Chapter 29 Further Reading: Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch & Musical Memory

Foundational Research Articles

Deutsch, D., Henthorn, T., Marvin, E., & Xu, H. (2006). Absolute pitch among American and Chinese conservatory students: Prevalence differences and evidence for a speech-related critical period. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119(2), 719–722. The landmark cross-cultural study establishing the substantial AP prevalence gap between American and Chinese conservatory students, and the role of tonal language and early training. Rigorously designed and widely cited.

Schlaug, G., Jäncke, L., Huang, Y., & Steinmetz, H. (1995). In vivo evidence of structural brain asymmetry in musicians. Science, 267(5198), 699–701. The foundational study identifying greater leftward planum temporale asymmetry in AP musicians compared to non-AP musicians and non-musicians. Launched two decades of follow-up neuroimaging research.

Takeuchi, A. H., & Hulse, S. H. (1993). Absolute pitch. Psychological Bulletin, 113(2), 345–361. A comprehensive review of the absolute pitch literature up to that point, covering prevalence, correlates, theories, and training studies. Still valuable as a systematic overview.

Profita, J., & Bidder, T. G. (1988). Perfect pitch. American Journal of Medical Genetics, 29(4), 763–771. One of the first systematic family studies of AP, documenting familial aggregation and suggesting a heritable component. Important for understanding the genetic side of the debate.

Gregersen, P. K., Kowalsky, E., Kohn, N., & Marvin, E. W. (1999). Absolute pitch: Prevalence, ethnic variation, and estimation of the genetic component. American Journal of Human Genetics, 65(3), 911–913. A larger family study that attempts to estimate the heritability of AP, with attention to ethnic variation in prevalence rates. Good complement to the Deutsch studies.

Ericsson, K. A., & Kintsch, W. (1995). Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102(2), 211–245. The theoretical paper proposing long-term working memory as an explanation for expert performance in chess, writing, and music — the cognitive science foundation for Section 29.8.

Margulis, E. H. (2014). On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind. Oxford University Press. A readable book-length treatment of musical repetition, including an excellent chapter on earworms and their cognitive mechanisms. Written for a broad academic audience.

Books and Extended Works

Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Knopf. Oliver Sacks's collection of neurological cases involving music — including Tony Cicoria and numerous other cases of acquired musical ability, musical hallucinations, and unusual musical experience. Beautifully written; scientifically careful. Essential reading for anyone interested in the neuroscience of music.

Treffert, D. A. (2010). Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Darold Treffert's comprehensive treatment of savant syndrome in all its forms, including the acquired and sudden savant cases most relevant to this chapter. Detailed case histories; thoughtful theoretical reflection.

Levitin, D. J. (2006). This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Dutton. A very accessible introduction to music neuroscience by a former record producer turned neuroscientist. Chapters on pitch, memory, and expertise are directly relevant to this chapter. One of the best popular science books on music.

Margulis, E. H. (2018). The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. A compact and rigorous introduction covering memory, expectation, and musical development. Excellent entry point to the academic field.

Deutsch, D. (Ed.). (2012). The Psychology of Music (3rd ed.). Academic Press. The standard reference text in music psychology. Chapter 7 (on absolute and relative pitch) and Chapter 8 (on musical memory) are directly relevant to this chapter. Technical but thorough.

Sloboda, J. A. (1985). The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford University Press. A classic in the field, covering musical memory, sight-reading, improvisation, and musical development. Particularly strong on the cognitive analysis of sight-reading (relevant to Section 29.10).

Historical and Biographical Resources

Solomon, M. (1995). Mozart: A Life. HarperCollins. A scholarly biography of Mozart that draws on primary sources with care. More restrained in its claims about Mozart's pitch abilities than popular biographies; useful for understanding the limits of the documentary record.

Zaslaw, N. (1989). Mozart's Symphonies: Context, Practice, Reception. Oxford University Press. For the technically inclined; includes detailed discussion of performance practice, instrumentation, and pitch standards in Mozart's time and place.

Bruce Haynes (2002). A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of "A." Scarecrow Press. The definitive study of the history of concert pitch standards from ancient times through the 20th century. Essential background for understanding the "Mozart pitch" problem discussed in Case Study 1. Scholarly but accessible to non-specialists.

Online Resources and Interactive Tools

Tone Deaf Test (musicality.com/test/tone-deaf): An online test that assesses pitch discrimination and melodic recognition — not a test of AP, but a useful self-assessment of basic pitch sensitivity.

Relative Pitch Training via functional ear training (musictheory.net, teoria.com): Both sites offer structured relative pitch training exercises, from basic interval identification to full melodic and harmonic dictation.

"Perfect Pitch" historical pitch resources (earlymusicsources.com): A resource for understanding historical tuning systems and pitch standards, useful for contextualizing the Mozart pitch discussion.

The Music Lab (musiclab.science): A Harvard laboratory (associated with the Mehr studies referenced in Chapter 30) that runs ongoing online music research, including studies on pitch memory and musical universals that readers can participate in.