Hey all parents of really young children (0-4 years)! This has not been conclusively proven, but I suspect that all children can acquire Absolute Pitch but it must be within a certain critical developmental window. Absolute or Perfect Pitch is the ability to recall pitches in your head without a reference. Mozart, Beethoven (very useful when you are deaf!), and many other great composers had it. What you have to do is: 1) You need a keyboard of standard tuning 440Hz. Electronic keyboards are good because they are sampled and never go out of tune or you can get piano apps on your phone as well (Virtuoso Piano for iPhone - Free!). If you have a real piano, and if it’s out of tune, your child will memorize out of tune pitches so be careful. You want accurate reference pitches for your child to memorize and internalize. 2) Then you have to label the white keys Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do and spend time each day exposing them to it, singing and pegging the right syllable with the right note. They are learning that a specific pitch has a specific name. You can also sing C D E F G A B. In countries like France or Italy Do, Re, Mi IS what they call C, D, E. So learn the names of the keys, Do is C, Re is D, Mi is E, Fa is F, Sol is G, La is A, Si is B. Google an image of the piano keys with the note names, it’s easy. If you use Do, Re Mi, don’t bother with C,D,E or vice versa just choose one set of names. 3) Mixing up the syllables and tones will erase the associations you are carefully building up so avoid moving your Do around (keep Do at the note C, i.e Fixed Do). 4) Don’t worry about the black notes. They can have two names. Depending on the context, we would sing C# as Do or (Re if it’s Db). If this is too technical, just focus on the white notes. 5) This is a tougher one, but try to let your child listen to music that is recorded in 440Hz. On YouTube there is a lot of free music but many times they adjust the pitch to evade copyright strikes so you might not be hearing something in 440Hz but in between. For example, a key in between C and B. Children have a certain period before synaptic pruning where their brains have an astonishing capacity for memory. I think it fades after 2 years so in the same way children can learn the phonemes of the language of their parents, if they hear the keyboard with the same tuned pitch it should theoretically stick the same way. It’s probably impossible for adults to get it because the window shuts permanently (although I’ve heard of some dedicated adults building up a faint version of it). It’s not a super power, and it can also be a mixed blessing, but it can be very useful as most music today is tuned to 440Hz.
Apparently it’s 1 in 10,000 and more likely for speakers of tonal languages but there are examples of families where 2 kids have it and they speak English. There many be a genetic component to Absolute Pitch that I am not addressing. Would all of this it be fruitless if you lack the requisite gene? I don’t know, that’s why we are testing it out. Give it a try! The window is open for a limited time.