Tone Deafness / The Big Lie!

Dear Fellow Vocalists,

Since I have been around all styles of singing since an early age, I could not begin to count the number of times I have heard someone say they are Tone Deaf after they are asked to sing solo or in a group. I am confident that you have also heard this said about others or even yourself.

Tone Deafness may be the most misunderstood term in all of singing. It is very unfortunate that many people think they have this condition. The truth is, very few people do and the mental barrier they carry around them keeps them from even trying to sing. This result is very sad!

After training voice for over 25 years, if anybody says to me “I am Tone Deaf”, I invite them to my studio for a free assessment. The results of those who accepted my invitation is that I have only had one person that ever tested positive for tone deafness. Even he was able to make progress over a period of time. I will tell his story in this blog.

Granted, I have had a few students that had a more difficult time singing on pitch, but I have always been able resolve these problems with hard work by myself and the student.

Following is the definition for Tone Deafness and an excerpt from my revolutionary ebook, Singing and Speaking on the Edge of a Grunt, located at my web site http://www.vocaltrainingwarrior.com/.

Tone Deafness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A person who is tone deaf lacks relative pitch, the ability to discriminate between musical notes. Being tone deaf is having difficulty or being unable to correctly hear relative differences between notes; however, in common usage, it refers to a person’s inability to reproduce them accurately. The latter inability is most often caused by lack of musical training or education and not actual tone deafness.

The ability of relative pitch, as with other musical abilities, appears to be inherent in healthy functional humans. The hearing impairment appears to be genetically influenced, though it can also result from brain damage. While someone who is unable to reproduce pitches because of a lack of musical training would not be considered tone deaf in a medical sense, the term might still be used to describe them casually. Someone who cannot reproduce pitches accurately, because of lack of training or tone deafness, is said to be unable to “carry a tune.”

Tone deafness affects ability to hear pitch changes produced by a musical instrument and/or the human voice. However, tone-deaf people seem to be only disabled when it comes to music, and they can fully interpret the prosody or intonation of human speech. It has been observed that in societies with tonal languages such as Cantonese and Vietnamese, there are almost no tone deaf people; a strong indicator that the ability to reproduce and distinguish between notes may be a learned skill.

Tone-deaf people often lack a sense of musical aesthetics, and much like a colorblind person would not be apt to appreciate colorful visual art, some tone-deaf people cannot appreciate music. Tone deafness is also associated with other musical-specific impairments such as inability to keep time with music (the lack of rhythm), or the inability to remember or even recognize a song. These disabilities can appear separately but some research shows that they are more likely to appear in tone-deaf people.

Tone deafness is also known variously as amusia, tune deafness, dysmelodia and dysmusia.
1) Amusia, the medical loss of musical ability
2) Absolute pitch, the rare ability to name a musical note when played or sung
3) Relative pitch, the normal human ability to accurately discriminate pitch intervals
4) Deafness, the inability to hear sound

With Tone Deafness clearly defined, let me share with you a case study I personally encountered years ago when I was attending college. One of my many odd jobs to pay for my education was teaching private guitar lessons. I taught this one young boy who was a complete beginner on guitar. As I often did, and still do, when guitar students learn a few simple songs, I challenge them to sing and play together.

This is a great exercise for ear training and performing more complex forms of coordination. It was not long before it was apparent that he was completely unable to duplicate any pitch. Without any training to fix this problem, I experimented and figured out a strategy to help him. He and his parents wanted him to be able to sing on pitch.

Here was my strategy. I concluded, without any medical training, that the message the brain was sending to the chords was scrambled, incorrect or both. He would hear a pitch but would always sing another. His vocal chords were not being stretched to the correct location. Here was my solution. Simply, I kept repeating the same notes I wanted him to try to duplicate each lesson over a long period of time. His progress was slow but he eventually was able to get a lot closer and, then, match the pitch.

After about a year of hard work, he was able to play and sing four simple songs. Maybe that does not seem like a lot. But, trust me, it was. Again, I am not making any medical claims. I was confronted with a challenge and used logic to figure out a solution that worked. It makes sense, though, that it did work. The truth is, whenever we are learning a new physical skill, it takes a while for learning programming to be completed. In his case, it was the nerves and muscle systems that operated his voice and it just took longer to accomplish.

As you can see from this actual story, it is possible to sing on pitch. If you are one of the people who is stuck in this rut, buy my affordable ebook or find another way to get yourself checked and begin to enjoy the miracle instrument you have been given, you voice.

See you next time.

Sign up to my Blog and tell a friend.

Subscribe in a reader

Jonathan Morgan Jenkins
http://www.vocaltrainingwarrior.com