Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?

Subject: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 02:28 PM

I've always had a good ear for tones and pitch -- at least, when I was a kid (or so some who heard me sing back then told me).

My poor mother, on the other hand, was borderline tone deaf ... She'd get most of the notes in a song right, but then she would hit one note in a song, and it would be off -- and I say "poor mother" not because of this quirk, but because of how I, as a toddler, reacted to her attempts. Imagine trying to croon a loving lullaby to your child, only to have her put her tiny hand over your mouth and command you to stop singing, shouting: "Wrong note, Mommy!"

According to Wikipedia (salt to taste), there are various forms of Amusia (with tone deafness being the most well-known), and there may be a genetic component (The Wikipedia article focuses on the most extreme forms, where people can't distinguish between different pieces of music at all. My mother was far from such a desperate strait, and loved music, and singing despite my protestations -- thankfully, I grew more accepting as I got older).

As for me, I've always had trouble with rhythm -- especially if I had to try and create one. I can hear the different rhythms in a song, and can recognize the differences, and can sort of reproduce them in word form [Bum-ditty, bum-ditty ... that kind of thing]. But as soon as I try to interact with the rhythm (clap along, dance, that sort of thing), it all goes plthplthplth! For most of my life, I've blamed that on my poor gross muscle coordination, and how much extra whirring goes on in my brainbox when I have to try and clap and keep from tipping over same time.

But a couple of weeks ago, I found a music-and-ear training game online, for kids (From the Public Broadcasting Service) Chuck VanderChuck's *something something* Explosion (Warning: it's flash-animation heavy, and does not include folk or blues in its curriculum). One of the games on the site is dedicated to hearing and deciphering rhythms, and picking a match, by clicking with your mouse. I thought, since mouse-clicking would eliminate the coordination problem, that might be a good place for me to start practicing learning rhythm.

It did not help. Each sample requires the player to choose one of four options -- it takes me about five or six guesses to get it right.   Every time. It seems, when the moment comes to choose, that the pattern gets scrambled, in my brain, and I lose track of where it begins and where it ends. It kind of reminds me of what I've read about dyslexia (how the letters get switched around in certain combinations), and it also reminds me of my mother, who was very musically astute when it came to listening, but lost her place when she tried to sing.

And I was wondering if anyone else has run into that (or other "quirky" manifestations of musical 'deafness), along the way.

Also, if anyone wants me to join their band -- whatever you do, don't hand me the tambourine! ;-)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 02:36 PM

Visions of Steve Martin trying to keep rhythm with his adopted family in The Jerk.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 02:45 PM

We know another person who does that, don't we boys and girls? I fact I opened the thread expecting it to be about the band in question.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: GUEST,andi_3k
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:02 PM

Yup, I am the same way...can't keep a rhythm for the life of me. Or couldn't before I found a good teacher who has a bunch of different ways to teach rhythm. I can clap along with my favorite band now with out having the musicians laugh at me from stage. ( True Story!) and I can get most songs by using a system of words for the note values. "cheese" for a quarter note, for instance.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:05 PM

Sinsull -- oh, right! I'd forgotten about that scene -- thanks for the laugh, via memory!

The sad thing was: during my time in primary school, I was always handed the rhythm sticks and such, because teachers would see my visible disability and assume I'd do best with the "easiest" instruments... Much to the frustration of everyone involved, so that was a scene I often acted out -- long before that movie was ever made.

Richard Bridge (I almost typed Richard Burbage, there) -- Do what? Command people not to sing? It's a terribly rude and mean-spirited thing to do, and I am eternally sorry for my younger self's behavior. I recommend to everyone to avoid the practice, lest it become a habit. Thus, I deliberately refrain from complaining about genres of music that I do not like. It's enough simply to avoid listening to them.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:11 PM

Ooh, good tip about using word substitutes -- especially since, as is pointed out in the Wikipedia article I linked to, above, musical sounds and language sounds are processed in very different regions of the brain. And I have a keen sense of linguistic rhythm, and could always tell if a line of verse had too many or too few feet or the wrong kind of feet, even at the same young age I was failing so miserably at percussion.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:58 PM

I've encountered a number of people, some passable instrumentalists and a few singers, who were "rhythmically challenged."

A few of them have been helped by the suggestion that they try consistently observing the simple "beat" of walking, skipping, and after some practice at the simple stuff, perhaps dancing. For the musically enabled, humming or singing while walking is appropriate.

For an "advanced exercise" one might try walking with another person and staying in step while the partener inserts "skips" to change the "beat" from one foot to the other. It's best for this practice to hum a song that gives "appropriate" skip points so you can practice anticipating the changes. (Choose a pleasant place to walk, and don't ignore the scenery.)

It appears that for some people engaging the whole body in rhythmic activity helps to "couple"(?) the various brain parts and aids the coordination between them. It's difficult from my experience to tell whether the method only works for some, or whether the ones it didn't help just didn't practice any more diligently than I do on my mandolin; but results are "suggestive" of an applicable aid.

John

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:49 PM

John -- Interesting.

I have cerebral palsy and cannot walk with any steady rhythm at all (I can walk with arm cuff crutches for short distances before I get too tired, and I cannot walk and talk at the same time, at all, much less hop, skip or jump.

In fact, as muscle coordination and rhythm perception are both processed in the cerebellum, and it's in my cerebellum where my C.P. is manifest, I'm wondering if that's why my form of mild amusia takes the form of rhythm deafness while my mother's took the form of pitch (or key) deafness. Now, in the time since my early childhood, doctors and therapists are discovering that if therapy is started super young (like at three months old), the brain can find work-arounds for the glitchy neurons. But that was after my time, and even so, doctors and therapists don't seem to think musical proficiency is a very high priority, compared to walking, etc.

Tsk. No accounting for priorities.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Hamish
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:52 PM

it always perplexes me when some folks try to dance and have very obviously no idea where the beat is

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 07:39 PM

How come people who are rhythm deaf always take up the bodhran?

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:46 PM

I will admit to being "rhythm deaf."

Solo - Excellent ... some notes are louder...some are longer

All set within a mechanical "120" - some are 110 others 122.

A saxaphone artist urged me into a metronome...but there is a "catch" for keyboards.

We FOLLOW - we meld - we blend.

ANYTHING - the vocalist, lead, or drummer establishes we FOLLOW ...

Have you ever listened to a mechanical Motzart midi? UGH



Sincerely,

Gargoyle

(outside of a solo organ/piano recital)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:13 PM

Hamish -- sometimes, it's fun just to move, even if it's not all fun for the people who are watching you.

BanjoRay -- Maybe it's because they're fascinated by what they can almost get right. After all, why else is golf such an addictive game? There seems to be little point, otherwise.

Gargoyle -- you play piano, I'll play kazoo. ;-)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 01:22 AM

Ref:
From: CapriUni - PM
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:49 PM

The "theoretical principle" that suggests joining a marching band assumes that exercising body muscles while experiencing rhythms may help with the creation of alternative "brain links" with the expectation that parts that haven't developed more typical links to the other parts may "link up." Most of us have quite a lot of "undeveloped brain power" that should be at least to some degree trainable, but the details get rather exotic when one tries to predict what can be accomplished.

Rhythmic muscle motions in any parts of body that you can control reasonably well, while associating the motions with "music rhythms" would seem to be potentially helpful, so "patting a table" or just tapping something (with a partner?**) might be potentially helpful exercises.

** "Patting with a partner" suggests that with a compatible and agreeable partner rhythmically patting each other, simultaneously or in exchanges of phrases, might be a possibly useful exercise. The exchange might help to replace the feedback from the "momentum" of walking that makes walking more regular than the somewhat more random movements of dancing.

Any muscle movement should be a satisfactory replacement for walking etc, preferably with a tactile (touch) feedback coordinated with the motion. Even blinking your eyelids in rhythm might have an effect if it doesn't make you dizzy (if there is in fact any effect from this kind of practice).

The only requirement is that muscle motions that send signals to one part of the brain, and tactile (pressures and contacts) sensations that go to another part, be repetitively coordinated with auditory sensations that go to still another part - in the hope that the parts will all get joined up with each other.

In some kinds of therapies, a therapist moves the limbs or other parts of the patient partly just to exercise the parts and prevent atrophy but also to "re-teach" the sensory/mental associations for the movements. (And nobody seems sure this really works.) If you're unable to find a body part over which you have sufficient control to make motions yourself, having someone to flail some appropriate one of your body bits around for you (rhythmically) might have an effect if you can couple it with a tune.

Note that the suggestion is based solely on observation of a very few friends, and does not represent any known "scientific study" or analysis. It's entirely possible that the few who apparently benefited actually just impproved from thinking about rhythms a little more, and that the exercises had nothing to do with it directly - other than perhaps to provide an excuse for the thinking(?).

John

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: LesB
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:01 AM

Why is it that those people with no sense of rhythm always insist on clapping along with a tune? It's the same with dancing, they are always the ones who start jigging around at a gig.
Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:15 AM

Perhaps they hear a different drummer?

John

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Musket
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:24 AM

Eyup Ray! Now, if you want to tell Kieran Boyle he has no rhythm......

A very good friend of mine who loved going to folk clubs and performing monologues decided to take up the squeeze box. So far, so good. Pressing the correct buttons in order wasn't much of an issue as he is rather clever. Reading music is not an issue to him either as he likes to follow an orchestral score whilst listening to his Mozart et al.

However... He used to ask me to accompany him whilst playing. Hard to describe, but when I read the phrase "rhythm deaf" in the threat title, I automatically thought of my mate. Not trying to say he is bad at what he does, but his reading of the score seems to take precedence over any other factor, including the "metronome" effect of accompaniment. So yes, I reckon rhythm deaf exists. My wife is a bell ringer and to my listening, those who are most accomplished at ringing are those who not only follow a method with the memory and mathematical concentration that requires, but a sense of rhythm seems to turn a technically good ringer into an accomplished one.

Tone deaf? I seem to be a better singer now than thirty years ago. I seem to be able to hold a tune now, even without the guitar, whilst those who have known me these last thirty odd years will recall the member of the various bands who used to mime the chorus! Don't know why that is, and whilst I am not a great singer, I am happy enough with it to sing songs I never used to dare years ago.

Does this mean a) you are not stuck with your condition and can change? Or b) getting your ears syringed isn't a bad idea.....

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Paul Davenport
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 06:30 AM

'Tone deaf' is misused mostly. It's a medical condition which is easily spotted by listening to the speech of the person afflicted. We frame questions for example by a rise in pitch at the end of the sentence. Tone deaf people can't do this. So, if the singer speaks normally but can't 'hold a tune' the reason is otherwise. In such cases you can be taught to sing in tune since it's a learned not a physical impediment. Very few people who can't sing a tune are also 'tone deaf'.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Girl Friday
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 09:45 AM

Richard - moi aussi {:

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:18 PM

Was that supposed to be :(   ???

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 04:19 PM

Ian -- Interesting... Yes, that does seem familiar, and very much like what's going on in my head. It's almost as if rhythm were a sort of fish, which is sliding out of my hands whenever I try to grab hold of it.

Paul -- thanks for the clarification. Yes, what I'm talking about here may not be actual tone deafness, but I'm borrowing from the common vernacular.

Though I once knew a teenager (the eldest son of one of my early aides), who had no problems putting inflection into his speech, but once, when he plunked out (what he intended to be) "Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star" on my old Yamaha keyboard, he wasn't even close to the correct tune -- if I recall correctly (this was many years ago), he didn't even go up and down the scale in the right places -- or even got the notes between C and A. Yet after his attempt, he was so proud that he had "nailed it just right." He could sing the tune. But he just didn't seem to recognize that the notes he hit on the keyboard did not match up at all.

---
Now, as for myself, I'm not really that interested in "fixing" my problem; I'm just fascinated every time I get a new glimpse into the workings of my brain and mind.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 08:09 PM

Count-ins - by which I mean saying, e,g, 1-2-3-4 1-2-3 before starting a tune: some folk just can't do it even though they might be able to play the tune once someone else has started it: because they can't feel the rhythm in their heads.
Oh, and don't get me started on stamping - I absolutely hate it. Again - feel the rhythm in your head, don't inflict it on the floor - and other people's ears. (I have seen some musicians stamping along while they are playing, totally out of time with what they are doing!)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Ana
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 06:16 PM

Makes me think of the 'tale' of the drummer who was alway dragging the beat in his band; longer the song, the slower he got.
The band tried really hard to sharpen up his rhythm but in the end, had the hard conversation that they had to let him go.
The drummer was devastated. In despair he went down to the railway station. . . and threw himself behind a train.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 07:40 PM

Ana -- Good one! I'll have to remember that! *snicker*

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Sep 11 - 11:54 PM

In the first post, CapriUni mentioned looking for a good place to practice rhythm.

I suggest this: locate some recordings of dance music, the slower the better. When alone, play the pieces and listen to the accompaniment. Then pick your percussion instrument, which might be something as simple as your own foot tapping the floor or your hand patting your knee. I suggest dance music because it is likely to have steady rhythm.

When you mess up, don't scold yourself. Just start over. If you seem to make progress, play something a little faster.

This is how I taught myself to play spoons. The people on a recording will never lose patience with you, and you will never feel embarrassed because of course they are not really present.

You say you can hear the rhythm, and that's a good sign. You either can or cannot get your muscles to obey your brain's commands, and trying on your own, with no feeling of pressure or criticism, is a good way to find out.

I believe. Good luck.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 01:53 AM

Thanks, leeneia.

You either can or cannot get your muscles to obey your brain's commands.

Aye. There's the rub. My brain can't give the commands necessary to "follow the rhythm," because somewhere between the sound coming in, and the action going out, it's the command gets scrambled.

The online video game I linked to, above, provides precisely the sort of practice that you recommend. And it was through the process of trying out that sort of practice that I finally figured out that my difficulty with rhythm is all the way up at the command level.

I had a dorm mate in college, for example, with two "perfectly normal" eyes and optic nerves (apart from slight nearsightedness), but could not see in three dimensions, because the part of her brain that decodes the signals from her eyes didn't work normally. And now, I think I have a similar decoding difficulty with rhythm (and I now suspect that that decoding difficulty may have as much to do with my difficulty walking as with my funky muscle tone and range of motion).

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: GUEST,Canberra Chris (as guest)
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 03:18 AM

Well, well, Richard and GF, that makes three of us! Matter of fact it was a subject of conversation with Andrew and Carole in Canberra last week when they spotted THAT CD on the table - having encountered them cold as a booked act back in UK.

Chris

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 05:42 AM

Speculating without much of anything in particular to base anything on:

My brain can't give the commands necessary to "follow the rhythm," because somewhere between the sound coming in, and the action going out, it's the command gets scrambled.

Action wanted:

1. Ear detects sound.
2. Ear communicates with brain.
3. Brain recognizes sound
4. Brain sends command to muscle.
5. Muscle reacts to do something at next time sound is expected.

"Hear" produces "Tap"

Problem is that the communication between step 3 and 4 is broken. The part of the brain that sends the command to act does not associate it's activity with a communication from the part that "hears."

Or the part of the brain that hears does not associate the hearing with a need to communicate something to the part that controls action.

Speculation:

1. Brain sends command to muscle.
2. Muscle reacts to do something that produces a sound.
3. Ear detects sound.
4. Ear communicates with brain
5. Brain recognizes sound.

"Tap" produces "Hear."

The same cycle, but starting at a different end.

Perhaps a practice in which you "turn the sequence around" would allow you to reinforce some association between the parts of the brain that recognize the sound and the parts that instruct the action. (????)

Instead of "hear" produces "tap" - which isn't working,

Could you practice "tap" produces "hear"

with any expectation that practice might develop an improved coordination (association) between the brain parts that hear and the brain parts that act?

A practice might consist of doing something that

1. requires a muscle action
2. you can feel the action
3. the action produces a sound
4. you can hear the sound
5. when you hear the sound, you repeat the sequence

At first practice, it shouldn't matter whether "rhythm" is achieved, as long as you can repeat the sequence to form an association between tapping, feeling the action, hearing the result, and tapping again. The goal would be to get all the parts to work together, at first without worrying about rhythm, but eventually so that the connections work in both directions:

Tap => Hear, or Hear =>: Tap.

I have absolutely no reason to believe this might help, but to me (demented as I may be) it sounds like it might be a reasonable thing to try (if any of this is intelligible enough for anyone to figure out how to try to do it(?)).

John

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 10:09 AM

There is a difference between rhythm and tempo. Rhythm is the pattern, tempo, how fast or slow it goes. They are not necessarily related. You might have one ability and not another. Orchestra conductors must have a tempo knowledge working for them. A fast or slow tempo makes all the difference in the mood of the piece. With a metronome, Band in a Box or other software programs, tempo can be monitored and learned.

African drumming is taught by playing simple patterns, mastering them and going to the next level of more advanced complexity. Once the simple pattern gets wired in, then it's time to proceed but not before.

Reading rhythm through notes is a good way to determine what a rhythm pattern sounds like and be consistent about duplicating it. The best way to approach this
is to learn to count out loud with the proper syllables, tapping your foot to keep the main pulse until the rhythm pattern is internalized. Ex: Eighth notes are counted "one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" in four/four time. (Start with this four/four signature first before going on to compound meters such as 6/8, 3/4,9/8 etc.) Sixteenth notes are counted one-ee-and-uh two-ee-and-uh three-ee-and-uh four-ee-and -uh. The "ees" and the "uhs" tell you where you are in the measure, "ee" being the first alternate sixteenth and "uh" the second alternate sixteenth after the quarter note pulses.
A basic music school musicianship class would help here.

Learning to co-ordinate counting, tapping (usually quarter notes) and playing will help internalize the rhythmic pattern.

Pitch discrimination can be learned, the best way is through singing. I have taught people with the inability to identify pitches by explaining that the steps in a scale
can be represented numerically and subsequently shown in a song. This is more
usable then the use of latin soffeggio syllables, do,re,mi, etc. which are the first syllables of ancient Latin hymns. For example using the numbers, Mary Had A Little Lamb can be expressed in pitches as 3 2 1 2 3 3 3.

You have to be patient with yourself when developing this type of training. It is very important not to get ahead of yourself when learning material, start simply and build.

Psychologist, Carl Seashore has devised testing for 1. pitch discrimination, 2. tonal memory, 3. rhythm memory and it is sort of a musical IQ test. It shows you where you are now, not how it might be when applying basic methods to learning.

Music is a language that must be learned. Some have an ability to get it faster as in all skills but application and love of music will serve to aid those and encourage their growth.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 01:13 PM

Richard --

That's a very good breakdown of the various steps in the process for people who are neurotypical, except that I am not neurotypical. I was born with a funky cerebellum; according to current medical theories about "my type" of cerebral palsy, my cerebellum is missing bits of "white matter" around its neurons (think of it as the insulation around phone wires; if that insulation is missing or patchy, you'll hear more static than conversation from the person on the other end of the line, even if both of you can hear and speak perfectly).

This is how it works (or not) in me:

1. Ears detect sound. [success]

2.a Ears send signal to the temporal lobe. [success]

2.b Temporal lobe receives signal [success]

2.c Temporal lobe sends signal to Frontal Lobe and the cerebellum [success]

3.a The Frontal Cortex receives signals from the temporal lobe, and successfully decodes them as a rhythm. [success]

3.b The Cerebellum receives an incomplete signal from the temporal lobe, and loses the timing aspect of the rhythm [failure]

4.a Frontal Cortex decides to make a go of it anyway, and sends signals to both the muscles, and the cerebellum, to coordinate the muscles [success]

4.b The Cerebellum receives an incomplete signal from the Frontal Cortex, and loses track of the coordination [failure]

...And we never get around to the #5 you wrote. So instead, we get:

5. Frontal Lobe decides: Screw it! I'll stick to writing lyrics, and ask people with cerebellums that know their axons from a hole in the ground to double-check my scansion (and cook up a tasty stew or something, for the musicians, instead -- you like garlic?).

I'd always known there was a breakdown at 4.b... and that's where I thought the main glitch was. But when I eliminated those gross motor skills from the equation, I discovered the core of the problem was all the way back at 3.b. And I thought that was fascinating. And I might have learned this fact about myself a heck of a lot sooner if the doctors and therapists who worked with me since I was two had considered music a crucial skill.

And this lack of insulation in my cerebellum has been there since I was born, and practicing over and over won't grow me any new insulation, either. That's the definition of "cerebral palsy."

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 02:59 PM

Sorry, JohninKansas, I addressed my last post to the wrong name (and Sorry, John Bridge, too)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: RamblinStu
Date: 27 Sep 11 - 06:58 AM

Re Richard Bridge and Girl Friday, this thread just gets better and better :-)

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: pavane
Date: 27 Sep 11 - 02:30 PM

A friend of mine does Scottish dancing - and has no sense of rhythm. After 30 years dancing, he still has to use counting for every step, because he cannot tell from the music.

Subject: RE: Tone deaf & what about rhythm deaf?
From: CapriUni
Date: 27 Sep 11 - 03:12 PM

Heh. And that's a lot of steps!