One thing that always makes me sad is when people say "oh no I won't sing or play an instrument I'm not very good at it"
Pal, nobody here's looking for a professional: normal, imperfect singing is what every human has always done before we got this weird modern hang-up about it.
Especially if people are daunted by instruments they should give singing a try it's mainly practice.
Chesterton has a quote about this, like he does with most things: "Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest."
MOST people can sing tolerably. Did you know there are a small percentage of people who are truly amusical? They literally cannot sing, can’t discern staying on pitch from out of key. They can’t tell whether others are on or off key. They do not enjoy listening to music. It is so much noise to them. In scientific studies, they lack the neural wiring common to most humans and to certain animals. Some of them can discern rhythm, but accompanying it to melody is beyond them. A very small number also lack a sense of rhythm. The amusical are otherwise “normal” in intelligence, socially, emotionally, and physically.
My ex bro.-in-law is one of these. At family birthday parties, he'd refuse to sing Happy Birthday. When finally convinced to at least try, we wished he hadn’t! He worked for a company that contracted for the MTA in New York, doing subway track maintenance, so it was just as well that he didn’t enjoy music! You can’t hear it down there and it’s not permitted due to obvious danger. If you somehow find earbuds or noise cancelling headphones effective enough to blot out train noise, you don’t want to be on the tracks when a train approaches.
Thankfully, he did not pass on the trait to his sons. My nephews all sing, play instruments, enjoy listening. Interestingly, two of his brothers also inherited the trait and passed it down to three of their sons. He doesn’t know for certain whether his father was amusical because his father died shortly after his birth, but it seems likely. His mother sang and did folk dancing. The trait seems to pass through the males, or at least, to manifest itself through male lineage. It’s possible that females are carriers. He had four sisters, none of whom was amusical. None of their children, male or female, seems to have inherited it. The third and fourth generation remain to be determined. They are still young, infants.
I’d hate to be amusical, but those who are don’t mind because they’ve known nothing different. It IS a mystery to them, that others seem to enjoy something that they cannot.
Topic: Favorite Musical Instruments (Read 465137 times)