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Falconer - Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music

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Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music: summary, description and annotation

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In the tradition of Daniel Levitins This Is Your Brain on Music and Oliver Sacks Musicophilia, Bad Singer follows the delightful journey of Tim Falconer as he tries to overcome tone deafness--and along the way discovers what were really hearing when we listen to music. A work of scientific discovery, musicology, and personal odyssey, Bad Singer is a fascinating, insightful, and highly entertaining account from an award-winning journalist and author.--

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Also by the Author Watchdogs and Gadflies Drive That Good Night Drop the Worry - photo 1
Also by the Author

Watchdogs and Gadflies

Drive

That Good Night

Drop the Worry Ball
(with Dr. Alex Russell)

Bad Singer

The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music

Tim Falconer

Copyright 2016 Tim Falconer Published in Canada in 2016 by House of Anansi - photo 2

Copyright 2016 Tim Falconer

Published in Canada in 2016 by House of Anansi Press Inc.
www.houseofanansi.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the authors rights.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Falconer, Tim, 1958, author
Bad singer : the surprising science of tone deafness and how we hear
music / Tim Falconer.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77089-445-7 (bound).ISBN 978-1-77089-446-4 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-77089-490-7 (mobi)

1. MusicAcoustics and physics. 2. Musical perception. 3. Hearing.
4. Amusia. I. Title.

ML3820.F34 2016 781.11 C2015-907615-3
C2015-907616-1

Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk
Cover image: Kourosh Keshiri
Cover image art direction: Anna Minzhulina

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace ownership of copyright material. The publisher will gladly rectify any inadvertent errors or omissions in credits in future editions.

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada - photo 3

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For Carmen
CONTENTS

Side One: Music and Human Evolution

Track 1: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Track 2: Its Only Rock n Roll (But I Like It)

Track 3: For the Sake of the Song

Track 4: The Harder They Come

Side Two: The Science of Tone Deafness

Track 5: Ive Got News for You

Track 6: Tell It Like It Is

Track 7: Can You Hear the Music

Track 8: Blue Highways

Side Three: How We Hear Music

Track 9: Cum on Feel the Noize

Track 10: Wordy Rappinghood

Track 11: Small Change

Track 12: Come Undone

Side Four: Unlocking a Surprising Secret of Music

Track 13: Teacher Teacher

Track 14: If I Only Had a Brain

Track 15: Smells Like Teen Spirit

Track 16: Higher Ground

Bonus Track: Silver and Gold

Endnotes

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Author

We dont make musicit makes us.

David Byrne, How Music Works

SIDE ONE Music and Human Evolution Track One Sweet Dreams Are Made of This - photo 4
SIDE ONE

Music and Human Evolution

Track One

Sweet Dreams
(Are Made of This)

So could you ask him to move or to stop singing?

She was talking about me. Instead of sitting at our desks, we were standing along the side wall facing the middle of the classroom. We were in rows rather than in a clump as the teacher had arranged us, perhaps by height, perhaps by voice, perhaps by some other measure. The other details are even hazier. I dont remember the song or even why we were singing it. Maybe our teacher was trying to create a class choir for a school event. I was keen until the girl standing next to me complained that I was singing off-key and that it was throwing her off. So, Mrs. Lennox, would you please do something about that?

The memory ends abruptly there, as if Id woken up from a bad dream before it was over, so I dont know what happened next. I think Id remember if I felt particularly traumatized or went home in tears, though if I can still hear those words all these decades later, I guess it must have made some impression. But the experience was probably more confusing than anything else since I didnt understand what it meant to sing off-key. And I certainly didnt know how to go about singing on-key. Mostly, though, I was surprised. I was eight or nine and had no idea I was a bad singer. I dont remember singing in class again. Maybe Mrs. Lennox found something else for me to do. Or maybe I just went outside and played with my friends, which would have appealed to me more, anyway.

This is the part of the story where many people telling a similar tale would say, And I never sang again. For a time, I thought that was true for me as well. But the more I mined my memory, the more I realized I was surprisingly slow to give up singing. I was a loudmouth kid, and I dont think I became all that self-conscious about my singing until I was about fifteen and on a ski trip to Vermont with some friends. Sitting around in the hotel, I absent-mindedly started singing Blackbird by The Beatles. One of my friendsand Im sure its significant that she was a shelaughed and said, Oh, Tim hit a note. And then everyone laughed. Thats when I finally realized how bad I truly was.

After that, I never felt comfortable singing in public again. By which I mean singing in front of women or people I didnt know. The all-boys school I attended had mandatory morning prayers, which involved singing dusty old hymns. My buddies and I would scream out the lyrics at the top of our lungs. But that bad singing was an admirable act of rebellion as much as an expression of how much I enjoyed doing it. Today, I happily sing only when no one is around. Alone in the car, Ill belt out tune after tune. When Im within earshot of other people, though, I am a silent crooner: an interior virtuoso, with or without iPod accompaniment, while walking down the street or riding my bike.

But I want to sing out loudnot like an angel, necessarily, but well enough that Im not ashamed. When Im at a friends cottage and everyone brings out guitars around the campfire, I dont want to be the one who mumbles along quietly. And when the guys I play hockey with on Friday afternoons have a jam party with guitars and banjos, keyboards, drums, flutes, and harmonicas, I long to step up to the mic and croon away. I want to be the lead singer.

Im a bad singer. And deep down, it matters. Ive lived with the indignity and the frustration and the missed joy and assumed there was nothing I could do about it. But singing is something we should all be able to do, even if we do it badly. It is the most common form of music across all cultures, and traditionally, whenever people gathered they would sing. The voice is that rare instrument that we always have with us, so its easy to create music whenever and wherever we want. And compared with our bare hands and feetwhich make for serviceable percussion instrumentsthe voice is so much more versatile. We can sing a stirring aria, an angry punk song, or a tender lullaby.

Still, so many of us prefer to be silent. Our lack of confidence is understandable since we are at our most vulnerable when we sing. A poor guitarist still has the instrument as a shield; a singer has nothing to hide behind.

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