Helping the Deaf Hear Music

R2D2 said:
Sorry, I don't think I was really clear. What I meant was that within ASL users are there only some who would have a talent for singing ASL songs, just like there are only some hearing people who have a talent for making music?
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I agree with you there, R2D2. Musical talent is innate, and can be present in the deaf as well as the hearing. It would be interesting to see the same testing procedures described done on a hearing population to see how their scores compared to the CI users. I venture to guess that there are many hearing individuals who would not do well, either.
 
jillio said:
Musical perception is very complicated. That is why someone who is gifted with perfect pitch, or that displays musical talent is thought to be exceptional. There are many hearing people that cannot tell the difference in two notes a half step away from each other, and why so many hearing people sing off key. They receive the same input as another hearing person who does hear the difference. When it reaches the brain, however, it either is not processed in the same way, or what comes out of their mouths is perceived to be the same pitch. It isn't just a matter of being able to receive it auditorily, but being able to process it and reproduce it accurately.
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I've always thought that with the proper training, I'd be able to hear the diffences and tell you what note that I hear. I can hear it already but I don't know which notes they are.

My mother on the other hand is always off key when she sings and she says the first sentence that my big sister ever said to my mother was "Mama, please don't sing" BTW, my sister used to be a music teacher. My nephew (her son) is going to major in music in college.
 
deafskeptic said:
I've always thought that with the proper training, I'd be able to hear the diffences and tell you what note that I hear. I can hear it already but I don't know which notes they are.

My mother on the other hand is always off key when she sings and she says the first sentence that my big sister ever said to my mother was "Mama, please don't sing" BTW, my sister used to be a music teacher. My nephew (her son) is going to major in music in college.
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If you have that innate musical discrimination ability, then chances are with training, you would be able to. Knowing what the notes are is not the important thing, it is being able to discriminate the dfference in pitch between, for example, an A and an A flat. My family is very muxical...in fact one of my nephews is a professional musician, and another is a part-time musician. One of my nephew's daughters, fromt he time she was a toddler, could tell the difference in a note and another note a half step away and accurately reproduce the difference vocally. But she didn't know what the notes were called, either. The key is in being able to hear, process, and then reproduce.
 
I had a friend (now deceased) whose ex wife is/was a music professor at a local university and she has perfect pitch hearing....so perfect she sets the department's osilliscope by ear!
 
Tousi said:
I had a friend (now deceased) whose ex wife is/was a music professor at a local university and she has perfect pitch hearing....so perfect she sets the department's osilliscope by ear!
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Absolutely. Perfect pitch is a rare gift. And, as I said, a talent that can be refined, but basically it is an innate ability.
 
My Dad has perfect pitch, and it is something I have always been in awe of. Its not even something I can comprehend properly, even WITH my CI.
 
neecy said:
My Dad has perfect pitch, and it is something I have always been in awe of. Its not even something I can comprehend properly, even WITH my CI.
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Agreed. As I said, musical discrimination is a complicated process, and can't be reduced to auditory perceptions alone.
 
I've looked up perfect pitch and I'm starting to wonder if I have that given the test results on my Cochlear software that help you learn to understand sounds and I got 100% on lvl 5 pure tone discrimination and I only did it twice. I didn't even bother with the lower levels. Is this related to perfect pitch?

However, I have trouble remembering the sounds that I've heard. My auditory memory is poor.
 
deafskeptic said:
I've looked up perfect pitch and I'm starting to wonder if I have that given the test results on my Cochlear software that help you learn to understand sounds and I got 100% on lvl 5 pure tone discrimination and I only did it twice. I didn't even bother with the lower levels. Is this related to perfect pitch?

However, I have trouble remembering the sounds that I've heard. My auditory memory is poor.
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No, I don't think I have that after all. I'm still very good at telling tonal sounds apart.
 
deafskeptic said:
No, I don't think I have that after all. I'm still very good at telling tonal sounds apart.
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Well, pure tone discrimination is directly related to perfect pitch, but auditory memory is also closely involved. So without good auditory memory, you can't utilize the pure tone discrimination in the way someone with good auditory memory would be able to.
 
When I reread this thread, I am wondering if prelingual ci users would have a harder time with tonal sounds than posties would and if the high scorers among prelinguals would come from a musical family. I also wonder about how post linguals with musical training and without training would do on this.
 
deafskeptic said:
When I reread this thread, I am wondering if prelingual ci users would have a harder time with tonal sounds than posties would and if the high scorers among prelinguals would come from a musical family. I also wonder about how post linguals with musical training and without training would do on this.
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Those are excellent questions. I would say that prelinguals in general would have a more difficult time with tonal discrimination. But then, I would also agree that if they have inherited the innate capacity for tonal discrimination from musical family members, they would have an advantage at learning to discriminate those tones once they are able to perceive them. No doubt, posties with muscial training would have better scores, based both on discrimination abilities and auditory memory functions.
 
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