June 20, 2008
Everyone has heard of people who are “tone deaf,” but did you know there are people whose brains are actually hard wired in a way that makes them unable to hear what’s musical about music? This affliction is called Amusia, and it affects about 4% of the population. Far beyond the inability to carry a tune, Amusia is a neurological condition that makes it impossible to even perceive music, much less enjoy it. Imagine trying to watch a movie when the soundtrack in the background is just noise. How confusing it would be to grow up in and inhabit our deeply musical world! Everything from your mother’s lullabies and having “Happy Birthday” sung to you to discussing your favorite bands or composers with your friends and cringing at elevator music (OK, we all do that) – none of these taken-for-granted musical moments would make any sense to a person with Amusia.
Here’s more on the condition of Amusia at Wikipedia and a video of neurologist and music-lover Oliver Sacks discussing it.
On a related note, Stanford scientists have created a video that illustrates what the brain does while listening to music. Interestingly, they found that the brain is most active during the pauses between phrases and movements.
1 comment
I heard about this and I still can't get enough of it. I really love the title and I can't wait to get my hands on it.