Gaby
Many people can sing with perfect pitch — but only when they’re performing a favorite song that’s stuck in their heads.
A team at the University of California, Santa Cruz analyzed karaoke singing in 30 people. None were professional musicians, and none considered themselves to have perfect pitch. Over two weeks, participants recorded themselves singing whatever songs came to mind.
Researchers found 44.7 percent of the recordings had zero pitch error, while 68.9 percent were accurate within a half-step of the original melody (about the smallest musical interval most non-musicians notice).
A key indicator of perfect pitch is correctly naming a note on the first try. It’s thought to occur in about 1 in 10,000 people, according to Science Alert.
But that figure hasn’t taken into account people singing familiar songs.
“This shows that a large portion of the population has some sort of automatic, hidden ability for perfect pitch,” said Matt Evans, the study’s lead author and a cognitive psychologist.
The researchers want to explore how well people can assess their own singing ability and their memory skills.
“If you asked people how they thought they did on this task, they’d probably be confident they guessed the melody correctly but less sure they sang in the right key,” Evans said.
The authors suggest many people may sing better than they think, and that our brains may have more innate musical talent than previously believed.
Evans says many people hold themselves back from music and singing because they believe they can’t, or because they’ve been told they can’t.
The results of the study were published in the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
