Well, I’ll offer a more concrete example than TTLS and a piano.
I picked up a harmonica a couple months ago because I would like to understand playing music a little better, and a harmonica is a relatively small investment considering I haven’t got enough time to really pour into learning how to play. One of the basic tunes given to me in tabulature form was Danny Boy, which I don’t know as well as TTLS but still know the first verse to well enough. If I played the notes in order, I certainly got what sounded like Danny Boy, but at no time was I able to make the cognitive link between what I heard in my head versus what I needed to play on the harp to make the right sounds come out. I can sing or hum the first verse passably, but I couldn’t tell you with ease when the notes go up, down, or hold.
It’s possible it just requires practice and attention, as in more than 10 minutes a day goofing around, but I’m not at all confident I can just sit there and pick out a tune on the harp given time with my current level of skill.
Of course, it’s been a few months and I’ve made very little headway on understanding music, because around the same time I got the harmonica I had an idea for a story explode in my head. I spent the next several weeks getting that written down, and I like to think I did that pretty well.
A harmonica is definitely more complex than a keyboard. It requires you go learn a series of specific skills. I would allow for much more time to pick out a tune on the harmonica.
Yeah, granted. I had a lot of trouble rolling through even the first few notes of Danny Boy on the harmonica, even though they were given to me, but I loaded up that virtual keyboard and popped through TTLS pretty quickly using the notes aruvqan listed. Of course, that’s just pattern matching which has nothing to do with picking it out by myself.
Since this is a discussion of musical (in)abilities I just thought I’d wander back in and toss out the old “Air Ball” comment.
It’s been argued that the average basketball crowd can can sing out a near perfect pitch F-D when chanting “Air Ball” after some unlucky player misses the basket completely. (try it yourself and then test it against a properly tuned instrument)
Apparently many people who otherwise appear to lack musical ability have the ability to hit the F if asked to sing the Air Ball chant.
When I was young and could not afford a tuner or pitch pipe I used to have a similar ability to sing a phrase of a Joe Walsh tune (Walk Away) and from that I could pick out an A and use it to tune my guitar. I was usually quite close to pitch on the guitar using that method.
It may just be a matter of context. People being familiar with one context doesn’t necessarily mean they can reproduce the same thing in a different context.
Still, I’m starting to think I’m probably off in saying “I can’t” and “this is alien.” I think some folks have a natural affinity for certain things while others have to work harder for the same results (not specific to music) which results in the surprise in this thread, but short of physical or mental disabilities I’m not prepared to say “some people just can’t do this.”
A relevant video I absolutely love but forgot about until just now is Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the pentatonic scale. If he can get audiences to follow along without trouble, I have to think it’s possible, regardless of difficulty, for most people to puzzle tunes out.
Of course, realistically, if it’s going to take someone two hours to figure out the first few bars of Twinkle Twinkle, I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped before they had it and said “I can’t do it.”
Having never been to a basketball game or even heard the term “Air Ball” before, do you have a clip I could listen to so I know what you’re talking about?
A bit more fast-paced and aggressive - it’s normally more taunty…
Here’s the Simpsons doing the famous “Darryl” chant that folks used on Darryl Strawberry, which is the same as the Air Ball taunt…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjnJ8xs6ibs
