by Nicole Gagliardi
After being abruptly forced to move out of my dorm and back home after the coronavirus has swept through our nation and planet, and rapidly adjusting as best I can to online classes and working remotely, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and ponder some things that I otherwise would have suppressed and saved for a later time; it’s a time when homework and exams weren’t on the forefront of my mind. But instead, quarantine and social distancing have given me plenty of time to wonder about these things, one of them being the concept of “tone-deafness.”
I come from parents who are on opposite sides of the musical ability spectrum. My father plays the bass and dabbles in piano, and is forever interested in music theory, but doesn’t sing much. My mother has deemed herself “tone-deaf”; as the saying goes, she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. (Or so she says.) But time and time again, this idea of being tone-deaf seems to come up in conversations with many people who are convinced they can’t sing. I’ve toyed with different theories as to why this could be – could it be because they haven’t had formal musical training? Is there a difference between the physiology of what singers do vs. non-singers?
For starters, many people (including myself) tend to conflate being tone deaf with not being able to hear music properly, but we see it more often when someone tries to sing along to a song and can’t stay on pitch. According to an article on Scientific American, there are 4 tossed-around theories as to what tone-deafness actually is. First, some scientists believe that all tone-deafness is caused by an underlying hearing problem, called amusia, which is the inability to recognize and reproduce musical tones; however, it’s estimated that true amusia only affects about 4% of the population. This number seems incredibly low – I know that for all the people I’ve met, certainly more than 4% of them label themselves as tone-deaf. A second theory is that those who can’t sing because of a self-diagnosed tone-deafness is actually due to not being able to produce the note properly; in other words, one can hear the note perfectly, but because of an inability to control the vocal system, the wrong note is produced. A third possible theory suggests that perhaps it’s not amusia causing the problem, nor is it the inability to produce the right tones, it’s just the inability to imitate. Or could it be that they have a bad memory – by the time a melody is reproduced, they can’t remember the original notes?
I’m already convinced, then, that while amusia does affect a small margin of people, it is not the root of the can’t-carry-a-tune-in-a-bucket ailment so many people claim to suffer from. Futurity and Forbes, however, bring a new take: the use of subvocalization when listening to songs. Subvocalization is the phenomenon that occurs when you read silently, but move the facial and laryngeal muscles as if you were actually speaking the words. It’s very subtle and others may not notice, but I will guarantee that if you were not aware you were subvocalizing while reading this, you’ll notice it now. Basing their opinions on a study conducted by the University of Buffalo, it’s suggested that subvocalizing while listening to a singer, as if you were the one singing, can be a major cause of out-of-tune singing; because the vocal folds aren’t being manipulated in the same way during subvocalization as they would need to be during actual singing, a hopeful mimicker may have a false sense of confidence when trying to hit the same notes as the singer. Singers create more of an “auditory image” and silently subvocalize when preparing to reproduce a melody- they think of the physiological processes that need to take place to replicate a note, but don’t actually subvocalize. For non-musicians, subvocalization tends to increase with the difficulty of the song.
So, what does this all mean for everyone who is convinced they’re tone deaf? Well, it looks to me like you may be in luck – you’re most likely not tone deaf, you might just need to strengthen your vocal cords. Of course, there’s much more to this topic than meets the eye, but the summary is: if you’ve always had dreams of being a Grammy-winning vocalist, you likely have the capabilities of fine-tuning (pun intended) your vocal skills. It just takes practice, and a good teacher.