Music

There are some things I've long "known" about my musical abilities (or lack thereof) because of what people have told me.

1.  I'm tone-deaf and totally lack the family's musical ear (mom).

2.  I have an annoying singing voice (okay, I told me that).

3.  I sing way off key (mom, and it wasn't off key, it was flat or sharp; so  much for her knowing what a "key" is).

4.  I can't sing (mom, probably 6th grade chorus teacher, several friends).

5.  I have rhythm - esp. when dancing (friends, a couple strangers at a bar once, people driving down the street back when I dance-walked to work).

I don't practice regularly.  I go through spurts of practicing.  Music, like sound in general, is both confusing and intensely interesting to me.  Sometimes it makes sense.  Sometimes I can't tell what the hell is going on.  I have long wondered if studying music so intensely at times also helps me with understanding people.  It's like it causes my brain to condition itself to zoning in on what it needs to in order to decrypt all the crap going on around me.  Noisy rooms are like songs full of instruments all playing at once, but in a form of discord.  To be able to pull out one instrument from 16 is to isolate one voice in a room full of humming lights, fish tank pumps, water trickles, a cat's toenails walking through the next room over, cars driving by, static of a speaker as an iphone sends out signals to its carrier, and the fan of a computer.

The latter, of course, being CAPD.

I started some time ago also suspecting that CAPD may have something to do with my music issues.  But then I see how someone else is so good and find out they practice a lot.  So I tell myself it's because I lack self-discipline to make myself practice.  Sure, to be sure, that's part of it.  But...

Then there are times when people tell me things that contradict what I've always "known" about my musical abilities.  Or lack thereof.

Examples:

With colleague, who is also a musician, listening to the Beach Boys... Me:  "Wait, in that song that I just heard for the first time ever, was that an augmented chord they just played?"  Him (rewinds):  "Yes, how did you know that?"  "I took music theory ten years ago..."  "But... How the hell did you even hear that the way they did it?"  "Dunno, just sounded like one.  There it is again!"  Strange look, as if I'd just grown three heads, but with confirmation that I'm right.  Yet I can't tell if a note is higher or lower than another note at times?  Seriously?

Piano tuner comes to tune the piano.  Me:  "These keys here are especially out of tune."  "Yes, they are.  Not by much, though.  Good ear."  "Oh, that must be why they keep changing on me, then."  "What do you mean?"  "Well, like these two... sometimes I know they're flat, other times I swear they're ok, and other times I swear they're sharp.  They must be going back and forth depending on if it's dry in here 'cause they're just starting to slip out of tune?"  His eyes pop open.  "Have you ever LOOKED at the inside of your piano?"  "Yeah, sure."  He opens it anyway and points at one of the sets of strings.  "That's this."  Hits a key.  I nod, noticing that it's hitting three strings.  I hadn't really noticed that before but it doesn't mean much yet.  "See how it hits three of the metal strings?"  "Yeah...?"  "This key is all three:  flat, sharp, and spot-on."  "So... every key on a piano does that to sound right?"  "No... all three strings, when properly tuned, should sound exactly the same.  When ANY of those strings are not spot-on, it's out of tune.  Each string can go flat OR sharp.  So... you've been hearing all three of those but you were right each time for one of the three strings.  Most people can't identify that."  "Well, I didn't.  I didn't know each key's strings had to be spot-on!"  "But you heard each string nonetheless.  The keys you pointed out are all exactly as you described - flat, sharp, and spot-on."  "Oh!"

Dale's playing an unfamiliar song on the computer.  "Hey, that little bass piece sounds just like this song over here I haven't listened to in five years.  Here, let me show you."  "What the... how did you even recognise that let alone remember..."  "I dunno, just did."  (several times this has happened.)

Randomly, I'm listening to a song (familiar or not) and I suddenly get up and start playing along on the piano.  "When did you learn that one?"  "I haven't yet and I'll probably forget how in two days."

Sometimes I'm at the piano and I just start playing whatever my fingers feel like playing.  I chalk this up to digested music theory and experience.  But then I make a mistake and I cringe.  It sounds wrong.  I am not always sure how to correct it, but I know it's wrong.

And now, singing instructor:  "Singing in parts is very difficult.  You have to be able to hear only yourself and keep yourself going even if other people around you are floundering... you have to be able to focus in on only one thing in the midst of all that other stuff."  Light comes on. That's CAPD.  OMG.  That IS CAPD.  I hear everything at once and have to work to focus on one thing.  And quite likely, every time I hear something, it sounds slightly different to me.  Just like a word.

I cannot be tone-deaf.  Otherwise I wouldn't be able to hit any notes at all, nor tell the minute differences between a set of strings for one single piano note, even if which one I hear varies from day to day.

What, then, must be happening, is that I hear (and was always on some level very aware of) /more/ detail in music than the majority of people and it confuses the shit out of me, just like normal sounds do... like speech with background sounds.

My voice /is/ trainable.  It's a muscle.  But I need to work way harder than some people because when I hear a note, it may sound different from day to day, just like speech does.  Studying music has indeed helped me isolate voices as well as tones, and probably vice-versa.

What a revelation.  Screw you, Mom.  I am NOT tone-deaf.  I DON'T suck.  If anything, I'm way more fucking advanced and the rest of the world just hasn't caught up to me yet, you self-righteous ass.  Not that it helps much with a world full of music that is run by people who don't hear things differently each time... but still.

Now if only I could always hold that fucking note...