Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN points to it as the standard explanation of why perfect pitch is a childhood window, in threads about absolute pitch training.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 4 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2017 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec lj3 · 2017-11 · on “How I learned to write music in real time”
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]
Strong rec rendall · 2023-04 · on “Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch”
This video convinced me that adults cannot develop or train perfect pitch. "Why Adults Can't Develop Perfect Pitch" by Rick Beato [this video]
Recommends hashmap · 2023-04 · on “Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch”
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 eye
Recommends kerblang · 2023-06 · on “How My Children (N=2) Acquired 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]
Cites mistersquid · 2018-10 · on “Acquiring absolute pitch in adulthood is difficult but possible”
(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]
Cites swframe2 · 2019-08 · on “Rachmaninoff – Little Red Riding Hood [video]”
Somewhat related. Maybe you can use these videos to teach your new baby prefect pitch. Check out Rick Beato's video: [this video]
Cites grizmaldi · 2020-10 · on “Show HN: Perfect Pitch Ear Training”
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!
Cites Dowwie · 2020-10 · on “Show HN: Perfect Pitch Ear Training”
Rick Beato explains on his YouTube that a child can learn pitch perfection but it must be trained before 10 years of age [this video]