Daylia, perfect pitch is apparently close to a standard ability in China and some other far-East countries where different pitches of voice give different meanings to words. What I heard, you mostly lose that ability at age 2-3 when you learn to talk properly - your brain starts with the ability to do anything, but when it starts learning a language, it blocks off all the other ways in which meaning can be communicated.

Oops I missed this yesterday -- thanks for the comments, Graham. Yes, scientists have found that absolute pitch is linked to "Tonal Languages" such as those spoken in China and the Far East

...for students who speak a tonal language, acquiring absolute pitch is like learning a second language, which becomes much more difficult after a �critical period� of development. For students who speak a nontonal language such as English, however, absolute pitch is more like a first language, for which the critical period occurs at a much younger age.

This supports what you said about the brain 'blocking off' all other ways of listening/interpreting once a nontonal language, such as English, is being learned. The connections between language, music and memory are fascinating! Most babies start speaking their first words around 12-18 months -- this is when the brain areas responsible for learning language are developing most quickly, are most receptive and malleable. Babies are a lot more 'teachable' than they're usually given credit for -- for instance, at 18 months, my first-born could not only talk up a storm, but he knew all letters of the alphabet and the colors, too.

So who says babies can't learn something as complicated as music? ANd the earlier they start, the better. I was born just as my mother finished her final exams at Teacher's College. She used me and my sibs as 'guinea pigs' for her teaching methods from birth onwards, I think. I even remember the colorful charts set up with the alphabet and numbers in the playroom - she'd effectively taught me to read by the time I was 3 (a real pain in some ways, as it made school so BOOORRRRING for years and years...)

And she gave me my first piano lessons at age 2. Sang with me at the piano every day, taught me how to play it, taught me the names of the white keys. By the time I was three, I was picking out familiar little tunes on the piano unassisted. That delighted her so much, brought so much positive attention my way that believe me I was sure to go to the piano every single day! By age 4 I was telling her, without looking, what note she was playing on the piano. I knew which notes the guy on the radio was singing, which notes the doorbell rang on -- and she knew I had 'perfect pitch'. Started me on official piano lessons when I was 6, thinking I had some 'God-given gift' it was my 'duty' to develop. When all along, imo, it was only her efforts at teaching me that had paid off -- and sentenced me to the drudgery of years and years of private music lessons too    ;-)

Now, mind you, she'd used the same methods with my 5 siblings and while all of them studied music and developed excellent relative pitch, I'm the only one with absolute pitch. Neither of my parents, none of my kids or anyone else in my extended family have it either -- so much for the hypothesis that the ability is genetic, as far as I'm concerned. I think I was just extremely motivated to learn it, as a toddler. And I did NOT spend hours at the piano every day with my own kids when they were babies ... arrrrghhh .... see how I deprived them!

ANyway, sorry for rambling and thanks for listening to all that! ANd I'm glad some of you who consider yourselves 'tone deaf' have found some inspiration here. I hope I live to see the day when the concept of 'tone deafness' goes the way of the geocentric universe!