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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Congenital Amusia Disorder? Really?? Please...

The idea that lack of musical ability comes from lack of effort on the part of the tone deaf individual persists in some circles, including those who earn income from singing lessons. Congenital Amusia Disorder? Really?? Please.... - Singing From Scratch : Here we have a singing coach, Michael Graves, who does not accept that congential amusia is a thing: "I do not believe in the permanency of tone deafness. I believe that it is a low level of proficiency that can be overcome, not a condition." This is a great example of the attitude I have dealt with all my life: all I need to do to overcome my tin ear is to do the work. Here is the worldview that leads to that conclusion: "The only purpose most disorder labels serve is to provide the “afflicted” an easy path away from persistence and success and towards failure and acceptance." This outlook is often sustained through wilful ignorance of scientific research and twisted logic, for example: we don't know wh
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What's amusing about amusia?

Welcome to 4Amusia.com, a place to find out more about something called amusia. If you're not familiar with amusia, here is what Wikipedia says about it: "Amusia is a musical disorder that appears mainly as a defect in processing pitch but also encompasses musical memory and recognition." (This is a "sticky post" dated in the future so it always appears first.) Some studies suggest that about 4% of people are born with amusia. This is referred to as congenital amusia, which has been described as "a deficit in fine-grained pitch discrimination" ( Wikipedia ). In 2018, I discovered that I am one of those people. That discovery has impacted my outlook on life in numerous ways, some of which may be hard for some people to understand (based on my initial efforts to describe them). When time permits, I plan to blog about my own journey with amusia. Meanwhile, I will posting commented links about amusia. Those link posts will be brief posts and should
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Knowing you have congenital amusia makes a difference

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Finding out that I had amusia made a big difference to my life and I talk about some aspects of this in an article here . The point of the article is that I am thankful to know that my inability to carry a tune or learn a musical instrument is not due to laziness, sloth, or weakness of character. Those are qualities that are routinely ascribed to people with amusia. Here's some more of what I said: I’m sure I could write a whole chapter about how much it hurt to suffer those accusations, the self-recrimination and doubt that it induced. I know I could have done without the castigation of teachers who were sure I could learn to play the recorder – a rite of passage in English schools of the 1950s and 60s – if only I would apply myself. Then there’s the chapter on how frustrating it was to grow up in the sixties with a strong poetic streak but no ability to voice the songs I composed, not to mention fruitless hours failing to learn guitar. Sure, I could pose for the album cover,
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