MEGHAN KHARSYNRAP
HEALTH CHECK UPS
ARE NOT OUT OF
THE ORDINARY
A journey through
MUSICAL DISORDERS
PART 2
Health check ups are not out of the ordinary. I like to think
that people everywhere tend to take their healths seriously or
at least worry about it. Sometimes when a part of our body is
feeling off we’ll power on our phones, head to google and type
out our symptoms so we can pinpoint the disease through
an endless list of diseases. We may not pay attention to our
health on the daily but even something slightly off puts us
through a whirlwind of emotion. Infact, there’s an invisible
checklist telling us what’s right and wrong that we keep a
track of everyday: Ears? Check. Nose? Check. Throat? Check.
Ankles? Check. Back? Check. Muscles? Check. So why is it if
your internal body is so coordinated that your feet aren’t?
The world stops when the perfectly healthy you ends up
standing at a party, the music blaring loudly, a radio hit,
jive special, and everyone’s feet is moving but yours.
You say don’t know how to dance because you’re bad at
counting the beat. “Uncoordinated Janet” they might
reply, lovingly, much to your demise. But it’s not that you
can’t copy the moves-- you practiced! It’s not that you’re
not comfortable on the floor, you were born for it! You
just can’t keep up with the rhythm. You never realised
that you could have a disorder like Beat-deafness.
You always had an interesting approach to rhythm at your
school’s March-past. When they asked you to salute on the
3rd beat, you nodded--but your inner voice shouted “3rd
beat?! where is it?” The other time you noticed something
was off was when your sole head peered out into a sea
of people head banging at some metal concert. You were
not on their time, always off by a millisecond or two.
Beat deafness is a form of amusia. Amusia, or tone deafness
is generally considered to be a pitch related problem that
deals with the recognition and differentiation of pitch. People
who are tone deaf can clap and feel a beat, detect a change
of speed but have difficulty identifying a change of pitch.
30
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
Both problems are
derived from the
areas of the brain in
the auditory cortex.
McGill University
researchers looked closely at two people Mathieu and
Marjorie who believed they had unnatural rhythm or
had beat deafness. They were put in a control group of 32
people and told to match a beat played on a metronome
that changed its speed at random. Some were better
than others at matching a beat or adapting to the
change but Mathieu and Marjorie could not follow.
Research suggests that with even a five percent change in
the rate of the metronome, most of the general population
could hear it and respond to it. Caroline Palmer,
Professor at McGill said that those with beat deafness
clap or tap regularly when there's no sound. It's only
when they attempt to synchronize that they stick out.
The way we perceive time and speed could alter depending
on our ability to adapt to rhythm. Scientists believe that
our biological functions- sleeping, talking, our heartbeat
are controlled by an internal oscillating function.Palmer
developed a computer model to mimick the internal
oscillators of both Mathieu and Marjorie. The models
were put through the same metronome test. The model
accurately defined the rate of error of the two individuals.
The oscillator theory supports the claim that people
could have actual difficulties in moving to a beat.
This study led by Palmer puts into perspective the
way we think of time. It helps to further research
about how our internal timing functions control how
we live. It could be our sleep-circadian rhythm, our
heartbeats, our talking, our dancing and maybe more.