I agree that I’ve met people who are tone deaf or seem rhythmically impaired, though I do think that there’s a notable difference between people who try to learn a language at school, and people who just move to a country where everyone learns it. Perfect pitch is learnable. I suspect that many people who are incompetent on these axis would learn it if they throw themselves at it and immerse themselves.
Like, my Dad does that thing where, when he sings, he is typically not quite singing the melody. He’s singing like a third above, or a fifth, or something else. He’s typically in the same key, and the rhythms are right, but otherwise he is reliably off by some interval, and if you poke him to get it right, he doesn’t really know how to. He’s 60+ years old and never got over that. I can imagine someone might hear him sing and say “lost cause” as a singer, but also, my Dad is a perfectly passable fingerpicking guitarist. Plays a few tunes nicely, great rhythm, clearly picking out and hearing the melodies, listens to tons of guitar music. I bet with some focused work for a few weeks, he’d start singing the right notes too, and I think he could get to being actually competent with months of focused work (barring deterioration in breathing from all his smoking).
Also we’re not talking all non-musicians, we’re discussing 120+ IQ people who have already learned something physical to an expert level, like if you’re a paid professional who does drywall or fencing or swimming, and also a paid professional in design such as public speaking or sculpture or fiction-writing. So I think a lot of ways that people would fail have been selected against.
(All that said I admit overall that physical/motor skills have more “randomly can’t do it” per person than others.)
I agree that I’ve met people who are tone deaf or seem rhythmically impaired, though I do think that there’s a notable difference between people who try to learn a language at school, and people who just move to a country where everyone learns it. Perfect pitch is learnable. I suspect that many people who are incompetent on these axis would learn it if they throw themselves at it and immerse themselves.
Like, my Dad does that thing where, when he sings, he is typically not quite singing the melody. He’s singing like a third above, or a fifth, or something else. He’s typically in the same key, and the rhythms are right, but otherwise he is reliably off by some interval, and if you poke him to get it right, he doesn’t really know how to. He’s 60+ years old and never got over that. I can imagine someone might hear him sing and say “lost cause” as a singer, but also, my Dad is a perfectly passable fingerpicking guitarist. Plays a few tunes nicely, great rhythm, clearly picking out and hearing the melodies, listens to tons of guitar music. I bet with some focused work for a few weeks, he’d start singing the right notes too, and I think he could get to being actually competent with months of focused work (barring deterioration in breathing from all his smoking).
Also we’re not talking all non-musicians, we’re discussing 120+ IQ people who have already learned something physical to an expert level, like if you’re a paid professional who does drywall or fencing or swimming, and also a paid professional in design such as public speaking or sculpture or fiction-writing. So I think a lot of ways that people would fail have been selected against.
(All that said I admit overall that physical/motor skills have more “randomly can’t do it” per person than others.)