Christopher Frazier
Stephen F. Austin State University
Feburary 2002
Few people know the range of the different types of tone deafness. However, many people think they have it. Tone deafness is does not refer to a problem with the ears, but to a lack of training. Tone deafness is easy to fix by training the ears and the vocal muscles. Lancet is a music professor in Boston who is tone-deaf (Lancet 2001). Lancet express, "tone deafness is a term that tends to be applied indiscriminately to a constellation of music processing, perceptual, and production deficits" (Lancet 2001). This paper will examine the tone-deafness real-life terms, the past and current research, and current direction which all contribute to its need for exploration.
Tone-deaf people live from early in life with tone-deaf. The ability to hear a pitch and sing it back is similar to hand-eye coordination. Lancet states, "it is voice-ear coordination" (p.779). Neither one of these abilities are born into us, we have to learn them. Babies do not have hand-eye coordination. If a person holds a toy in front of an infant, he or she can see in the baby's eyes that she wants the toy. For example, my ten-month-old cousin cannot determine the distance where the object is located. His hands flail around randomly, missing the target. He has not yet learned to coordinate his hands and eyes. If he does this often enough, however, he will eventually learn. Lancet explains, "the human brain is very good at remembering which of these incredibly complex muscle contractions results in a score" (Lancet 2001). So next time he reaches for something, it does not take quite as long. My cousin continues to have a one in three chance when reaching for an object (p. 784). By the time, he is a toddler, it would be inconceivable that he could reach for something and miss. He has hand-eye coordination. However, we all have it. Why cannot everyone sing? Singing is optional. Reaching for things is not. We all develop hand-eye coordination as a part of our basic survival skills. Nevertheless, we could go our whole lives without singing and be fine. We want to sing, but we have to make a conscious effort to learn. Some people make this effort as children, and we assume they were born with it. This is not so. As with anything, it comes more naturally to some than to others, but we all have to learn. Numerous people believe that tone-deafness does not exist. Many people believe that they are tone-deaf (Lancet 2001). Nevertheless, I do not believe that they are tone-deaf, in other words, people who will never be able to learn to distinguish between notes.
Many of the tone-deaf people have been able to work on their problem, and by correcting their singing techniques, as well as releasing their constrictions, they have learned to sing in tune. "Tone-deaf" singers often have severe constrictions around their vocal cords (Gandour, 2000). Usually they have had these tensions for such a long time that they no longer feel like tensions. A person often finds psychological reasons for these tensions (Gandour, 2000). Gandour states, "frequently a singer has been thoroughly deprived of his or hers self-confidence regarding the voice "(2000). One can lose his or her self-confidence for many reasons. For example, I was singled out as the one in the church choir who was spoiling the sound of the choir and by being the laughing stock of my family when singing birthday songs. DeBellis (2000) is a field researcher in tone-deafness, who expressed that, "when tone-deaf people have experienced enough discouragement because of their voice, they lose confidence in both voice and hearing ". They no longer trust their voice or hearing. Hearing becomes disconnected with their voice and such singers cease to correct the way they sing by means of their hearing (DeBellis 2000). From this point on, confidence can rapidly decrease. To avoid hurtful defeat and to prevent further humiliation, the singer becomes the first to run him or herself down and declare that he or she cannot sing. When a so-called "tone deaf" person has the courage to work on his or her problem, it is worth the effort, as it is often a very difficult and time&endash;consuming process. It can be very hard for the singer to confront all the painful defeats, which she or he has experienced in being labeled as "tone-deaf" (DeBellis, 2000).
According to Peretz (2001), a tone-deaf researcher, "the term tone-deafness and the associated medical term amusia have unfortunately been applied somewhat loosely by medical practitioners, educators, laypersons and psychologists to a board range of evident and supposed musical deficits". To begin with, Isabelle expresses, "the term no doubt covers deficits in four conceptually distinct domains: musical perception, production, memory, and the loss of symbolic manipulation skills" (Peretz, 2001). To add, the etiology of these deficits is poorly understood, but it appears that they can result from organic trauma or some as-yet-unknown combination of genetic and environmental factors (Peretz, 2001). Although the term "amusia" was applied over a century ago (2001), various amusias have not yet been systematically documented or classified, and no comprehensive study of musical deficits has been undertaken. In addition, approximately 3% of the general population is believed to be amusic from childhood, with no estimates of the incidence within patient populations (Peretz, 2001). DeBellis (2000) comments, "Shepard found that only 38% of subjects he recruited from the Bell Laboratories could not distinguish sine tones that differed by slightly more than a semitone" (p. 246). If such large proportions of people cannot distinguish musical tones, which are semitones apart, what are these people hearing when they listen to music? Another example with past research, was conducted by the Kodaly Institute in California, where the first parents were taught to sing in tune so that they could send their messages to the embryo by softly tapping the rhythms of children's songs on the mother's belly (DeBellis, 2000). It is a shame they exaggerated the rhythms the way you are expected to do at school! However, in recent research, researchers have found the components of amusia that has become to be an important insight for neuropsychologists (p. 489). The evidence for dissociation in the production and perception of intonation in sentences suggests the possibility for such dissociations in amusia as well (Wong, 2001).
Tone-deafness is a evolving and expanding issue. There are interesting discoveries in process today. Many are not documented or the researchers are performing experiments on various participants. In addition, there are many music-teaching methods, which seem to ignore these methods. All experiences suggest that in this way, even those who have a limited or poor sense of sound can acquire reliable inner hearing (Moore, 2000). That is, they are able to develop an inner image of the music. We sing a whole series of exercises with our children for this purpose. Exercises were regularly done because success in this case depends on the patient development of a series of reflexes. It is a difficult way, but if one has any idea of the success that can be reached by it, he or she will be ready to take the pains. In addition, Italy has done a study over hearing disabilities in sixty-five year olds and older adults (Kazez, 2000). Researchers have performed audiometric studies, mainly using pure-tone audiometry, and others have conducted more comprehensive studies, including speech audiometry and otoimmittance testing (2000). Nevertheless, there is complete agreement in the literature that hearing worsens with age and that women perform better than men.
In conclusion, tone-deafness is an upcoming topic to explore. The people who are affected by this are mainly persons who have low confidence in themselves. The research explores many other avenues such as infant perception, amusia, and elderly hearing loss. The research will soon be able to find more details in pure-tone audiometry and use it to help tone-deaf elderly persons. Gandour suggested, "many researchers who have focus on the study of melody, rhythm and pitch perception have noticed that some subjects simply perform simple auditory tasks that come easily to the majority" (2000). Most of the time, society tend to discard these subjects without further study, but in doing so, we are ignoring a population that can defer important insight into the nature of auditory processes (p.220). Perhaps accidentally, society has rejected some of the most interesting subjects. This means that through life's downfalls, as a society we must spend time on funding and exploring areas such as like tone-deafness. Many people's their lives will be changed after they learn how to look past their tone-deafness.
DeBellis, Mark. (2000). What is musical institution? Tonal theory as cognitive science. New York Academy of Sciences, 4, 471-489.
Gandour, Jack. (2000). A Cross line Study of Tone Perception. Developmental Psychology,12, 207-220.
Kazez, Daniel. (2000). Hearing in the Elderly: A Population study Audicion en la senectud: un estudio poblacional. Music Educators Journal, 71, 46.
Lancet, Mike. (2001). A good excuse to give up those music lessons. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 357, 777-784.
Moore, Brain C. J. (2000). An Introduction to the psychology of hearing. Academic Press, Inc, 3, 322.
Peretz, Isabelle. (2001). Brain specialization for music. New evidence from congenital Amusia. New York Academy of Sciences, 8, 243-246.
Wong, Donald. (2001). Audiology. Journal of Communication, 6, 6.