Scientists have discovered an unusual tip for parents who want their little darlings to grow up to be musical geniuses - teach them Mandarin Chinese.

Psychologists at the University of California in San Diego found that children who learnt Mandarin as babies were far more likely to have perfect pitch - the ability to name or sing a musical note at will - than those raised to speak English. Perfect pitch, though common among the great composers, is extremely rare in Europe and the US, where just one in 10,000 is thought to have the skill.

Diana Deutsch, who led the research, believes the explanation lies in the different use of tones in the two languages. While the meaning of English words does not change with tone, the same is not true for Mandarin and other tonal languages, such as Vietnamese, Thai, and other Chinese dialects.

For example, in Mandarin, the word ma has four meanings. Depending on tone, it can mean mother, horse, hemp, or be a reproach.

Professor Deutsch discovered the connection when she tested first-year students from the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, all of whom spoke Mandarin, and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, who all spoke English.

Each of the students was asked to name 36 notes played at random from a keyboard. The researchers found that of the students who began music lessons between the ages of four and five, 14% of Americans had perfect pitch, compared with 60% of Chinese. When children began music lessons later in life, their chances of having perfect pitch dropped dramatically.

"The findings support the notion that babies can acquire perfect pitch as part of learning a language, which can later generalise to musical tones," said Prof Deutsch, who announced her results at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in San Diego yesterday.

But while learning Mandarin appears to give children a better chance of developing perfect pitch, some parents might appreciate a simpler method. A good alternative, Prof Deutsch said, might be to let babies play with keyboards with different notes labelled or coloured in. As with language, learning perfect pitch is likely to be easier around the ages of six to 18 months.

The pianist and writer Susan Tomes said she was surprised by the research.

"I would be very impressed if 60% of Chinese people have perfect pitch," she said. "I'd regard them as being blessed. They could have an enormous musical potential."

The composer Michael Berkeley said: "If you are using a language where pitch is so much more important, your whole perception of pitch would be more accurate. The musicality of a language does make it easier to understand pitch."