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What does’Tone-Deaf’ mean?

What makes us think we can’t sing?

We can sing. We all can sing! But there is such a thing as being ‘tone deaf’… so what exactly is that? This, written by Sushma Subramanian and published on the 'everyday health.com' site:


"We've seen the truly embarrassing episodes on American Idol tryouts. Singers filled with confidence, earnestly wailing in front of microphones, clueless that they're falling flat.

Research shows that no, the truly tone deaf really cannot hear themselves sing.

Truly tone-deaf folks, who make up about 4 percent of the population, can't pick out differences in pitch or follow the simplest tune.


Amusics — people who cannot produce or distinguish musical sounds — have less dense white matter between their right frontal lobe, where higher thinking occurs, and the right temporal lobes, where we process sounds, than people with normal musical ability, according to a 2007 report in the Harvard Health Letter. If you think of the nerve connections as being like a highway, in tone-deaf people, there’s a lot less traffic traveling on the roadway than there is in people with normal musical abilities, said Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center neurologist Psyche Loui, PhD.


The majority of people who might call themselves "tone-deaf" they just have untrained ears. "I think that there are some people who lacked early music training who can't sing in tune, but with training they can get better." (Source: Beth Israel PHD as above). Some of these people don't know when they're singing out of tune, but many can hear music just fine. Most anyone can improve with practice, she says." How, through repetition, and singing with others... like My Pop Choir!

I

've heard a few people say that they're tone deaf.... I imagine nothing compared to the character "Lucy Ricardo" played by Lucille Ball in a very old series called I Love Lucy! It's interesting to note that the actress sang very well... this is acting!



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