Schedule of Events | Symposia

Sketchpad Series

Non-global Absolute Pitch possessors - A specific cognitive process?

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Ébano Resende de Souza¹; ¹Austrian Academy of Sciences

Perfect or absolute pitch (AP) is typically considered to be an asset for any musician, however it is not well understood and may have some drawbacks. From a case study among students from the Musicology and Analysis Department of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris - CNSMDP (under direction of Dr. Adrien Mamou-Mani - CNSMDP/IRCAM and Dr. Michèle Castellengo - LAM), we noted important issues raised by the students: 1) confusion and misunderstanding about the AP definition, 2) difficulty among students in identifying whether or not they have AP, 3) the relevance of timbre for AP identification among these students and, 4) students that had partial AP abilities reported difficulties in some musical activities. Among our findings we can highlight: 1) the strong relationship between AP identification and primary instrument; 2) the importance of the piano (pointed as the easiest timbre for recognition) and the voice (which occupies an important place among the hardest timbres for recognition, due, probably, to the overlap between AP label and the lyrics of the song) during AP identification and, 3) the loss of musical pleasure indicated by a considerable number of AP possessors. AP ability involves Brocas's area, Wernicke's area, Arcuate Fasciculus and Planum Temporale. We use MRI and fMRI for mapping these brain areas and verifying their activations . We are therefore currently developing this project to understand to what extent AP perception can hinder RP perception, a cognitive key for musicians and music listeners.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Audition