Research Reports Suggesting that Absolute Pitch (Perfect Pitch) Ability Can Be Learned

Here are presented summaries of some research reports that suggest that absolute pitch ability can be learned and improved through practice (note that "perfect pitch" is usually called by researchers "absolute pitch"). I have also made a few comments about the methods the researchers used and how these practice methods may be applied in EarTest.

• "Absolute Pitch as a Learned Phenomenon Evidence Consistent with the Hick-Hyman Law" by Jasba Simpson and David Huron, in Music Perception, Winter 1994, Vol. 12, No. 2, 267-70.

• "Training the Absolute Identification of Pitch," by Lola L. Cuddy, in Perception and Psychophysics, 1970, Vol. 8 (5A), 265-269.

• "Fixed-Scale Mechanism of Absolute Pitch," by Paul T. Brady, in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1970, Vol. 40, 883-887.

• "Practice Effects in the Absolute Judgment of Pitch," by Lola L. Cuddy, in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 1968, Vol. 43, 1069-1076.