The Music In You
Aug. 15th, 2017 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyyki"I can't sing."
Words fail me when I try to express how much this phrase bugs me. Its brother, "I have no musical talent," also annoys me to a high degree. And "I'm tone deaf" drives me up the wall.
Let's deal with the last one first. Tone deafness is a serious failing of the temporal lobes in the brain, and it's rare. No, it's beyond rare, it's extremely rare. And anyone who is tone deaf is going to have problems with a lot more than music. Ulysses Grant had this problem, and he once said, "There's only two songs, Yankee Doodle and Not Yankee Doodle." This is typical of true tone deafness. Most tone deaf people also have a hard time picking up the emotional tone when someone is speaking to them. So if you can read emotions in someone's words or if you can identify different song melodies from each other then you're not tone deaf.
The other two are different issues. "I can't sing" is most often the result of bad parenting. Parents say things like, "Stop that, you can't sing," when they mean, "Please stop singing right now as it's driving me nuts." The first one makes a child think he or she can't do something and leaves a long-term, sometimes permanent stigma, while the second is someone being honest with their feelings and setting a healthy boundary. What adults say to children can leave toxic effects for decades afterward, and when we achieve life extension they'll hang on for centuries if not addressed.
"I have no musical talent" is another type of issue. What it means is that the person hasn't had a chance to learn an instrument. Part of this is society's fault, as we are taught that playing an instrument well enough to be heard by anyone takes years of hard work. In some cases this is true -- performing in a major symphony orchestra is going to involve a long time and a lot of work, often a master's degree in one of the hardest degree programs available to a student. (Undergraduate music degrees are difficult and involve huge amounts of time in classes that take several hours a week but only result in a single credit hour, and since many of them are skill based classes there's no cramming possible) But most people aren't looking to make music their career, and some instruments are not difficult to play. After all, we teach very young kids how to play recorders, various percussion instruments, and even the piano, so it's not that hard to learn how to do some basic musical performance. Talent isn't a prerequisite to play in a group, just a bit of practice. And besides, how do you know if you have no talent if you haven't tried?
Music is fun. How often do we participate in a collaborative activity where the goal is for everyone to arrive at the end at the same time, with no clear winner or loser? Give it a try and you'll find out how fun it can be. Before radio, TV, and the Internet folks got together all the time to do it as a social activity.
And if you are one of these folks who've bought into parental or other adult frustration, let's talk and we'll get you feeling comfortable with your voice again.
Words fail me when I try to express how much this phrase bugs me. Its brother, "I have no musical talent," also annoys me to a high degree. And "I'm tone deaf" drives me up the wall.
Let's deal with the last one first. Tone deafness is a serious failing of the temporal lobes in the brain, and it's rare. No, it's beyond rare, it's extremely rare. And anyone who is tone deaf is going to have problems with a lot more than music. Ulysses Grant had this problem, and he once said, "There's only two songs, Yankee Doodle and Not Yankee Doodle." This is typical of true tone deafness. Most tone deaf people also have a hard time picking up the emotional tone when someone is speaking to them. So if you can read emotions in someone's words or if you can identify different song melodies from each other then you're not tone deaf.
The other two are different issues. "I can't sing" is most often the result of bad parenting. Parents say things like, "Stop that, you can't sing," when they mean, "Please stop singing right now as it's driving me nuts." The first one makes a child think he or she can't do something and leaves a long-term, sometimes permanent stigma, while the second is someone being honest with their feelings and setting a healthy boundary. What adults say to children can leave toxic effects for decades afterward, and when we achieve life extension they'll hang on for centuries if not addressed.
"I have no musical talent" is another type of issue. What it means is that the person hasn't had a chance to learn an instrument. Part of this is society's fault, as we are taught that playing an instrument well enough to be heard by anyone takes years of hard work. In some cases this is true -- performing in a major symphony orchestra is going to involve a long time and a lot of work, often a master's degree in one of the hardest degree programs available to a student. (Undergraduate music degrees are difficult and involve huge amounts of time in classes that take several hours a week but only result in a single credit hour, and since many of them are skill based classes there's no cramming possible) But most people aren't looking to make music their career, and some instruments are not difficult to play. After all, we teach very young kids how to play recorders, various percussion instruments, and even the piano, so it's not that hard to learn how to do some basic musical performance. Talent isn't a prerequisite to play in a group, just a bit of practice. And besides, how do you know if you have no talent if you haven't tried?
Music is fun. How often do we participate in a collaborative activity where the goal is for everyone to arrive at the end at the same time, with no clear winner or loser? Give it a try and you'll find out how fun it can be. Before radio, TV, and the Internet folks got together all the time to do it as a social activity.
And if you are one of these folks who've bought into parental or other adult frustration, let's talk and we'll get you feeling comfortable with your voice again.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 03:12 am (UTC)Reasons for not being musically adept are not as thin on the ground as they may seem. Or maybe they just cluster, and i have always lived here.