http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25418919/
on people that were tone deaf vs. people that are tone mute. As a music teacher, you want obviously want students who can are neither. But how does one come to the conclusion that the student (especially young kids just starting to learn music) are good candidates for further instruction? More important, how do you tell when some kid is not and how do you let the kid and his/her parents know that music just ain't the thing for their kid? Is there a cutoff period when you have heard enough and can't anymore?
Interesting anecdote. There once was a music teacher (in the US) who was good at teaching young children. She started a new batch with 4 kids, one of whom was a young boy (5yrs old). This kid's mom used to sit right behind him during class and encourage him. A couple of months passed and 3 of the 4 kids had moved onto janta varusai, except for our little buddy here who was still being asked to sing Sarali Varusai. His mom got agitated and confronted the music teacher asking thus: "Why are you not letting my boy sing Janta Varusai? He is singing the entire Sarali varusai without looking at the book and without forgetting any notes AND with no errors". What was painfully hard for the teacher to explain to the mother was that the boy couldn't even sing Sa Pa Sa with the right swarasthAnams and that he was merely "reading" the notes and not singing them. Now what was hilariously funny to me as an observer of all this drama was that Mom was tone deaf too because if not she wouldn't have confronted the teacher.
I laughed but is being tone deaf/mute akin to being visually or mentally handicapped and so is it wrong on my part to laugh?
Anyhow... looking forward to the discussion and your own stories
)