Synesthesia
Absolute pitch shows a genetic overlap with synesthesia/ideasthesia,[65] and some individuals with music-related synesthesia also have perfect pitch. They may associate certain notes or keys with different colors, enabling them to tell what any note or key is. It is unknown how many people with perfect pitch are also synesthetes.
Correlation with musical talent
Absolute pitch is not a prerequisite for skilled musical performance or composition. However, musicians with absolute pitch tend to perform better on musical transcription tasks (controlling for age of onset and amount of musical training) compared with those without absolute pitch.[78] It has been argued that musicians with absolute pitch perform worse than those without absolute pitch on recognition of musical intervals.[79] However, experiments on which this conclusion was based contained an artifact, and when this artifact was removed, absolute pitch possessors were found to perform better than nonpossessors on recognition of musical intervals.[80]
Owing to uncertainty in the historical record, it is often impossible to determine whether notable composers and musicians of the past had absolute pitch. Since absolute pitch is rare in European musical culture,[47] claims that any particular musician possessed it are difficult to evaluate. Among composers of the Baroque and Classical eras, evidence is available only for Mozart, who is documented to have demonstrated the ability at age 7.[81] Experts have only surmised that Beethoven had it, as indicated from some excerpts from his letters. By the 19th century, it became more common for the presence of absolute pitch to be recorded, identifying the ability to be present in musicians such as Camille Saint-Saëns and John Philip Sousa.
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