Congenital amusia | Brain | Oxford Academic

Congenital amusia | Brain | Oxford Academic: In this 2002 study, "a research effort has been made to document in detail the behavioural manifestations of congenital amusia."

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What's amusing about amusia?

Welcome to 4Amusia.com, a place to find out more about something called amusia, a condition that can make it impossible to carry a tune or learn to play a musical instrument. Widespread ignorance of this condition—commonly referred to in derogatory terms like tone deafness or tin ears—can lead to social and emotional problems for those who have it. I know, because I have amusia. Amusia is defined as: "a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition" ( Wikipedia ). Some studies suggest that as many as 4% of people are born with an innate inability to recognize musical tones or to reproduce them. This is referred to as congenital amusia. In 2018, I discovered that my lifelong failure to sing or learn guitar—despite great effort—was due to congenital amusia, not some weird character defect (although you can still find music coaches who insist that amusiacs are just being lazy). When time permits, I pla
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Amusia testing: a detailed analysis

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Some serious work on testing for amusia is covered in this long-but-worth-reading academic article: Revising the diagnosis of congenital amusia with the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia . I am now looking at getting myself "lab-tested."  There are several ongoing amusia-related studies in the UK so I may be able to find a lab test opportunity via one of these. While I tested "positive" for amusia on several online tests, the article cited above suggests that lab testing may be more accurate. Plus, it appears there a different flavours of amusia, so to speak. I am particularly interested in knowing if my sense of rhythm is normal or not (I think I have a good sense of rhythm, but my partner has suggested that march to "the beat of a different drum"). One of the ways in which learning about congenital amusia has helped me is the notion that difficulty in following a tune is due to memory issues. This helps me understand my feeling that I can follow a
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Brams Online test

Not sure if we have blogged this before, but the test is worth taking. Note that it takes about 20 minutes, but we think it is time well spent: Brams Online test : "This test has been designed for people with little or no formal musical training; anyone interested can thus take the test."
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