Absolute Pitch and Genetic Research

After discovering a few of my young students have perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, I began looking for answers into the cause of this. The problem is that very little is known about the factors that affect these people with absolute pitch. A few important trends in these individuals, though not required, are: early musical training, speaking or understanding pitch-sensitive language such as Vietnamese or Chinese, and having the "musical gene". The latter of these has become the focus of Dr. Jane Gitschier at the University of California, San Francisco and Dr. Nelson Freimer at the University of California, Los Angeles. They are currently compiling research which they hope will lead them to the discovery of this gene. Below is a link to their page about the study at UCSF and a rather introductory video about the beginnings of their study.

UCSF absolute pitch webpage