Tone Deafness

Subject: Tone Deafness
From: Slag
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:08 AM

If you have ever watched American Idle (sic), the best part is in the beginning watching folks who believe they can sing (for various reasons given) just slaughter old familiar songs. And then I began wondering about what is really going on. What is the disconnect between what they hear and what they hear when they try to duplicate the sound. It's mystifying because one would assume they hear the music and tones in the original opus correctly and respond favorably, enthusiastically even, to the music. Can they not hear themselves? Can someone be trained out of tone deafness? I have a cousin who does a fair job on the piano and she can't sing a lick (mostly sharp). I suppose this is an age old question but I have never heard a satisfactory answer. Also, how do you go about informing someone they can't sing? I really don't like the Simon Cowel (is that right?) approach and yet I find myself agreeing with his criticism about 95% of the time and for the same reasons given.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Tom Power
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:13 AM

Dear Slag

Give us a song - just to see if you can carry a tune in a bucket.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:40 AM

I have always believed that tone deafness is a physical ability and not particularly common.
The inability to sing accurately appears to come from a singer not being able to listen to the sound they are making and relating it to the physical act of voice production. It seems to be a fact that some people have to work harder than others to sing accurately, but this is a matter of concentration rather than physical ability.
The traditional trick of cupping the hand over the ear, though usually associated with folkies, has been used for centuries - maybe millenia - as a device for listening to the voice and producing accurate notes.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Slag
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:57 AM

That's interesting. I have a conductive hearing loss in my right ear and I can always hear my own voice although it sounds muffled as though I was in a deep and narrow mine tunnel!

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Scrump
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:05 AM

Slightly different (perhaps?) from being tone deaf in the sense that you can't sing at all, an interesting phenomenon I've encountered is where you have someone who is actually a very good singer, but they seem to have trouble finding the right key, but once they find it they're OK. I've known a few of these over the years. I used to accompany one guy who would often start in the wrong key unless I played the actual tune in the intro, instead of just the chords. I guess this was a kind of "chord deafness" - has anyone else encountered this?

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:17 AM

True tone deafness isn't as common as people think. It's the inablility to discriminate between notes, the connection between what the ear hears, what the voice can produce and how the brain makes that connection. It has been associated with brain damage but that theory hasn't been proven as many tone deaf people have not suffered brain damage. Like hand/eye co-ordination, it's voice/ear co-ordination and has to be learned or developed.

Most people who are called tone deaf (couldn't carry a tune in a bucket/if it had handles/if life depended on it), are quite capable of distinguishing pitch in a certain range. Manitas, one of the most musical people I know, can play you any tune on any instrument you care to name, but he can't sing it. One of my fellow choristers can sing perfectly well until she gets to a certain range, then, although her brain tells her she's fine, the notes her voice produces are not quite 'there'.

It's not related to hearing loss so much as brain function and yes, it probably is possible to train it out of most people - a good voice coach should be able to do it.

I've never watched any of the 'Idol' programmes, so can't really comment on the behaviour of Simon Cowell, but I could imagine that it would be painful in the extreme to listen to hundreds of people who believe they can sing but if you played them a recording of their own voices would cringe in horror.

LTS

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:41 AM

As for Simon Cowell, the way he expresses his opinions for whichever TV show can be very blunt and intended for the camera, but he is basically honest. If someone doesn't have the ability or qualities needed for the show (not necessarily the same as not being able to sing), he will say so. Some go away and try harder to prove him wrong. Others actually can't hold a not in a very large bucket, and he might actually be doing them a service to tell them.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Morticia
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:48 AM

Of course there are people for whom, if you played them a recording, it would sound fine. One of the Universities here is looking into the incidences of people who truly cannot hear the difference between sharp and flat or even one note and the next note down or up the scale.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,vectis at work
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:54 AM

Liz and I do beginners voice workshops at quite a few festivals and we get a lot of people who believe they can't sing because someone told them so, frequently when they were very young. Some of them have never opened their mouths since. By the end of the workshop we have them singing in unison quite happil;y and in tune.
We once had a lady who was slightly below the pitch [clinging to the lower end of the register :-)] and when I asked her if she had had a hearing test done recently she told me she was fairly deaf. She was accurately reproducing what she could hear but was only hearing the lower frequencies in the harmonic.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:02 AM

There can be a physical reason for apparent tone deafness which is not that at all but an inability to transfer what's in the head to the voice. After always being pitch perfect, an as yet unexplained condition in the larynx means that accuracy of pitch no longer prevails and my brain knows just before the sound comes out when I'm not going to hit it. So I don't sing out and have become quite paranoid about it.

Medical diagnoses have ranged from reaction to medication to allergy producing a form of asthma. I've certainly gor the cough. A cure is not so far forthcoming. Does anyone know any more about this?

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:38 AM

Scrump: I've sung with wonderful singers who can't hear that they are singing in the wrong key. Even when I play the whole song through as an introduction, they came in on a different key. When I tried to get them to sing harmony, they usually slide back into singing the melody. When I try to teach them the harmony and sing it for them, they sing along with me, with me singing the harmony and them singing the melody, and when they finish they say very comfortably, "o.k., I got it now." That can't even hear that they are singing different notes than I am. And yet as a lead singer, they have fine tone.

In this case, it's usually because the person has always sung lead, and expected the accompaniment to follow them. I've heard these singers go through a whole song, singing in a different key than the instruments and back-up singers and think everything was fine.

I have no idea why they can't tell the difference. Some of them are really wonderful singers..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: stallion
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:47 AM

re scrump, some songs start on the key note and some on the 3rd. etc. We don't have problems generally if the keynote is the starting note. Also, we tend to hike the keys all over on a song til we find the right combination of voices, It can be problematic for me if i am leading and occasionally a song is pitched at the top or bottom end of my range (Let the Toast Pass C - top end, Spanish Ladies D - bottom end) thats when I sometimes get it wrong, the other is also shared with my two colleagues, every pint after the second raises the pitch half a note! As to tone deafness, it is about training, practice and hard work, put the work in and anyone, eventually, will be able to sing in tune, it requires hard work and committment if one isn't naturally gifted with a bit of a short cut.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:54 AM

Dyslexia can affect the way people hear , as well as affecting vision
My brother was a Classic 'Couldnt carry a tune in a bucket' as a teenager , but with assistance from his wife , who is a competent singer , he is now a Star of the Church Choir !

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 07:58 AM

I have a friend who was told in high school by the 'music teacher', that she was tone deaf and could not sing = but that did not stop her singing along. Fifteen years later, when I met her, she was all over the scale. I taught her the 'bend the ear' trick, and managed to get her listening to her own voice, along with what she was trying to sing with.

With much practice she HAS improved noticelably, but is occasionally off key - she just needs a little more focus, I believe.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 08:50 AM

I think you're right, Foolestroupe. Training and experience is all that's required to develop 'musical ear'. As a music teacher I've worked with hundred and hundreds of people of all ages and musical ability over the years. I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as 'tone deafness', unless the person is also totally deaf. Anyone whose ears function normally can hear musical tones. With time, musical training and concentrated effort/focus, the ability to distinguish between and produce "higher" or "lower" or "matching" tones on cue develops.

Years ago a middle-aged lady came to me for piano lessons. She'd taken lessons as a kid and was really down on her own musical abilities, insisting that she was tone-deaf. Testing that out, I played Middle C on the piano and asked her to sing the note she heard. She produced something around an F#, couldn't tell if she was right or wrong. Tried a few different notes, same result. Tone-deaf, right?

WRONG! I started her on a very basic ear-training program, first just practicing matching tones. I play a note, she'd sing it, I'd tell her it needed to be higher/lower, she'd try again until she matched it. WIth practice, she learned to hear the differences herself. And within a few months she could tell whether she was sharp or flat (as compared to a given tone). SHe was my very first adult student, and she taught me a lot! Studied with me for years, ended up finishing her Grade VIII Conservatory, including all those ear tests! SHe was required to identify or sing all the intervals within an octave, to play back a rather complicated little tune after she was told the key and heard it played twice (no looking, just listening). ANd she aced that part of the exam - her, the "tone-deaf" one who had "absolutely no musical talent" when she came to me (according to her, anyway). HA!

I think it's the same with 'perfect' or absolute pitch. If a toddler (aged 2 or 3) is exposed to music in the home daily, has an instrument to play on and is given a little musical training and encouragement/reinforcement, he/she learns to match tones and develops 'relative pitch' quite easily. I think that's because toddlers are at a biologically 'critical time' for learning languages -- including the language of music. Some toddlers learn these abilities VERY easily, and with time, effort and motivation/reinforcement also develop a highly accurate tonal memory.

This is what people call 'perfect pitch' - the ability to sing a note on cue without reference, to tell which note the phone rings on etc. Perfect pitch is commonly thought of as some mysterious god-given talent or gift - but it's not. It's a learned ability, and it developes when children are given effective musical training at a very early age. Haven't met a person with perfect pitch yet who didn't study music as a very, very young child! ANd that's how it 'runs in families' too - through nurture, and not just nature.

IMO and experience, of course. THe jury is still out on that, in the scientific community.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 09:05 AM

Often, part of the problem for people who don't sing in tune is that they are singing too loud and too hard. I assume they are imitating pop stars because that's all they've ever heard. Working full out, they are more apt to lose control over their voices and sing sharp or flat.

I see this in our church choir rather often.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 09:28 AM

"singing too loud and too hard."

With all that effort going into production, there isn't much left for 'observation and comparison', probably.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 10:46 AM

Countess Richard

Yes - I can have the same problem, and contrary to Leeneia it's often because I'm not singing with sufficient power/confidence/commitment. Yes, you can go TOO loud and on a good day I can hold a tune almost under my breath, but mostly singing out with a decent amount of confidence does the trick. However, sometimes my voice just does't do what I tell it. It's not cos I can't tell I'm out of tune or in which direction(cos I can and it's excruciating!) and it's not cos I'm in an inappropriate key - I'm pretty good at pitching in a sensible place for myself and at matching the accompaniment, if there is one. It's just plain mis communication between brain and mouth!

Reasons? Giving up smoking took a year to recover from - for ages I sounded like a choir boy on the cusp! Drink can affect it (I don't mean binge amounts, just the odd glass), what I've eaten, who I'm singing with (if someone in the audience is joining in badly out of tune that can throw me all over), a cold (I'm usually BETTER in tune with one of them!), not concentrating or not committed to the song, a bad PA system (if you get a lot of feedback or reverb in the monitor you subconsciously try to compensate). There's probably a dozen other reasons that I haven't even thought of which also affect me.

Mostly I sing in tune. Sometimes a few notes go astray and there's not much I can do about it. I've noticed that some of my favourite performers can have the same problem occasionally, so I don't feel too bad. As long as the songs are sung with care and understanding, then they themselves are generally more important than the performance I find.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: CeltArctic
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:09 AM

Scrump mentioned "chord deafness"...I don't play the guitar. For most of my life, I have gotten my starting or key notes from playing a pitch pipe or recorder - a single note. When I sing with my husband, I often can't "hear" the key note if he plays the chord on the guitar. Perhaps with practice I could, but that's just how I learned to hear.

In grades 7 & 8 I sang in a school choir. Our choir teacher was one of those people who believe anyone can sing, a belief I have adopted. I recall one student who really couldn't hear the notes properly. I don't know if she was actually tone deaf, but our choir teacher taught her how to sing on pitch. She placed the student in the front row and gave her a lot of visual cues - a finger pointing up if the student was flat or down if she was sharp - and eventually the student could physically feel the right notes.

These days it makes me angry when someone says, "Oh I can't sing. My choir teacher always had me mouth the words."

Moira

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: stallion
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:21 AM

I have to say that we went to a primary(?) school in Washington Hieghts NYC last year and were knocked out by the standard of their choir, that school, and, I think, generally music education in the us beats the the UK by a country mile, I would lay odds that the music teachers in the US could teach a donkey to sing in tune. I was one of those kids who were told to "just mouth the words", up yours, I worked hard and I get paid for it now (albiet not a lot!)

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:30 AM

Just like any instrument to sing you need to learn how to do it. Some seem to be able to do it with out trying and others never seem to get the hang of it(either from mental or physical barriers) - just like any other instrument really.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Flash Company
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:33 AM

Scrump- Sounds familiar, it wasn't Frank O'Reilly by any chance?
There was a bass player with 'The Auld Triangle' in Westhoughton who was incapable of tuning his own instrument. Perfectly able to play once it was in tune.

FC

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:37 AM

Yeah Darren but if your instrument isn't functioning properly you just retune it or take it to the menders (or in the case of a melodeon, bin it, hehehe). But how do you fix a voice that used to work but now doesn't?

Thanks very much to Guest 10.46 but I'd really like solutions that are less drastic than giving up drinking and smoking.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:44 AM

There's this bloke who turns up regularly at a certain North London club who plays all manner of twangy things, and very well too. He spends an age tuning, plays an intro then starts singing in a key wholly unrelated to what he's playing. It must be really hard to do this and I don't think anyone is sure whether he's taking the piss or if he means it.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Grab
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:48 AM

My wife's got the same "key deafness" problem. She has incredible trouble singing harmonies - basically she has to stop listening to everyone else in order to do it, because of the level of concentration she needs, and that can be a problem at times. She's also unable to take a key from a chord on a guitar, and doesn't seem very confident with doing it on a piano either. But she can hear and sing back individual notes perfectly well, and she's got one of the best jazz voices I've heard.

Of course, a standard problem is that how you sound to yourself is not how other people hear you, a fact which anyone who's recorded themselves will know all too well! The bone conduction through the skull seems to carry more bass than actually gets out into the room. Me, I reckon that if I'm sounding almost like Elvis to myself, then I'm probably far enough out of my whiny breathy voice to be acceptable to everyone else.

Daylia, perfect pitch is apparently close to a standard ability in China and some other far-East countries where different pitches of voice give different meanings to words. What I heard, you mostly lose that ability at age 2-3 when you learn to talk properly - your brain starts with the ability to do anything, but when it starts learning a language, it blocks off all the other ways in which meaning can be communicated.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Roger the Skiffler (where's my cookie?)
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 11:53 AM

Do you mean there may be hope for me yet???

RtS

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 01:08 PM

I think, also, that training has a lot to do with the issue of being "tone deaf" as mentioned in an earlier message.

I had a college professor that stated she didn't believe in the term "tone deaf".

We had a few people in our sight-singing and ear training class that learned very quickly that actually listening to themselves is very important if not the most important thing when trying to learn a new or unfamiliar piece.

It was very interesting and intriguing to watch someone who came into the class not knowing what they sounded like and to "learn" how to get on pitch and stay there.


Hubby

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Kaleea
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 01:50 PM

Daylia, et al, YES!! Most of the time, when a person hears normally & has normal vocal function, it is a matter of education. I, also, have taught persons who were "tone deaf," "couldn't carry a tune in a bucket," etc. to match pitch & sing well.
    I have noticed a trend in recent decades, that more of our children are less able to match pitch than years back. I believe that the old ways of teaching elementary teachers & Music teachers were better when it comes to pitch. There was more emphasis on singing & singing games without recordings or electronics. Solfege (do-re-mi) was the norm.
I also have known many people who were told by an alleged "music teacher" that they could not sing. As a Music Educator, I would NEVER do this. Instead, I say, "We can all sing!" I would challenge the those alleged teachers to take it upon themselves to dig out their class notes & textbooks, call their music ed profs, take some more elem music classes & learn how to effectively teach pitch.
As to "perfect pitch," how does the stork know which child born with "perfect pitch" to drop in the USA where we use A=440, & which child to drop in another country where they use A=438, & which child to drop off in a country which has semi-tonal based Music? Is it nature, or is it nurture?

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: *daylia*
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:15 PM

Good info about that here, Kaleea, from the online journal at the University of Chicago

"40% of 72 individuals who had begun their musical training at age <4 years reported AP. In contrast, 43 (27%) of 160 individuals who had received their first musical training at age 4–6 years and 13 (8%) of 161 individuals who had received their first musical training at age 6–9 years reported AP. Only 4 (4%) of 104 individuals who had begun musical training at age 9–12 years and 3 (2.7%) of 112 individuals who had begun musical training at age >12 years reported AP.

These results indicate that there is a correlation between early musical training and the development of AP."

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:30 PM

I'd put Simon Cowell in the same catagory as Paris Hilton or ZsaZsa Gabor. They're famous because people know them, but they don't seem to have any talent of their own. (Maybe Simon is a great singer or instrumentalist, but all most people have seen him do is criticize others.)

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Little Robyn
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:53 PM

While I agree that people can be trained, the diversity of ability can be seen in my family - all having the same start and my Mum singing the same sort of songs to all of us.
I sing in tune, prefer to sing harmonies and play almost any instrument I can get my hands on.
My next sister enjoys singing, especially hymns and Christmas carols, but usually she's singing in parallel 4ths or 5ths and doesn't know it.
The third girl can sing in tune but if I try to harmonise, she loses it - can't hold a tune against a harmony.
Number 4 is better at holding a tune when I harmonise, but she can't do the harmony herself.
Number 5 just doesn't sing. He used to as a kid but for some reason he stopped (maybe he had a discouraging teacher).
And the baby of the family is a musical genius! He was playing our pianola, with feeling, soon after he could walk. Our Grandmother taught him some simple tunes and at 6, I tried to get him lessons at the local convent. The sister said he was too young but he demonstrated his tunes and sang to her - and she started him the next week. He had perfect pitch and could name any note you played him. He's now in his 40s and is a professional musician, musical director, accompanist, and teacher/trainer of singers. He has a teenage son who also has perfect pitch and a daughter who doesn't (though she is musical and could be taught).
So the nature/nurture argument could be tested on our family.
Oh, and my Dad was tone deaf! Everyone knew that! But Mum could sing and she did so frequently - singing along to songs on the radio, at church, in the car, anything could set her off and I tend to do that too.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,ClaireBear
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 03:57 PM

I'm in the school of "there is tone deaf, and then there's TONE DEAF!"

I do accept that a good many folks who think they are tone deaf simply have untrained muscles -- both those needed for listening and those needed for vocal reproduction. But not all!

I had a dulcimer and singing student once, years ago, who was honestly unable to tell me, when I played her two notes about 5 whole notes apart, which was the higher of the two. We worked together on some simple American folk material -- Liza Jane, I wish I was a Single Girl Again, that sort of thing -- with really straightforward, simple melodies, and while she could play them by memorizing where her fingers went on the fretboard, she absolutely could not produce with her voice a tune that had remotely the right shape (ups and downs), never mind the right notes. I tried and tried, but nothing helped. I was very relieved when she moved away and I couldn't give her lessons anymore.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Topsie
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 04:31 PM

I'm like Little Robyn's "third girl" - OK on my own, but my voice sets off in the direction of the notes it hears around it. And I can also have problems telling which is the higher of two notes five notes apart - I might hear the higher note as lower than the other would be in a higher octave.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: fiddler
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 03:59 AM

Grand but - even a good singer can appear bad with nerves - thereby no further performances and a beleif that they can't sing.

Technique is all important but confidence has to be there too. This balloon is all too easily punctured and qwuite often by those nearest and dearest to us!

my two penneth!

Andy

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Slag
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:02 AM

This is good feed back and encouraging for the "Tone Deaf". My dad and his brothers would win talent competitions back in the 30's. My grandfather had the most beatiful tenor voice you'd ever want to hear. My dad also taught himself the guitar, mandolin, harmonica and even the piano. Actually he said that he had some piano lessons but he didn't have a piano at the time. His teacher drew the keys on a paper roll and they would sing the right notes! His family was quite poor duing the depression. My son plays the guitar wonderfully and my daughter the piano. Mom can sing in tune most of the time. Me? Well I have to work at it. I have a low voice and a narrow range. As I said in the original post I have some conductive hearing loss in my right ear which some day will be total but that wasn't always the case. It happened when I was 27. My problem in choral singing is that I get pulled off the harmony by other voices and I always tend toward the melody. If I'm not thinking about it I can hit THE bass line or A bass line, no problem but if I'm trying to learn a bass line while everyone else is doing their thing, AAAAck! My family has the talent in spades. I'm clubbing it!

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 06:59 AM

It's a big club, Slag!

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: *daylia*
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 08:15 AM

Daylia, perfect pitch is apparently close to a standard ability in China and some other far-East countries where different pitches of voice give different meanings to words. What I heard, you mostly lose that ability at age 2-3 when you learn to talk properly - your brain starts with the ability to do anything, but when it starts learning a language, it blocks off all the other ways in which meaning can be communicated.

Oops I missed this yesterday -- thanks for the comments, Graham. Yes, scientists have found that absolute pitch is linked to "Tonal Languages" such as those spoken in China and the Far East

...for students who speak a tonal language, acquiring absolute pitch is like learning a second language, which becomes much more difficult after a �critical period� of development. For students who speak a nontonal language such as English, however, absolute pitch is more like a first language, for which the critical period occurs at a much younger age.

This supports what you said about the brain 'blocking off' all other ways of listening/interpreting once a nontonal language, such as English, is being learned. The connections between language, music and memory are fascinating! Most babies start speaking their first words around 12-18 months -- this is when the brain areas responsible for learning language are developing most quickly, are most receptive and malleable. Babies are a lot more 'teachable' than they're usually given credit for -- for instance, at 18 months, my first-born could not only talk up a storm, but he knew all letters of the alphabet and the colors, too.

So who says babies can't learn something as complicated as music? ANd the earlier they start, the better. I was born just as my mother finished her final exams at Teacher's College. She used me and my sibs as 'guinea pigs' for her teaching methods from birth onwards, I think. I even remember the colorful charts set up with the alphabet and numbers in the playroom - she'd effectively taught me to read by the time I was 3 (a real pain in some ways, as it made school so BOOORRRRING for years and years...)

And she gave me my first piano lessons at age 2. Sang with me at the piano every day, taught me how to play it, taught me the names of the white keys. By the time I was three, I was picking out familiar little tunes on the piano unassisted. That delighted her so much, brought so much positive attention my way that believe me I was sure to go to the piano every single day! By age 4 I was telling her, without looking, what note she was playing on the piano. I knew which notes the guy on the radio was singing, which notes the doorbell rang on -- and she knew I had 'perfect pitch'. Started me on official piano lessons when I was 6, thinking I had some 'God-given gift' it was my 'duty' to develop. When all along, imo, it was only her efforts at teaching me that had paid off -- and sentenced me to the drudgery of years and years of private music lessons too    ;-)

Now, mind you, she'd used the same methods with my 5 siblings and while all of them studied music and developed excellent relative pitch, I'm the only one with absolute pitch. Neither of my parents, none of my kids or anyone else in my extended family have it either -- so much for the hypothesis that the ability is genetic, as far as I'm concerned. I think I was just extremely motivated to learn it, as a toddler. And I did NOT spend hours at the piano every day with my own kids when they were babies ... arrrrghhh .... see how I deprived them!

ANyway, sorry for rambling and thanks for listening to all that! ANd I'm glad some of you who consider yourselves 'tone deaf' have found some inspiration here. I hope I live to see the day when the concept of 'tone deafness' goes the way of the geocentric universe!

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: Anne Lister
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 06:18 PM

Just a few other thoughts, from my experience of running numerous voice workshops and from performing ...
1) Nervousness and stage fright produce a degree of deafness to pitch. I can't tune my guitar accurately if I'm nervous, nor can many other performers I know, and for some people that results in singing out of key as well without realising it. I've even heard albums where the singers are plainly out of tune but this hasn't been picked up by the engineer, the producer or the singers.
2) It's actually quite hard for quite a lot of people to hear the pitch from certain instruments, such as the guitar - maybe it's the frequency, maybe it's familiarity, but either way that's what happens.
3) A huge amount of music written for children is written on the (false) assumption that children sing soprano. Not all children do, and those that don't have enormous trouble finding the right note in a register they can't easily cope with. Which leads to the "I can't sing" syndrome and, frequently, the identification with tone deafness. And it's a vicious downward spiral! The more you think you can't sing, the more you can't. And if as a child you knew you "couldn't", then it's even tougher as an adult.
And 4) on Pop Idol and other similar shows the auditions are for singers to perform a capella, which is difficult even without audition nerves.

Not a lot to do with tone deafness there, then, in my experience!

Anne (Lister)

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:00 PM

In regards to American (or whatever) Idol:

I'd bet that some of the really bad acts are faking it, or auditioning even though they know they can't sing, just to get on TV for a few minutes. I'm sure it's easier to get your audition televised for being remarkably bad than for being remarkably good.

Marion

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 10:10 PM

Ten years ago, I was on a raft trip in the Grand Canyon. There were a lot of singers in our group, and sometimes we sang together. Our boatman, who happened to be a woman, commented, "It's so nice to hear singing. People don't sing anymore." And I'm sure she's right.

I sang in grade school and high school, in the Scouts and 4-H, in the car with family, around the campfire, in church, and sometimes while doing housework. How many people do any of that nowadays?

One factor in people not being able to sing is that they have not had any practice.

Subject: RE: Tone Deafness
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:42 AM

"One factor in people not being able to sing is that they have not had any practice. "

Practice of a motor skill (eg singing) is not just unthinking repetition,
but involves careful listening,
measuring the perceived difference from a known standard, and feedback to modify actions in repeated practice.

Lack of any of these means that you are just building bad habits.