Tone deaf or inability to play music ?

[GoofKing]

What I mean by the title is not being able to reproduce the notes I hear correctly and always playing songs or singing them in the wrong key. Is this an inability to be musical or creative with writing music ?

 

[On the Inside]

Not sure what instrument other than voice you are working on, but I have years of practice at playing stringed instruments and singing. Lessons, practice and performing. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

There are people who are "tone deaf" but are able to overcome this difficulty, but it does take dedicated practice, and the ability to do things over and over without getting frustrated or losing interest.

We all reach a plateau, though. Whether it is not having the time to devote because of other interests (that's what happened to me), or something else, we reach a limit. I'm never going to be the player I've dreamed of being and I'm at peace with that.

I don't think it is necessarily an inability to be musical, or creative with music.

 

[Judge]

Is this an inability to be musical or creative with writing music ?

Complicated question, Goofking. I can only give you a complicated answer:

Even the profoundly deaf are potentially capable of creating beautiful music. It's a strange and wondrous neurological process.

 

[113]

It takes practice. I learned to sing in tune by moving my hands up or down with melodies to the degree the pitch changes.

 

[On the Inside]

Nice post, Judge.

A good friend of mine is a musician as well as a mathematician, gets paid for both. He can go off on very complex mathematical threads about composition, chord progressions, tuning, etc. (I say, just turn on, tune up and lets jam.) So musical creativity can be completely separate from one's auditory abilities.

 

[photoaddict]

There are people who are truly tone deaf. As in, unable to really hear the differences in the notes. My dad is like that. Not only can he not sing, he doesn't hear different notes the way others do. I used to get so upset because he didn't recognize things I played on the piano, even when I knew he was familiar with the songs. Most people, though, can learn to hear and match the notes. Writing/playing music, as already stated, can be a purely mathematical process, so you don't have to have an ear for it to produce something beautiful.

 

[AsheSkyler]

Just because you're not good at it yourself doesn't mean you can't be a good judge or have a good ear. I do believe it was Beethoven who was completely deaf, and he composed quite a few pieces. I think maybe he was hard of hearing at the beginning of his career, but it didn't stop him. I remember a story of one bike who's daughter was deaf but she was the baby of his entire gang and they'd purposely turn up their music because they knew how much she loved the vibrations of heavy metal songs.

I am horribly, horribly off-key when I sing if I'm not singing with music. And if it's been a while, I'm off-key through the whole song. Octaves give me more fits than anything. I can't do the higher stuff well unless I do it more quietly than other octaves, else it really makes my throat hurt and my voice crack. Most songs I can sing close to the same tone as what I speak with, but some songs like the ones by Within Temptation I have to drop full alto, especially in some of the chorus parts.

 

[Tom]

I am unable to keep a beat/timing. But I was able to make music using a computer program that puts the timing in order for you.