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From: wood@dakota.iradsp (Chip Wood)
Subject: Tone Deafness (Re: promoting Esperanto)
Reply-To: wood@dakota.iradsp
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 21:27:49 GMT
Message-ID: <1996Feb16.212749.9874@schbbs.mot.com>
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>In Article<4ffv6m$hte@java.state.ak.us>, <George_Partlow@gov.state.ak.us> 
>write:
>> ...which tends to lend some support to my speculation that 
>> "tone-deafness" is not truly an inherited condition... perhaps even 
>> "perfect pitch" could be "taught" or "developed" if we "knew how".  Does 
>> anyone know of any actual current (or even realtively ancient!) research 
>> on this topic?
>> 
>> -- George

I came in late to this thread and don't know why it was posted here, but I do have some personal and professional experience in the above subjects.

When I was about 11 years old, I wanted to play in the band but flunked on the entrance exam because I couldn't match tones.  The director took pity on me and decided to "teach' me how to match tones.  In fact, I was his subject for a Master's thesis.  With extensive practice and prompting I was able to match tone and even sing "God Bless America" on pitch.

Now comes the professional part.  For my Ph.D. dissertation in Speech Research, I needed subjects who could match pitch exactly.  About 3 out of ten subjects could not do this readily, (including my wife), even though I still was able to do it myself.  Since I did not have time or money to train these people, I just dropped them.  To this day I can with lots of effort sing a tune on pitch, but never spontaneously.  By the way, my wife still can't even hear if one pitch is higher or lower than another.
---
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Chip Wood                                      chip_wood@email.mot.com
Speech and Signal Processing Laboratory        FAX: 602-441-4780
8201 E. McDowell Rd                            TEL: 602-441-4998
Motorola GSTG                         Everything should be made as simple
Scottsdale, AZ 85252 USA                      as possible,but not simpler.
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    Opinions expressed are my own and not those of any other entity.
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