You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Usually, individuals with a “normal” speaking voice can sing; the vocal mechanism is the same for both activities. Giovanni Battista Lamperti, the last great master of the old Italian way of singing, taught in Dresden, Germany, in 1891-1893. He considered that when students could not sing it was because they tried to sing instead of utilizing the same effort made to speak. In other words, for him, the source of song was the same as the effortless process of speaking, intensified and refined a thousand times over. Lack of ear-training, of correct breathing technique, and of disciplined muscles were seen as causal agents of vocal problems (Brown, 1931). This viewpoint still holds today.
Apparently, Freud tried to sing opera arias on pitch, but he continually failed (Gay, 1988). Maybe he tried too hard. However, for this inability to sing on pitch, strangely enough, Freud has been labeled “tone deaf.”
Recently, Gay (1988) highlights Freud's proclamation of ignorance in music matters as well as his acknowledgment of not being able to carry a tune. He interprets that Freud “virtually boasted about his tone deafness” (my italics) in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), when stating that “someone else would perhaps not have recognized the melody” (Gay, 1988, p. 168) that he was humming of Figaro's challenge to Count Almaviva in Mozart's (1786) The Marriage of Figaro, Act. I.
It is suggested that the application of the term “tone deafness” to Freud's singing off-pitch is an unfortunate choice that is both misleading and technically incorrect. Funk & Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary (1980) defines tone deaf as “unable to perceive fine distinctions in pitch, as musical intervals” (my italics) (p. 851). “Tone deafness,” then, refers to acoustical perception rather than to vocal reproduction.
Strachey's translation of the quote used by Gay (1988) states, “Meantime I had been humming a tune to myself which I recognized as Figaro's aria from Le Nozze di Figaro: Se vuol ballare, signor