Tone language and absolute pitch: Prevalence among American and Chinese conservatory students

Absolute pitch, defined as the ability to name or produce a musical note of particular pitch without benefit of a reference note, is extremely rare in the U.S. and Europe; this rarity has so far been unexplained. This paper reports a substantial difference in the prevalence of absolute pitch in two normal populations, in a large‐scale study using direct, on‐site testing, without self‐selection from within the target populations. The subjects were students in two major music conservatories in the U.S. and in China. The Chinese subjects (n=88) all spoke the tone language Mandarin, in which pitch is used to convey the meaning of words. The American subjects (n=115) were all nontone language speakers. For both groups, the earlier the age of onset of musical training, the greater the prevalence of absolute pitch; however, its prevalence was far greater among the Chinese than the U.S. group, for each level of age of onset of musical training. The findings indicate that the potential for acquiring absolute pitch is universal at birth, and can be realized by enabling infants to associate pitches with verbal labels during the period in which they acquire the features of their native language.