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1.3.9 Tone Deafness, Amusia, and Florence Foster Jenkins
Some may say that I couldn’t sing, but no one can say that I didn’t sing.
Amusia is the scientific term for what most people call tone deafness and other “musical brain” disorders. It refers to any of several disorders that result in loss of ability to create music, or to perceive and understand music (or both).
Sometimes brain trauma causes amusia. Sometimes disease triggers it. Sometimes it’s congenital. If you have congenital amusia, you’re born without the normal brain wiring to process pitch and rhythm. Consequently you can’t sing in tune or tap in time with a steady beat (you can’t entrain). Amusia is not common; it is believed to affect only about 5% of the population. Florence Foster Jenkins may have had congenital amusia.
Stroke victims develop acquired or receptive amusia if they suffer brain damage to modules that process music. If you develop amusia this way, you can recognize the lyrics of a song you had known before you acquired amusia—but only when somebody speaks the lyrics to you. If they sing the lyrics, you can no longer recognize the tune. You have a hard time grasping or perceiving music. You can’t follow a melody, identify the sounds of various musical instruments, or make sense of chords.
Expressive amusia refers to the inability to create music by singing in tune, or entrain to an external source of music by tapping in time. However, if you have expressive amusia, you can usually still enjoy and understand music, and even remember tunes.