On Hating Music

Tone-Deaf and Fine with It

Twenty-eight years ago, I was born. Of the many things I inherited—from my grandfather’s eyelashes to my grandmother’s blue-black hair—the one thing I did not inherit from either side of my family was an ear for or love of music.

One of the most effective events to gaslight my self-conception came from a boy I liked in my first semester of college. He informed me that contrary to my suspicion I couldn’t be tone-deaf because that was a rare thing, and so I must not suffer from it. He would know: both his parents were doctors. It wasn’t until I was 23 that my then-boyfriend/now-spouse said to me, “If you’re not tone-deaf, I will eat my hat. The way you describe the sounds in music is absolutely bananas.”

As “rare” as tone-deafness purportedly is, someone has to have it. The rarity of something is not contrary evidence to its existence. Perhaps equally misunderstood, perfect pitch was also described to me as “extremely rare.” However my immediate and strong reaction when someone tried to correct me was that of disbelief. No longer a student but now a college professor, I declared, “Is that right?” Snorting, I said, “Rare for you, perhaps, but every autistic friend I have has perfect pitch. All of them.” The autism—probably related to the prevalence of perfect pitch—is also called “absolute pitch” among my close family and friends, and it is likely also the reason for my own tone-deafness.

My autism with its denser-than-average gray matter makes for neural overconnectivity locally and hyperconnectivity across specific and repeated cross-brain pathways. Hyperfocus and ultra-specialization comes easier, and certain coordinated behaviors quickly gain near-compulsion status quickly. This means that autistics are often either inept or savant at the same kinds of skills: social reclusion but also hyper-sociability are traits in autism; hyperlexia (which I and my father have) or dyslexia (which my mother and grandfather had). Hearing pitch perfectly or not at all are two traits that go hand-in-hand: two sides of the same coin.

The ability to correctly hear the absolute pitch of notes—regardless of being able to reproduce them—means that you have perfect pitch. It is likely that you cannot become a musical prodigy without the extreme advantage that comes with the ability to correctly identify notes, but an ear can still be trained to do so. The ability to hear the precise pitch of sounds does not at all mean you can then produce those sounds. Often people with perfect pitch are extra-dissatisfied with their own musical ability and will tell me they are tone-deaf because they are certain they cannot make perfect music. This is how most people use the term: to apologize for poor musical skill, they will call themselves tone-deaf.

Tone-deafness does not mean that I do not enjoy music. I fully appreciate rhythmic beats and can hear melody. I have songs I listen to on repeat, albums that I adore, and artists that I follow, but when the best of singers harmonize, a pleasant enough sound turns bitter instantly: an unpleasant buzz in my ears. If I’ve made my peace with a soothingly dull church song, it will suddenly be sung in the round and turn into the equivalent cacophony of a garbage disposal. Although I can tell the difference between the thin and pale wails of vocals and the thick dampness of heavier notes, their contrast does not seem to bring me the intrinsic joy nor artistic appreciation that they have always seemed to provide for others.

Although I can tell the difference between the thin and pale wails of vocals and the thick dampness of heavier notes, their contrast does not seem to bring me the intrinsic joy nor artistic appreciation that they have always seemed to provide for others.

As an emerging adolescent at 13—already socially stressed in school—other teenagers’ constant desire to talk about music (bands, tours, instruments, the quality of a voice, or the skill of a bassist) was, to me, absolutely insufferable and deeply exhausting. I had no clue and was like a colorblind man at an exhibit of Impressionists: someone who can see the shapes and values but is missing whatever exciting thing animated others into a singular kind of delight. In the end, it was an experience that deeply damaged my trust in others.

At certain points in my life, I was sure that everyone else was lying. Music just wasn’t that good. The makers of the forceful beats and incredible wordsmithing of mostly Spanish, French, and Arabic rap songs were what I first found compelling enough to pass as “my favorite musicians,” which was a requirement for any self-respecting high schooler to have. But still, hearing Whitney Houston hold an impressive (to others) note was not unpleasant but was extra boring, despite clearly being a powerful performance. When singers hold a note, the variation of noises lessens, which suddenly sucks whatever beauty I was gleaning from the singing. And so much of what I know to be considered “good music” by the masses was unobtrusive and loud but boring, and before I was clear about why I could not differentiate nor appreciate certain sounds as much as others, I assumed that they were all somehow deceiving me. I assumed everyone was boring, and so I talked about music because it was safe and comfortable, like chatting about the weather.

I assumed that when people were obsessed with music, they were trying to be interesting because they had a bland personality. I thought that we were all collectively putting on a performance that “music was good,” much like we like to declare that “inequality is inevitable,” “lying is an inherent part of the human psyche,” and “poverty is a problem of the poor.” Clearly, it was necessary to pretend that music was as interesting as other art forms, which clearly it wasn’t, because I had ears and was listening to the same things as seemingly every other person in the world was. And I just didn’t get it. I had no one to explain this particular aspect of what was, for me, the most rampant of collective social delusions.

One too many times, my mother was secondhandedly embarrassed by me when I was nine, ten, or maybe even 12, and she would bring me home from a party and then spend hours upon hours teaching me to sing “Happy Birthday/Las Mañanitas” in two languages. She did, and I can sing it to a normal and fine standard. But it was hard won to get even those basic tunes into my muscle memory: well past what other children managed without ever having to practice.

But the sense of betrayal came from not having been told of the disability; it was particularly bad to be lied to about something that literally everyone could perceive about you, but you could not.

At some younger age than that—maybe four or possibly six—I came home outrageously furious at my family for having told me I was good at singing. I had found out years later that I was not good at singing; the object of my rage was that my mom had told me (in that way you tell small children) that my singing voice was perfect and beautiful, just like my art skills or storytelling abilities. She had lied.

But the sense of betrayal came from not having been told of the disability; it was particularly bad to be lied to about something that literally everyone could perceive about you, but you could not.

What’s worse than being excluded from any integral aspect of life is feeling singular in your discomfort, like there must be something essential in your body or mind that doesn’t render because. . . .  Well, how can you know why, if you don’t have a word for what it is?

“I don’t regret telling you that you were a good singer. What’s the alternative? To impede the childhood joy of singing?” my mother told me once, as I explained neurons and my acoustic self-discoveries. I think about that perspective and then respond, “It’s not about lying. You thought my singing was valuable, even though it was objectively wrong.”

“But there’s no wrong way to sing!” she objected, with great conviction.

“That’s true no matter what. But it’s not offensive to be told you’re bad at a thing you literally can’t tell exists. In fact, it’s important to me to talk about it because I thought I was the one in the wrong for forever, and I’m not. But others are not wrong either. I thought it was either me or everyone else in the world. The two couldn’t be right at the same time. But they can, just like it’s not bad to be autistic. It’s life-saving to know that there’s a reason I can’t seem to lie, to know why we are the way we are, right?”

My mother—longtime explainer to other parents and family of the nameless weirdness of her extra-bookish, antisocial husband, who finally found the name for it when a cousin was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and her daughters were identified as autistic—understands this comparison perfectly. Just like she had to have conversations with me about why constantly correcting the teacher was inappropriate despite school being about learning, she also had many a meeting with music or dance teachers who were terrified to break the news that I was just never going to be on good terms with the difference between notes, and it wasn’t for lack of effort on either their part or mine.

And so, if ever we share a meetinghouse, you and I, know that when you all raise your voices in worshipful song, I will lift my hands and in complete silence, sign along to whatever words I hear in the music you sing and to the beat of whatever joy lives in all of our hearts.

It’s soul-soothing to know that I’m not missing an aspect of human-hood; I just don’t perceive what others perceive when hearing the exact same thing. And it’s fine: it has a name, and it helps to explain lots of things to myself and others. In fact, it’s great fun to finally know how to ask all the things I really truly wonder about music. My descriptions sounded unhinged without that magic word: tone-deaf.

Now, sitting next to my husband with perfect pitch, from a family with perfect pitch, I whisper during a Broadway musical, “Why is his voice doing like a shaky thing when it goes up and gets long, but hers is steady and big and also moves like a snake but at different widths all the time?” He narrows his eyes and closes them while he turns one ear to the stage, listening to a Nala and Simba duet in The Lion King. After about 45 seconds, he opens them with the sparkling excitement of a competent teacher in his eyes. “It’s because he’s singing out of his range, and she’s not,” he whispers hotly in my ear. “He’s not bad at covering it up; clearly he’s a talented enough singer, but you can’t fake your range. In fact, she’s helping him out at times, but she’s probably the better Broadway star, triple-threat. He must be an exceptional dancer or something, maybe he’s the understudy.”

Although I flee from choir-like songs and singing in the round (which Quakers love to do constantly and without ceasing) that sounds absolutely horrific and almost physically painful to sit through, much less to pretend to enjoy. Sometimes I can’t escape Friends’ love of music and spontaneous song erupts.

As long as there are lyrics, I do participate: not with sounds but with signs: not because of my tone-deafness but because while English is my third language, American Sign Language (ASL) is my fifth. I spent months when I was 18, ten years ago, teaching ASL to that boy in college who denied my tone-deafness, then I completed a bachelor’s degree in sign language linguistics. Later I finished a master’s thesis on the methodological literary translation of ASL poetry. And so, if ever we share a meetinghouse, you and I, know that when you all raise your voices in worshipful song, I will lift my hands and in complete silence, sign along to whatever words I hear in the music you sing and to the beat of whatever joy lives in all of our hearts.