syrinx

• People Who Can't Carry A Tune Either Don't Know Or Don't Care, Study Shows
• Take the "Tune Test"
• Tune-deaf People May Hear A Sour Note Unconsciously
• Music triggers epileptic seizures in some rare cases
• Brown notes

(discussion and links after the break)

Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket...

A recent study found that most people sing in tune and in time, even without musical training. Moreover, two distinct "phenotypes", or recognizable forms, of impaired singing exist that are linked to perceptual abilities.

These are: off-pitch singers with perceptional deficits who don't know they're landing on the wrong notes, and poor-pitch singers who can tell they're off and sing anyway. The "don't care" in the headline is a little harsh and is not used by the researchers - they call it "singing out of tune - disturbances of vocal performance." And it must be both painful and slightly embarassing to those who suffer from and through it. As anyone who has ever been to a birthday party knows.

Take the Tune Test at

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/tunetest/

I got 26 out of 26 - so when I hit an off key note I guess it's because I don't care... or am trying to sing harmony and don't know the arrangement...or am singing in a different key...or in a non-parallel, microtonally separate universe.

Tune-deaf People May Hear A Sour Note Unconsciously
They can hear it in their brain, but it never reaches their conscious mind - meaning they don't enjoy good music...on the other hand, they don't understand what bad music is either. And I'm too lazy to embed the link... at

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080610212416.htm

More proof that pop music is bad for you
The web page couldn't resist using the caption "The rhythm is going to get you" as a lead in to the term "musicogenic epilepsy" as the technical term for seizures brought on by certain types of music.
Interesting thing is that in the case study mentioned, it began to expand from one specific tune to others.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=musicophobia-when-your-fa

Brings to mind the stories from the not so distant past about epilepetic seizures brought on by light flashing during animation frames on children's anime cartoon shows. I am currently listening to an audiobook of a novel by Stephen Cannell, "Runaway Heart", in which the anime induced seizures are thought to be part of a CIA "black ops" research project.

And we already know about Brown notes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

tags: music science research