People that are tone deaf?

Question:I wonder how people who are tone deaf can speak a language.Any language utilzes pitch and rhythm and those elements are important in oral communication.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I wonder how people who are tone deaf can speak a language.Any language utilzes pitch and rhythm and those elements are important in oral communication.

I am really glad you ask that, people who are tone deaf have like a sound transmitter that is from the ear to the brain. You can get this done at a deaf clinic. Then the deaf person goes to speech class, kinda like when a little has a speech problem. So the deaf person learns to talk. I talk to a person who has a hearing transmitter and he says that he loves to hear everything around him he got the transmitter when he was thirteen and loves it, he is sixteen now.
Thank for asking this question.

As a music teacher, I don't believe in tone deafness. However, I do believe there are people that did not use their singing voice as young children, and so they are underdeveloped in pitch recognition and pitch matching.

Also, I think that there are people singing with recordings, off the pitch, so much they don't know what on-pitch sounds like.

Your point about language sort of gives credence to my theory. Good point!

Being tone deaf often reflects a lack of musical training if the person is unable to reproduce tones vocally. For someone who is unable to distinguish between notes, it can reflect a small disability but in most cases, it doesn't affect their ability to hear vocal patterns. Being tone deaf doesn't mean that the person only hears in monotone :)

Without being educated in terms of hearing disability, I can only speculate that vocal and speech (text included) patterns are easier to interpret because we utilize them so heavily throughout our lives. It is a challenge for many people to be able to cognitively understand music--be it through rhythm, tonality, or musical memory--and this includes being able to recognize the changes between notes. The person might not have that cognitive ability to recognize pitch frequencies, be it through a disability or through lack of musical training.

It's a very difficult question! You might try posting this under the hearing impaired board if Y!A has one.

Wait! Are we talking about tone deaf as in the disability or just plain old bad pitch?