18/10/2022
Tone-deafness. Is it a real affliction or is it an imagined affliction?
As most of you know, I give presentations on Intonation to various groups from time to time. Yesterday, I gave my lecture at the Defence Force School of Music and on my way home I found myself pondering the ‘language’ we musicians tend to use when it comes to what I refer to as ‘improving our aural acuity’. I use this phrase for an important reason and yesterday led to me finally find a proper explanation as to why I use it.
You see, when it comes to our aural improvement insofar as music is concerned, most of us have grown up with the phrase: Ear Training, and for the most part, that’s been enough, title-wise. However, for me, that phrase directly refers to or hints at a part of our anatomy…our ears.
Have you ever noticed that we ‘learn to read’, we don’t do ‘Eye Training’, or learn to ‘Improve our Eyesight’ or carry out ‘Vision Training’, we learn to read. The point I’m making here is that within the phrase ‘learn to read’ the word ‘eye’ is absent. However, by using the phrase Ear Training, we’re bringing the word ‘ear’ into the equation. The danger with this is that if there’s something we 'struggle to hear' it’s easy enough to blame our ears when it’s got nothing to do with our ears.
Why is this understanding important? Well, for the one primary reason that some people/musicians use the phrase, tone-deaf. Over many decades I’ve heard all too often: 1) people/musicians accusing themselves of being tone-deaf, and the more heinous crime in my opinion, 2) people/musicians accusing others of being tone-deaf.
Well, here’s the thing. There’s no such thing as tone-deafness. Those who use the phrase don’t know what they’re talking about. You simply can’t be tone-deaf unless: 1) you’re actually deaf (either you’re physically deaf or have earplugs or other such implements inserted into/worn over your ears so you can’t hear); 2) you’re ‘clinically’ stupid; 3) you believe tone-deafness actually exists and act accordingly, or 4) you’re lazy. That’s it. If you think you’re tone-deaf then which one of these do you want to be associated with? Get a friend to ask you your name. If you answer, then clearly, you’re not deaf. That only leaves the other three options for you, so take your pick.
The worst thing about accusing yourself or others of being tone-deaf is that the accused immediately gives up on improving their situation. You usually hear follow-up comments from the accused such as, “What’s the point! I’m tone-deaf. There’s no hope for me. I give up,” etc. These thoughts are often accompanied with a sigh, and a forward drooping of the head and shoulders–the universal sign of defeatism.
So, if my point’s not clear then let me further explain. When you improve your aural acuity, you’re actually training your brain to associate sounds with some form of theory (for example, playing a C and E together and explaining that the resultant sound is the interval of a major 3rd). It’s like reading, where you’re training your brain to recognise groups of letters which in turn form words which then form sentences from which some manner of understanding is then made. This process has nothing to do with the eyes other than they’re the ‘sense’ used to relay written/printed information to the brain. The eyes have no other input into the reading process.
Likewise, the ears have no input into the ‘understanding’ of sound. They are simply the sense we have that converts soundwaves that strike our eardrums into some form of impulses that are then relayed to the brain. It’s in the brain that all the working out is done. Therefore, it’s the brain that has to be trained to understand the sound, not the ears. Therefore, improving our aural acuity has nothing to do with improving our ears.
Now, I also gave you the option of being ‘clinically stupid’. I used these words for the main purpose of introducing the point that one of the aspects of being clinically stupid is that you have a severe learning disability. In short, it’s difficult if not impossible to train the brain of someone who’s unfortunate enough to suffer from this kind of disability or similar disabilities of the brain.
If you simply believe that tone-deafness exists then as I said above, you’ll act accordingly. Many of us have simply accepted the phrase ‘tone-deafness’ and its associated ‘assumed’ handicap without question…and act accordingly either by the way we act towards ourselves or by the way we treat those who we believe have this non-existent affliction.
The word ‘lazy’ is straightforward. To clarify this point a bit more, if the lazy person is ‘misdiagnosed’ and accused of being tone-deaf then they’re potentially in a happy place because they can remain being completely content in their laziness. No one will pressure them into learning and generally, if you think someone’s tone-deaf then what’s the point of teaching/training them, right?
I have a brother-in-law who once accused himself of being tone-deaf. I gave him the four options of tone-deafness (above) and asked him which one he wanted to be listed under. His excited response was solid gold, “You mean, I can be taught?” He ‘got it’ straight away.
I said earlier that improving your aural acuity includes associating musical sounds with music theory. I’ve been asked by many over the years for the best way to improve their aural acuity. The answer, learn traditional Harmony. Traditional Harmony is the ‘science’ of Western music. If you learn Harmony properly then you will be continually applying music theory with associated music sounds and making the most amazing connections that will stand you in great stead, aurally, for decades to come.
For example, whenever I was faced with ‘notes of a key’ (whereby the instructor orientates you aurally to a particular key then plays some 10 notes individually and you have to write them down), for me, because I learned Harmony, I don’t hear 10 individual notes, I hear a chord progression…yes, the notes individually, or even collectively, form a chord progression in my brain. I now only have three notes to choose from within each chord not the seven individual notes from the scale. From there, working out the individual notes is easy. I can even hear ‘key changes’ in amongst the 10 notes if chromatic notes are added.
As for hearing chords in inversion, that is a piece of cake for me because, through my study of Harmony, I have both learned and heard how inverted chords are constructed and used. Accordingly, I regularly used them in my own Harmony exercises which resulted in a strong aural message being sunk deep into my brain. As a result, I can recognise inverted chords, among other things, with ease.
While I’m on the subject of misconceptions, throughout my career I’ve heard a number of musicians say that a musician needs excellent hearing. This is just as illogical as saying that someone who reads needs excellent vision to read a book. Just as a someone who reads can use glasses to assist their vision if required, musicians, if they need to, can do similar (a hearing aid of some form or ‘turn up the volume’ a bit). All the brain needs is enough information from the ears to be able to make appropriate decisions as to what’s occurring on the sound front. So, 30% hearing is all that’s really needed, not 100%. It shines a new light that old story about Beethoven being stone deaf, yet he was able to conduct an orchestra through a work of his. Just think…if Beethoven was 70-80% deaf then he’d still have enough aural input for his brain to work out, via his superb aural acuity, what was going on.
Like most excellent musicians have experienced, excellent aural acuity is the goal. Again, nothing to do with the ears themselves…it’s all to do with the training of the brain (in short, acuity means: keenness of understanding…the key word being understanding, and that word can’t be associated with the ears).
Consider, if I were to write a Chinese symbol on the board and ask a non-Chinese speaking person to tell me what it means, if that person were to look puzzled and shrug their shoulders saying they didn’t know then it would be really silly for me to accuse them of being blind…it’s got nothing to do with their vision. So, if I play something to a student musician and they can’t recognise the sound, to accuse them of being tone-deaf is just as silly. Train them, easy peasy.
