Clem Onojeghuo
The Making of A Musical Prodigy?
A psychologist attempted to teach children perfect pitch. What can we all learn from it?
Some are simply gifted
I am a fierce proponent of the notion that most people can learn most things. Including skills others would tell me are mostly innate — like being a confident leader, outgoing, great at performing before large crowds. I remember heated discussions with friends. Some have it, some don’t. Their view. Some learned it, some didn’t. My view.
Still, some peculiar skills are clearly innate, right? You either got lucky and have them, or you don’t.
One of these is perfect pitch or absolute pitch.
Absolute/Perfect Pitch
“rare auditory phenomenon characterized by the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.” (Wikipedia)
“the ability to recognize or sing a given isolated note — called also perfect pitch” (Merriam-Webster)
“The ability to recognize the pitch of a note or produce any given note;” (Oxford Dictionaries)
It’s often portrayed as a prime example of an innate skill; people either have it or they don’t. Those who do are described as gifted…
