Tone deafness not as common as we think!
Great news for those of us who love singing but are not appreciated by our family and friends who cringe at our warbling! Blame it on being tone deaf? Not anymore! Apparently only 1 in 20 of us have inherited amusia, the medical term for tone deafness. Tests have shown that some people with bad singing voices hear music just fine. Amusics are a smaller group with a perceptual problem, they can’t pick out differences in pitch or follow the simplest tunes.
Brain scans haven’t revealed major anatomical differences in amusics, but more sophisticated tests have uncovered some subtle variations. It’s all to do with the density of the brain’s white matter between the right frontal lobe, where higher thinking occurs, and the right temporal lobes, where basic processing of sound occurs. The white matter of the amusics was thinner, which suggests a weaker connection. In addition, the worse the tone deafness, the thinner the white matter.
No matter what, I’ll just keep singing in the shower!
Penny Harrington
b5 media Genetics and Health correspondent
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POSTED IN: Genealogy and DNA, General Genetics and Health, Genetic Ingenuity, Genetics of Disease
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3 opinions for Tone deafness not as common as we think!
Alan
Oct 6, 2007 at 11:08 pm
keep singing, great
Andy
Dec 19, 2007 at 5:42 pm
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …
Steven Lawless
Jan 3, 2008 at 11:27 am
I am a pianist in a piano bar who often finds myself confronted by someone who insists that he/she is tone deaf. When time an situation permit, I give them the following test: I play in steady rhythm a sing note (say middle C) over and over again asking my subject, who’s eyes are averted, to signal when they hear me change to a new note. I’ve never had anyone fail this test even though the change is small - one or two semitones, say. Some,listening for something too subtle, will jump the gun hearing perhaps a slight change in volume or rhythm (which, of course, I try not to change) but upon hearing, perhaps, a dozen or more Cs they always respond when the note changes.
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