Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Things They Should Invent: divide tone-deaf into two concepts

In general usage, tone-deaf is taken to mean you can't sing because you miss the notes. However, its literal meaning is that you can't hear the difference between notes. If you google for online tests of tone-deafness, they're really ear training tests - they test whether you can differentiate aurally between different notes.

However, there are people like me who can hear music and differentiate aurally between notes just fine, but can't hit the right pitch when singing. I know I'm not hitting all the notes, I can hear that I'm not hitting all the notes, I just...can't make it happen. Similar to how if I try to sink a three-point shot on the basketball court, I'm probably going to miss. I can see the hoop, I can see that the ball isn't going through the hoop, but I can't necessarily make it go through the hoop.

For lack of better ideas I suggest tone-mute for this concept, but I'm wide open to better ideas.

1 comment:

laura k said...

Sing-challenged?

Nah, tone-mute is better.

I'm the same way, btw.