# Tone Deaf - Your Interpretation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 6, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195 "2000-03-06T14:12:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/1 "2000-03-06T14:12:00Z")
Does “tone deaf” refer to the inability to hear a range of tones (males typically lose an ability to hear the higher frequencies with age). OR, is it just a polite way of saying one cannot sing? OR, is it used either way? * * * “They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV ---
**Author:** ![Beauxeau\_IX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@Beauxeau\_IX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauxeau_IX)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2000, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/2 "2000-03-07T06:54:00Z")
I believe it means you are incapable (or hardly capable) of discerning between different tones. Not in the sense that if you heard two different tones you couldn’t tell they were different, or which was higher pitched, but in the sense that you don’t know that a given tone is an A or a C, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Beauxeau\_IX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@Beauxeau\_IX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauxeau_IX)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2000, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/3 "2000-03-07T06:56:00Z")
Okay, I looked it up in the dictionary (the old-fashioned paper type, so I don’t have a URL for you): [quote] \*\*tone-deaf:[\b] relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch.[\quote] I’ll score myself a point on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Beauxeau\_IX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71c47a/32.png) [@Beauxeau\_IX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauxeau_IX)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/4 "2000-03-07T06:58:00Z")
Damn backward slashes! Okay, I looked it up in the dictionary (the old-fashioned paper type, so I don’t have a URL for you): > [@](#): > > **tone-deaf:** relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch. I’ll score myself a point on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/5 "2000-03-06T19:00:00Z")
So the jillions of people in Asia and Africa who did not grow up with the western idea of the octave are tone deaf? Does that make western musicians raga deaf? * * * Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right… ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/6 "2000-03-06T19:08:00Z")
Yeah, I suppose they are. And Paderewski probably couldn’t drum worth a damn, either, if you dropped him into an African tribal village. A tone-deaf person is one who can’t judge intervals in a simple melody. Someone who can’t sing “Happy Birthday to You” because he can’t judge a major third or a fourth or any other interval that would sound common to European ears. * * * Uke ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/7 "2000-03-06T19:24:00Z")
That would be: my dad! He has his favorite three notes and never varies from them. ---
**Author:** ![SingleDad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SingleDad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleDad)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/8 "2000-03-06T20:40:00Z")
I have to disagree with you, Beau. Perfect pitch, the ability to tell an ‘A’ from a ‘C’ just by listening, is a rare talent even among musicians. Most people are able to tell _relative_ pitch: They can tell if two tones are the same, or one is higher or not. There are different degrees of “insensitivity to differences in musical pitch.” Most people aren’t able to reproduce a tone precisely, they sing a slightly different pitch than they hear. Thus, “I play the white notes, and I play the black notes, but you sing in the cracks!” (Irving Berlin?) At a greater degree, a person can’t tell the difference between two adjacent notes. In which case, when they try to reproduce a melody, it comes out sounding nothing like the original. Another phenomenon that even occurs with professionals and talented amateurs is “pitch drift,” where you start singing with the correct pitch, but in the absence of external clues your pitch drifts away from exactly correct. Thus it’s harder for most people to sing _a cappella_ than accompanied. * * * He’s the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor, shouting ‘All Gods are Bastards!’ ---
**Author:** ![aschrott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aca169/32.png) [@aschrott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aschrott)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2000, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tone-deaf-your-interpretation/8195/9 "2000-03-06T21:23:00Z")
## It’s important to distinguish between the ability to hear, or recognize, a tune accurately and the ability to _reproduce_ it by singing, whistling, etc. In my experience (I teach voice professionally) the latter is what gets many people branded as “tone deaf”. I find that with some care, most people can learn to match pitch. An interesting case is my father–he can whistle a tune, but cannot sing one. I have never encountered a person who could not recognize a well-known tune, such as “happy birthday”, when played on the piano, which leads me to think that in the majority of cases the problem is in pitch reproduction, not pitch recognition. Can anyone comment on the physiology? “I don’t get any smarter as I get older–Just less stupid”