Tone Deaf

A lot of people tell me that they are tone deaf and can’t sing.

Now wait… don’t tell me you’re one of those people. Just keep reading. 

Virtually no one is tone deaf. Argue if you want, but it’s true. When you discern when to shift the gear in your car, it’s because you can hear a difference in sound. If you’re a mother and can tell whether you’re baby’s cry is from fatigue or pain, you can discern pitch. 

If you were tone deaf, you wouldn’t have music preferences. One station on the radio would be the same as the other, and you wouldn’t sing along with the radio in your car, but you do because you enjoy what you’re hearing. And that proves you’re not tone deaf. It also proves that you can sing.  Most of us just need some training so we can identify what we are hearing. 

About my supposedly nonmusical friends, I’ve observed that at some point in their early lives, someone criticized their singing, usually a parent or a teacher. So they just quit.  I often challenge them: Do you mean to tell me that when you were a child, you made a decision for life based on what one person said? 

They did indeed. And it bothers me because singing is not so much about performance—sure there are those who perform and perhaps they have some special ability and training. But for most of us, singing is about expression. How much of one’s soul is diminished because they’re too scared to sing? And how much have we missed because we didn’t hear the song of another’s heart?

I like to hear the children sing before they’ve been told they can’t. I like hearing the babies sing before they can even form words. I like to hear the toddlers who make up their songs on the spot.  I think of the children who sang about Jesus in the temple before the adults could make them be quiet.

What wonders would we hear if people were just a little less afraid to express themselves?

The thought makes me remember to be very careful about criticizing another’s expression.