I truly believe there is true tone deafness which is the aural equivalent of
color blindness. The part of the brain that perceives pitch is fine (these
people do listen to music and hear the melody). However, the part that
imposes it on the vocal folds and the part that monitors if the perceived
pitch and that imposed on the folds is correct are not communicating
efficiently. Don't quote me on this, but I think there has been some
research done that shows different brain activity between those who match
pitch and those who don't.
I don't think a neurological problem is at the center of all tone deafness
but in some. It's kind of like stuttering where there may be different
causes for different people.
Randy Buescher
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