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University of California Genetics of Absolute Pitch Studypress |
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Articles published in Scientific Journals:
Dichotomy and Perceptual Distortions in Absolute Pitch Ability
Absolute Pitch: A Special Group of Ears
Familial Aggregation of Absolute Pitch
Absolute Pitch: An Approach for Identification of Genetic and Nongenetic
Components
Instant Recognition: The Genetics of Pitch Perception Articles published in the Lay Press:
California scientists search for perfect pitch
Looking for genetic perfection
Noting the Perfect Pitch
A Conversation with Jane Gitschier
UCSF researchers seek subjects for perfect-pitch study
"Perfect Pitch": nature or nurture?
Name That Tone --Scientists Look for Perfect Pitch Gene New articles will be posted soon, please come back.
EXAMINER Perfect Pitch": nature or nurture?Phone lines buzz in the note of F. Toilets flush in E-flat. Fluorescent lights hum at 60 hertz a B-flat, almost. To those with "perfect pitch" the world may not sound different , but each sound has a name and nuance that is recognizable in isolation,without reference to other notes. It's akin to describing the distinctive hues of cobalt, cerulean and cyan blue, detecting the difference between Pinot Gris wine from northern Italy or Alsace region of France, or recalling, from memory, the heavy fragrance of your grandmother's closet. Is this trait borne or made? UC-San Francisco scientists have a hunch it is both, but they want to know more. If the characteristic is endowed by nature, then where, specifically, do its gene or genes reside? If it is nurtured by musical education, how early must the training take place? The answers may shed light not only on perfect pitch, but on the deeper secrets of neurobiology and early brain development. "What we learn about this intriguing preceptual ability may apply to the bigger picture of how nature and nurture work together in our understanding of our suroundings." said Dr. Nelson Freimer of the Center for Neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry of UCSF, Co-leader of the research team, who is seeking subjects with perfect pitch. Armed with a laptop computer and headphones, the UCSF scientists are traveling to homes, classrooms and concert halls around the country to test for this rare quality. To complete their study, they need at least 100 more volunteers. For people who test positive for the trait an estimated 1 in 2,000 of general population the scientists follow up with more questions: Do other family members share this trait? did you study music as a young child? And finally: may we take your blood? Name That ToneProfessional musician Tony Kaye of San Francisco recalls the moment, at age 3 or 4, when he first learned that notes had names. "It was a relief," he said. "it made perfect sense. I didn't know what to call everything in my mind, it was just this or that you have to call them something, whether it's A, B, C or Joe and Fred...each pitch level and music built on it is a character." As a toddler, Kaye spent hours sitting under his father's baby grand pianolistening to Debussy, Stravinsky, Grieg and Schubert. He recalled reaching up on tiptoes and plunking away on the black-and-white keys. "I couldn't quite see the keys, or know what they were named, but I could distinguish which was which, and I knew which I wanted and which I didn't," he said. "Of course, I had no idea what the tones looked like on paper,"he said. "But I knew them by ear." Only later did he learn about the "relative pitch," the ability of most musicians to find a note if given the idendity of another note. "I was taught all about the distance between C and F, but for me the opposit had always worked," he said. "I already knew what C was and F was. So then I had to go back and figure out the relationship between them. `I thought, who needs a relationship? They're just C and F'. "I had to go back and categorize everything in my mind. It's aural bookkeeping." He has two other, perhaps related, traits. One is "vertical" hearing, where he can identify tones played simultaneously and can tell what register they're played in. The other is "synesthesia," where notes abd tonalities evoke colors. For instance, the key of F summons up rose images, while A dwells in the green area of the color spectrum. D-flat elicits Lucite-clear ice crystal. Kaye now makes a living by, among other things, transcribing old recordings of long-gone musicians. The characteristic doesn't guarantee musical success. Sometimes, it's a disadvantage. Learning to read music is a chore. So is transposing notes up a pitch or two. "The trick, as a kid, was to get your piano teacher to play the music first," Kaye said. "Then, you could pretend to read it. (Perfect pitch) works against discipline. The wrong things come easily." Catherine Van Hoesen, violinist with the San Francisco Symphony, said, "It doesn't make it easier to play in tune, but it makes it more distressing to play out of tune." Van Hoesen, who lives with a parrot who memorizes tunes in perfect pitch, said: "It doesn't change the degree of difficulty of playing. In some ways, it makes you more aware of it." "It's very personal," said Kaye. "It doesn't accomplish much to talk about it. ... Instead, you talk about things like tempo change or volume. Those things are much more to the point." Is it a family affair? Musicians and scientists have long observed faint patterns of "absolute pitch" within families. Although unproven and controversial, the evidence was too strong to be ignored. A teaspoon or two of blood contains vital information about the genetic endowment that lies in the nucleus of every human's cells. Chemical tests of the genetic material reveal that humans have different sequences, or order of connection, in the components that make up their DNA. Scientists compare these differences and when an unusual sequence is alwats linked to an unusual trait, they suspect a connection. The goal is to find the distinctive DNA sequence of those with "perfect pitch," perhaps pinpoint the site of the key gene or genes, then track its distribution within families. Until recently, these powerful tools of molecular genetics have been used to find illness, from big killers like breast cancer to obscure disorders like neurofibromatosis and xeroderma pigmentosa. But what of genes that confer talent, not suffering? "If a trait has a genetic basis, the principles are the same whether it is a disease or more positive attribute," Freimer said. Hundreds pitch in The goal of the UC study is to collect data on hundreds of individuals with perfect pitch. Already, surveys have been completed from more than 600 people from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and others. Of the 600 men and women, about 15 percent had perfect pitch. Early training seemed critical: Almost no one who started musical training after the age of 12 had perfect pitch, they discovered. Ther is preliminary evidence perfect pitch is also genetic: It seems clustered in families, with several families recording the occurrence of perfect pitch among several siblings. Among them is a family of UCSF scientist Shai Shaham, who started piano lessons at age 4. His father had the talent as does his sister, pianist Orli and his younger brother, internationally renowned violinist Gil Shaham. Of those found to have perfect pitch, about half indicated that they had close relatives who also had the trait. In contrast, very few of those without perfect pitch had relatives with perfect pitch. People from one ethnic group Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe had particular interest to the researchers. This population, including S.F. Symphony Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the Metropolitan Opera's artistic director, James Levine, are the geneticist's dream. A relatively small and isolated genetic pool in an ocean of human diversity, their inheritance patterns are more easily identified. They also have a rich musical heritage. Patterns of inheritance for this trait will never be a clear-cut as thse for blood type, for instance. The environment is a big determinant of whether the trait disappears or ends up at the Carnegie Hall. But this single environmental influence - musical training - simplifies the analysis of the trait and may offer important clues to the broader question of how nature and nurture interact. "Our hypothesis is that perfect pitch has both a genetic and a non-genetic component," concludes researcher Siamak Baharloo of UC's Program in Biomedical Sciences. Both are necessary. Neither alone is sufficient. For musician Tony Kaye, the research helps solve a lifetime mystery, but "perfection," once understood, should never be the goal, he added. "Things sound better if they're not perfect; they've got to be human," he siad. "It's like a 'perfect' face. It's better of it is a little off - a little humanly off."
JEWISH BULLETIN ONLINE UCSF researchers seek subjects for perfect-pitch studyAs a child, Shai Shaham of San Francisco loved to gather with his siblings in the family study and listen to his parents play a Beethoven piano-violin sonata. Music often was the center of even the most mundane family activities. On the way to the store, they played "Name That Musical Note" to tunes on the car radio. Shaham, now 28, didn't know as a youth what perfect pitch was, much less realize that he had it. So, too, does his brother, virtuoso violinist Gil Shaham, and his sister, concert pianist Orli Shaham. Both were recruited along with Shai for a UCSF study on perfect-pitch perception. The Jewish family is a textbook case of what genetic researchers suspect is a higher-than-average occurrence of perfect pitch among Ashkenazi Jews. The researchers believe that the trait tends to run in families. "If you look into the classical ranks, there are a fair number [of Ashkenazim]," said Nelson Freimer, co-leader of the research team. Those thought to have or have had perfect pitch are the late pianist Vladimir Horowitz, the Metropolitan Opera's artistic director James Levine and the San Francisco Symphony's music director, Michael Tilson Thomas. Those with perfect pitch can call out every note in the alto line of Leonard Bernstein's "Kaddish" without the score, as well as assign notes to nonharmonic tones like the dial tone on the telephone or the hum of a Muni bus, without referring to other tones. While a person with relative pitch can identify an F after hearing a note identified as middle C, those with perfect pitch can identify the F without receiving any clues. Some individuals are so familiar with the tones, maintains UCSF graduate student Siamak Baharloo, that they associate each one with a specific color, which is a more specialized gift called synesthesia. An estimated one in every 2,000 people has perfect pitch; among musicians, the rate is 15 percent, according to the researchers. Baharloo and several others who comprise the research team want to isolate the gene that is partially responsible for perfect pitch. They have grander plans, however, than merely distinguishing the musically inclined from the tone deaf. The study may be the first to pinpoint a human trait that is both hereditary and learned. That is not to say that perfect pitch is either learned or inherited. The researchers believe that an individual must have both a genetic predisposition and musical training during a critical developmental stage of childhood to acquire it. Freimer compares the development of perfect pitch to learning to speak. "We all have the inborn ability to use language skills," Freimer explains. "But if you take a child and cut them off from people until they are 10, it is not likely that they'll learn to speak." Ashkenazi Jews aren't necessarily more genetically inclined than others to perceiving perfect pitch, he said. But two factors make them good test subjects for this study: For one, a higher percentage of Jews provide music education to their children at an early age than the general population. The second test factor is that Western Jews' small gene pool makes it easier to isolate the gene partially responsible for the trait. While the world's 11.2 million Ashkenazim aren't as homogeneous as they once were, the researchers believe all descended from only a few thousand Jews several centuries ago. There are other populations -- those of Finland and Montreal, for example -- with relatively homogeneous gene pools. But they aren't as accessible. The researchers figured they could find local test subjects among more than 228,000 Bay Area Jews. They need about 100 families for the study. Statistically, only 114 area Jews should have perfect pitch. The trick will be to find them, Baharloo said. The Shaham family, which has lived in Israel, is helping the researchers make contact with Israeli Ashkenazim. Individuals in Los Angeles and New York also have been recruited to help. At UCSF laboratories, Baharloo sits behind a laptop computer that fires 30 tones variously at a test subject. The subject must guess immediately and jot down the corresponding note. The test is designed to weed out those with only relative pitch. More than a couple of wrong guesses fails the test. Shaham is matter-of-fact about his gift, which he regards as a mere curiosity. Like his sister, he plays the piano. But perfect pitch in no way makes or breaks his career as a molecular biologist. For now, he is content to exercise his pitch in an occasional duet with his clarinetist wife or in other recreational pleasures.
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