Don, of course I mean deaf from birth, or effectively tone-deaf, or (more to the point) believing in books at the expense of listening.

An interesting question though: assume someone has heard a lot of music without caring, then becomes deaf, then decides to become a composer - might it work? I doubt it, since listening normally requires the right consciousness immediately. But as there are people with a "photographic memory", there may be others with a "phonographic memory" - who knows about that?