Subject: Fwd: Re: musical tones in speech From: Pierre Divenyi <pdivenyi(at)MARVA4.NCSC.MED.VA.GOV> Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 06:59:52 -0700>>As much as I wish the opposite were true (in my former life I was a >>musician), I think Alain is right: speaking is not like singing. I am >>sure all of you must have come across tone deaf persons who could not >>carry the simplest tune, but you could not tell this by listening to them >>as they were speaking. I also have another experience to share: >> >>A Hungarian pop idol, a very expansive young woman who learned to sing >>"on the job" was in a car accident that left her brain damaged and >>aphasic. Out of sheer determination, she decided to re-learn to speak >>through singing, but not the pop stuff. She chose as her learning >>instrument a series of unaccompanied songs by Gyorgy Kurtag, written on >>poems by the 20th-century socialist-expressionist poet Attila Jozsef -- >>if you know the series you will admit that it must have been a grueling >>task. And she performed the series well enough for Kurtag to write, for >>her, a vocal piece on words by Beckett -- I heard it with her and it was >>mesmerizing. Yet, when talking to her afterwards I realized that she was >>still aphasic to a large extent. >> >>Pierre > >**************************************************************************** >Pierre Divenyi Experimental Audiology Research (151) > V.A. Medical Center, Martinez, CA > 94553, USA >Phone: (925) 370-6745 Fax: (925) 228-5738 >E-mail : PDivenyi(at)ucdavis.edu >**************************************************************************** **************************************************************************** Pierre Divenyi Experimental Audiology Research (151) V.A. Medical Center, Martinez, CA 94553, USA Phone: (925) 370-6745 Fax: (925) 228-5738 E-mail : PDivenyi(at)ucdavis.edu ****************************************************************************