So let’s see. Someone pointed out that it’s pretty logical to imagine that being deaf is a hindrance to composing music. You actually refused to answer that, but instead declared that it’s not an “insurmountable obstacle”, which is obviously the case, since a couple people have surmounted that obstacle. I can’t even figure out what you’ve been trying to say since then. But it seems like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble here trying not to admit that being deaf hinders one’s ability to compose music.
Yes. Systematic bias against the deaf could be responsible for their underrepresentation amongst composers. However, we don’t need this highly speculative explanation, since we already have a much more obvious one - that being deaf makes it more difficult to compose music. You seem to be incensed by that idea, for some reason, but the fact that you’ve proposed one alternate explanation isn’t even evidence against the obvious answer - that deaf people have a hard time composing music. Much less is it any kind of proof.
Actually, it reminded me that one of my cousins is nearly deaf. I just think of her as " cousin Debbie" and not my deaf cousin (or nearly deaf, she had profound hearing loss at an early age and had to wear massive hearing aids, and even then she still had difficulty hearing things, I haven’t seen her in a couple of years, but IIRC she’s since gotten a cochular implant. Her hearing problems certainly haven’t seemed to slow her down in life.) so it took awhile for it to percolate through my brain that I’ve known deaf people.
I was a musician in high school, and I can well imagine someone who was deaf from birth being able to play a percussion instrument quite well (I think that there may even be a famous deaf drummer), but memory is a fickle thing, and being a composer is difficult for even those who are able to hear. Beethoven could potentially have gotten around his handicap without having perfect pitch, but it would have been damned difficult, especially in an era when there was no mechanical means of reproducing sound. An “A” on a piano sounds very different than an “A” on a trumpet, and to get everything to work well together going by vibration alone, would mean that while he was going deaf, he’d have to consciously compare the vibrations he could feel with what he could hear (and his memory of what he should be hearing). Not an easy task by any means.
Personally, I don’t think of Beethoven as “that deaf guy” I think of him as the guy who kicks Mozart’s (aka the Barry Mannilow of classical music) ass with just a couple of notes.
Well that is obviously due to the structure of society back then.
But just to pick up the bait, who says that women are not worse composers? To be a composer you will need to have an extraordinarily good musical ability. And men tend to fill out the more extreme ends of the spectrum, in many different areas.
I don’t think people have to have perfect pitch or recollection of how a given pitch sounds to compose music whether they have gone deaf or not.
I think it is knowlege of the relationships between notes (or intervals) that is important for composing.
Let’s say Beethoven never had perfect pitch. He could still write down series of notes and chords that would “work”. He may be imagining an “A” at 450 Hz instead of 440, but it would still work. Similarly if he did have perfect pitch but couldn’t remember what a particular note sounded like, he could still compose.
On reviewing what I wrote it sounds confusing. I am not quite sure how to explain what I mean. I am not very gifted at music, but I think that if I went deaf I would still be able to “hear” how various melodies, intervals and chords sounded if read what they were. My knowlege of the precise pitch would surely slip over time, but the rest just feels natural–like mathematics-- to me.
If I may add something: to me it seems clear that the ability to interpret, understand and create music is easier if you can hear. I think that to state differently is overly defensive and unecessarily PC.
Michael Fitzgerald, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at my alma mater certainly believes there is a link between exceptional creativity and Autism Spectrum Disorders.
A few people have made the assumption that hearing loss is a major hindrance to composition. My assertion has been that for an already-competent composer, it need not be.
Just a thought…what proportion of the general population suffers major hearing loss due to old age? Is there an equivalent proportion of composers who stop writing music at a corresponding point in their lives?
Apparently not. See here–
“How do you have a bell curve if you can’t quantify something?!”
What has Tuckerfan to do with this? You claimed that the phrase “musically inferior” was unquantifiable. I merely pointed out that it was your phrase, hence the onus was on you. Please, let’s leave Tuckerfan out of this. Just tell me what you meant when you said musically inferior.
What is the ratio of female composers to deaf composers. Could it be that hearing might be an important skill in composing? Can you tell me what you think is a necessary skill?
I never said incapable. I believe that they are much less likely to, because they are deaf. I suppose it would be possible to be a blind photographer as well. Just not very likely to be a very good one.
And if ‘essential’ meant ‘important’ this would be a significant point.
What about those deaf from birth?
It would be a simple thing to test a deaf person’s ability to recognize pitch, timbre, volume, melody, harmony, etc.
As Excalibre has pointed out, so what? The only person to have used that term is you. You continue to try to place me in extreme positions that are not my own. Will you please stop
No, your assertion was that such an assumption was an insult to deaf people.
I meant the patronising, naive and ill-defined assumption implied by the anecdote which was relayed.
And if ‘blue’ meant ‘green’…
How many times do I have to say the same thing - if we’re talking Beethoven, who was not deaf from birth, and other musicians in a similar situation, it’s a situation where an aural understanding and awareness has been developed before the onset of hearing loss.
Oh, alright, let me change it to an assertion that the assumption is insulting to musicians who have suffered hearing loss. Because I think it is - it suggests that they have lost all musical and aural awareness.
The matter of Beethoven’s deafness is a nonstarter since, obviously, he had figured out music and compostion long before he went deef. Any number of seasoned musicians can “hear” a piece while reading the score.
I have some experience composing music. As with most pursuits, the more you do it, the better you get. But the really prolific composers operate at a level that I cannot imagine. (They have to in order to crank out so much stuff.) It seems clear to me that there is some “quirk” in their brain functioning that makes this possible.
Consider J.S. Bach. Not only was he capable of improvising a six-voice fugue at the keyboard, he could look at a theme and immediately judge if was suitable for such treatment.
G.F. Handel tossed of the oratorio Messiah in, if I recall, three weeks. (Interesting, there is some indication he did so in an ecstatic state: it is said he said something like “Methinks I see Heaven opened up!” after finishing the chorus “Hallelujah”.)
[Aside to Tuckerfan: loved your characterization of Mozart as “the Barry Mannilow of classical music”. In my public radio days I annoyed the heck out of the classical jocks by calling Mozart a hack. And, often, he was.]
There’s evidence to suggest it’s more common among people with autism, yes. But I can assure you that autism doesn’t guarantee somebody isn’t tone-deaf, either! As the jury in Nature vs. Nurture (Absolute Pitch) is still deliberating, it’s not possible to say if and how autism actually increases pitch cognition in some people.