch, which he ties to critical-period brain plasticity and language acquisition. He says it can only be developed in young children, and discusses the research behind this.
“This video convinced me that adults cannot develop or train perfect pitch.” (HN, 2023)
Perfect Pitch is 30% more likely in societies with tonal language. Kids who are exposed to complicated music at an early age also have a higher chance of having perfect pitch. Here's the best video[0] on Perfect Pitch I've seen. It starts at 4:25 because he spends the first four minutes responding to indignant youtube commenters. Then he digs into the science. [0]: [this video]
Best video on perfect pitch; digs into the science after four minutes.
This isn't quite right; the University of Chicago study replicates what has already been known for a long time - that musicians can develop their pitch memory around the timbral context clues of a particular instrument. However, this learned pitch does not generalize to other instruments and/or common everyday sounds (train horns, washing machine vibrations) in the way that people with absolute pitch can instantly identify. An analogy to this might be that a colorblind person if shown enough fabric and told what the colors were can eventually associate the texture of the fabric with a given color and can learn to do this translating in their head, but they will not be able to train their eyes to see color no matter how much practice takes place. Rick Beato covers the subject rather well in his video "Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch" [this video] If it were the case that such a substantial number of amateur test subjects could develop absolute pitch from doing a few exercises, we would expect to see commensurate numbers of musicians who spend thousands of hours playing music to also develop this skill, but this is not and has never been the case.
Covers why trained pitch memory is not absolute pitch.
Rick Beato made several videos about perfect pitch, also featuring his kid who has PP and can identify entire chords. Apparently his opinion is that the key was listening to atonal music at an early age, like you say. Here's one of the more interesting videos: [this video]
One of the more interesting Beato videos on perfect pitch.
(Disclosure/Disclaimer: I don't have perfect pitch nor do I aspire to acquire it. I am, however, fascinated that some people do have perfect pitch.) Rick Beato provides a lot of (too much) context before explaining "Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch". [0] (Timecode link to Beato's point.) Beato's video was featured on MetaFilter a couple of months ago. [1] [0] [this video] [1] [link]
Rick Beato's take on adults not being able to develop perfect pitch - [this video] I must say though, watching videos of his kid demonstrate perfect pitch is quite astounding!
In another video Rick Beato said he facilitated development of his son's perfect pitch by exposing him to a lot of complex music in early age. [this video] His hypothesis, based on some studies, is that children in ealy age have ability for perfect pitch but later loose it, if it's not utilized. The same way as young children are able to percieve any phoneme of any language, but later loose this ability and only recognise phonemes of the language spoken in the family (that's a known scientific fact). [link]
Beato's hypothesis that young children can acquire perfect pitch.
Rick Beato has done a lot of videos on perfect pitch. His son has perfect pitch, but he does not. How Children Develop Perfect Pitch - [link] Perfect Pitch vs Relative Pitch: Which Is More Important? - [link] Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch - [this video]
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