TUNE-DEAFNESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1843, 22 June 1918, Page 1

TUNE-DEAFNESS.

Everyone has heard of colourblindness, but few people are aware that there is such a malady as tunedeafness. It prevents those affected from appreciating music, which to the melody-deaf is nothing but noise. The most intelligent people often suffer in this way. Empress Catherine of Russia used to declare that for her music' was a nervetrying din, and Napoleon I. hated

any form of melody. Victor Hugo had to be coaxed by the composer who put his famous lines to music. “Arc not my verses,” lie used to say, “sufficiently harmonious to stand without the assistance of disagreeable noises?” Doctors say that the power to appreciate music depends upon a perfect; combination of the nerves and brain. Some people’s nerves readily carry musical sounds to the mind, whilst in others nerves impede (heir passage to the braincells. Good musicians are more often born than made. Nature has provided them with nerves which instinctively carry musical chords to the lira in. Tha t is why a good musician can memorise a tune after hearing it played over once. Every note has been clearly recorded in their brain. Those with less sensitive musical nerves receive a dull impression of any music they may hear, and thus they are unable to remember it unless it is drummed irito their brain by repeated playing.