ear-training?

[leegordo]

leegordo here Just a thought! Someone recently said to me that ear -training was the same as learning a foreign language, I naturally beg to differ-as usual!because I maintain that A poor ear or tone deaf person cannot be trained to have a good 'ear' no matter how hard he/she may study or 'Train
the anology of learning languages will never be as difficult as is the art of recognising harmonies and/or chords I put to you like this.
If a chord consists of....Say up to 5 or6 different notes, which can be inverted in any old fashion to suit the music , then it must be admitted that,being able to tell what kind of chord is playing-without reference to any musical source-is almost impossible for a tone-deaf person!
For the anology to be more accurate therefore, I say that the foreign language student should be able to tell what a native speaker of the language is saying,even if the speaker mixed up all the vowels and consonants ,like the notes are mixed up in chords and harmonies.....Languages never change whereas chords are always subject to being changed as long as music exists.
There are always different pieces of music being composed/written
There are never any changes being made to specific known languages!!!!!!!

[jimc8p]

...it must be admitted that,being able to tell what kind of chord is playing-without reference to any musical source-is almost impossible for a tone-deaf person!

That is simply not true. It is wholly impossible!

You seem to be working off the basis that everyone here talking about ear-training is in fact hopelessly tone-deaf. In fact, real tone-deafness is rare. These people are mostly aspiring for the interval recognition you hold in such high regard - you should be encouraging them! And it is very learnable - incomparably more simple than an entire language.

[Obivion]

Yes, true tone deafness is rare.

It is not beyond most people to name a single note being played, similarly with chords until you get into the more ambiguous jazz chords where the fact they have multiple triads within them messing up the tonality makes it more difficult for the ear to discern which chord is being played i.e. C7, CEGB contains both a C major CEG and E minor EGB triad.

[CC323]

AND many languages do actually changes such as mandarin chinese and it's 4 tone system. Other asian languages have even more tones. How can a tone deaf person learn these languages if he/she can't recognize a Major 2nd interval?