Certain historical figures reported that they were indifferent to music. There are also people who don’t have any problems perceiving music, but simply don’t enjoy it. Instead of hearing what we think of as music, a man with absolute amusia said he heard the sound of a screeching car! For such people, melodies simply don’t sound like music and might even acquire a disturbing character. While those with gross tone or rhythm deafness can still enjoy music and dancing, people with amusia in its most absolute sense don’t even experience music as music. Research shows that infants can detect all kinds of rhythmic variations, but by 12 months their range has already narrowed down to the ones they hear in their daily lives – the ones in their culture. There are also many cultural forms of rhythm deafness, meaning the inability to follow musical rhythms from “foreign” cultures. It was said that when the orchestra played a tango, he would dance a mambo. One famously rhythm-deaf person was Che Guevara. People who are tone deaf don’t realize if they hit the wrong notes while singing, and are also unable to recognize when others sing off-key.Īnother kind of amusia is rhythm deafness, meaning the inability to follow the rhythm of a piece of music. One kind of amusia is tone deafness, present in about five percent of the population. This latter category of people have a condition called amusia, which means they lack certain kinds of musical abilities.

In fact, some people don’t have musical abilities, while others are completely indifferent to music. Musicophilia, the propensity for producing and the desire to listen to music, exists in virtually every culture.īut this doesn’t mean that every single individual is occupied or preoccupied by music.

Oliver sacks music