Profoundly Deaf Amusic?

[Kathi Blackmer]

About 4% of the population are amusic, 1 out of 1,000 babies are born profoundly deaf...  does anyone know what percentage of the 4% are profoundly deaf? Are there ANY studies or research on ‘deaf’ Amusics? I feel so alone cuz I can’t find any info on having both defects at birth. Does anyone know anything??? Just in case researchers out there are working on a cure for amusia.... cochlear implants DOES NOT fix the problem. I still cannot process music but most of my deaf friends can. Am I amusic? 

[StringJunky]

33 minutes ago, Kathi Blackmer said:

About 4% of the population are amusic, 1 out of 1,000 babies are born profoundly deaf...  does anyone know what percentage of the 4% are profoundly deaf? Are there ANY studies or research on ‘deaf’ Amusics? I feel so alone cuz I can’t find any info on having both defects at birth. Does anyone know anything??? Just in case researchers out there are working on a cure for amusia.... cochlear implants DOES NOT fix the problem. I still cannot process music but most of my deaf friends can. Am I amusic? 

In what way do you think you are amusic? I'm severely deaf myself to the extent that I have to supplement my aided hearing with lip-reading except in perfectly quiet environments. I'm about 70dB for speech.

Edited December 11, 2017 by StringJunky

[Kathi Blackmer]

Hi. I’m pretty much the same way with 115dB loss in both ears and grew up wearing hearing aids. I continue to rely on lip-reading even after I had a cochlear implant when I was 40. However, amusia pertains to music, not vocal speech. Can you hear music with your hearing aids and if so, are you able to remember or recognize the tunes if it was played again a minute later? I’ve been playing the same songs over and over again for 5 years now and yet I still don’t recognize the tune when I hear it being played. Amusics have virtually no musical memory whatsoever. I’ve been playing the piano by memorizing the ‘steps’ and using a visual metronome as a guidance, not by hearing the notes. 

[StringJunky]

18 hours ago, Kathi Blackmer said:

Hi. I’m pretty much the same way with 115dB loss in both ears and grew up wearing hearing aids. I continue to rely on lip-reading even after I had a cochlear implant when I was 40. However, amusia pertains to music, not vocal speech. Can you hear music with your hearing aids and if so, are you able to remember or recognize the tunes if it was played again a minute later?

Yes, my response to music is quite deep and I often play music in my head but only after hearing a piece many times unless the lead melody is simple. I know I don't hear it all but, I think, what you don't know, you don't miss, as long as it's a meaningful experience. I don't think normal-hearing people hear and process the same way anyway. We all hear what we want to hear and discard the rest.

Quote

 I’ve been playing the same songs over and over again for 5 years now and yet I still don’t recognize the tune when I hear it being played. Amusics have virtually no musical memory whatsoever. I’ve been playing the piano by memorizing the ‘steps’ and using a visual metronome as a guidance, not by hearing the notes.

Can you hear the notes on the piano and can you hear the difference in pitch as you run across the keys?

Concerning your original question about research into it, it seems to be rather scarce and not of high quality according to this following metastudy paper on the causes, so I imagine research on your specific question will be very hard to find. If you want to read the full paper click the link at the end of my quote. This is a 2013 paper, so it''s quite recent.

 

Quote

Abstract
Background: Amusia, a music-specific agnosia, is a disorder of pitch interval analysis and pitch direction change
recognition which results in a deficit in musical ability. The full range of aetiological factors which cause this
condition is unknown, as is each cause’s frequency. The objective of this study was to identify all causes of amusia,
and to measure each of their frequencies.

Methods: Design: systematic review was conducted by search of multiple databases for articles related to the
aetiology of amusic auditory dysfunction. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
(PRISMA) guidelines for reporting of systematic reviews were followed, utilizing the PRISMA checklist and PRISMA
flowchart methodology. Setting: Retrospective medical database review. Main outcome measures: evidence yielded
from the systematic review process.

Results: The initial search protocol identified 5723 articles. Application of a classification review filter and exclusion
of irrelevant or duplicates led to the initial identification of 56 relevant studies which detailed 301 patients.
However, these studies were of poor quality. Because of this, synthesis and statistical analysis were not appropriate.

Conclusion: Although initially a large number of relevant studies were identified, and might point in future to
potential diagnostic categories, it was not appropriate to synthesise and analyse them due to poor quality,
considerable heterogeneity and small numbers. This suggests that large, high quality studies focussed directly on
understanding the aetiology of amusia are required. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186%2F1755-7682-6-16.pdf

 

Edited December 12, 2017 by StringJunky

[Kathi Blackmer]

My mother said that when I was little I would often tap on the keys going from left to right and always stopped at about 10 keys away from the end and I’d say “broken”, then go the opposite way back to the first key. I had always thought it was ‘broken’. I can hear the difference between the first key on the left and the last key I could hear on the right but I can’t notice the difference in the two keys if they are side by side. Also, another interesting note...I have only 1 uncle on my mother’s side and 1 niece (from my brother, who also has 70dB loss like you and has a CI) and both of them have Asperger’s Syndrome and very musically inclined. I have an IQ of 145 and I had wondered if I had Asperger’s as well, but my mother says I don’t cuz I did not have any difficulties in socializing and engaging in conversations. I also speak and read lips better than most deaf people who hear better than I do. Another reason that made me suspect that I have amusia was because of what my neurosurgeon said after she completed the CI surgery that lasted over 5 hours (which was a simple 45 mins to an hourlong procedure). The neurosurgeon, who has performed over a thousand implants, said that mine was the most difficult one she ever operated on because my brain was anatomically the ‘opposite’ of what it should have been. Not only that, the device was implanted in a different area in my skull than most CI recipients which is causing me a considerable amount of discomfort. I really wonder why she didn’t catch the ‘difference’ in my MRI scans before proceeding with the implant. I would like to have my brain examined to see if I’m truly amusic, unfortunately that will be difficult to do since I can no longer have MRI’s due to my implant. So, it raises an interesting question... how or do they test profoundly deaf people for amusia? 

By the way, thank you SO much for looking into this for me! You rock! 

[Kathi Blackmer]

Have you checked out the Magic Piano app? That’s the only app that makes me feel like I’m an accomplished musician although that wasn’t my intention to begin with, lol. I love challenging myself on various puzzles, brain teasers and arcade games so when I saw this app my thought was, ‘This looks like a fun arcade game!’. My challenge was to ‘catch’ the dots as they come down to the line. In the process of tapping on the dots, I didn’t know I was producing a tune until my hearing friends started tapping their feet and clapping their hands along with me, perfectly in sync with my taps but all I hear is a series of pretty notes. This was intended as a musical app but for me, it’s an arcade game so I think differently when it comes to apps like these.