Can you be taught perfect pitch?

Question

i saw an ad in guitar world magazine advertising a program that teaches you perfect pitch, there were some testimonilas but i was under the inpression that you have to be born with perfect pitch and also i was told that relative pitch is more useful because if u have perfect pitch and an instrument is even slightly out of tune, you'll notice it and it will annoy you

any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

I think you're right about that - perfect pitch is something you are born with, and cannot be learned.  However there seems to be some debate about it....

[edit] Natural vs. nurtured

Many people have believed that musical ability itself is an inborn talent.[31] Some scientists currently believe absolute pitch may have an underlying genetic basis and are trying to locate genetic correlates;[32] most believe that the acquisition of absolute pitch requires early training during a critical period of development, regardless of whether or not a genetic predisposition toward development exists.[33] The "unlearning theory," first proposed by Abraham,[34] has recently been revived by developmental psychologists who argue that every person possesses absolute pitch (as a mode of perceptual processing) when they are infants, but that a shift in cognitive processing styles (from local, absolute processing to global, relational processing) causes most people to unlearn it; or, at least, causes children with musical training to discard absolute pitch as they learn to identify musical intervals.[35] Additionally, any nascent absolute pitch may be lost simply by the lack of reinforcement or lack of clear advantages in most activities in which the developing child is involved. An unequivocal resolution to the ongoing debate would require controlled experiments that are both impractical and unethical.

Researchers have been trying to teach absolute pitch ability for more than a century,[36] and various commercial absolute-pitch training courses have been offered to the public since the early 1900s.[37] It has been shown possible to learn the naming of tones later in life, although some consider this skill not to be true absolute pitch.[38] Although it has been shown possible to learn to identify pitches, keys, and everyday sounds later in life, no training method for adults has yet been shown to produce abilities comparable to naturally occurring absolute pitch.[39]

For children aged 2-4, however, recent observations have shown a certain method of music education[40] to apparently be successful in training absolute pitch,[41] but the same method has also been shown to fail with students 5 years and older, suggesting that a developmental change in perception occurs which favors relative learning over absolute and thus supporting the theory of the "critical period" for learning absolute pitch.[42]

Answer 2

You cannot be taught perfect pitch.  It is something in your head that you hear.  You can be taught relative pitch.  The ad may teach you ways to hone in on perfect pitch though....Many people can close their eyes and hear a dial tone....if you can do this....you have perfect pitch and may just need to know how to fine tune it.  :)