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Article: Perfect pitch study offers window into influences of nature and nurture.
- Article from:
- NewsRx Science
- Article date:
- July 26, 2009
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Practice, practice, practice might get you to Carnegie Hall, but for aspiring musicians, there's new evidence that genes may influence one's ability to get there, as well.
Perfect pitch, also known as absolute pitch, is the rare ability to recognize and name musical notes without any reference pitch for comparison, detecting, for instance, A before middle C. The rarity of the aptitude contrasts with the common ability to immediately recognize and name colors, distinguishing pink from red or azure from blue.
In the July 2 online posting of "American Journal of Human Genetics," UCSF scientists report that they identified a particular region of genes on ...