Can I learn to play guitar if I am tone deaf?
I didn’t start learning to play guitar until I was in my mid-20s. I had never had any kind of musical training before; and found it very challenging to tune a guitar.
I had many friends who played guitar, all of whom began lessons when they were very young. They all agreed that I was tone deaf, and should give up.
I could not believe that I was tone deaf, but I continued to struggle learning to tune the guitar.
The first electronic tuners were available on the market at this time, but the cheapest one was over $350. At the time, my gross pay was $90 a week. Because of my other expenses, rent, food, gas, etc. it took me over six months to save up $100 to buy my guitar. Paying more than $350 for a tuner was out of the question.
I saw that a local community college was giving a class in piano tuning, for much less than the cost of the tuner, and I contacted the man who was teaching the class, and arranged to meet with him. I explained my situation, and inquired whether or not his class would help me.
He told me that just by listening to my voice; he could tell that I was not tone deaf. He further explained that being tone deaf was an extremely rare condition, and that if I was in fact tone deaf, my voice would be an absolute monotone, because I never would have heard any inflections when I was learning to speak.
He then told me to close my eyes, played two different notes on the piano, and asked me how many different notes he had played. He told me not to worry about identifying if one was higher or lower, just how many different notes. I told him two, and he repeated this several times, occasionally playing the same note twice. I was able to tell when he played different notes, and when he played the same note several times.
He told me that the little exercise was to prove to me that I was not tone deaf, since as I mentioned earlier, he had already said he could tell from my voice. He said that my problem was an uneducated ear, and encouraged me to take his class. I did, and by the end of the class, I could tune a guitar perfectly by ear. (I also knew how to tune a piano, although I have never practiced piano tuning since.)
It is unfortunate that people use the term tone deaf so carelessly, especially with young children, who are very impressionable. I meet a lot of people who believe they are tone deaf, most of them having been told so since childhood. I have never met anyone who was actually tone deaf though.
So I am going to assume that you only believe you are tone deaf, and suggest that you may have to work a little harder at ear training, but that it is completely possible for you to learn how to play guitar. And putting a little extra work into training your ear will also improve your appreciation for music in general.
I would like to recommend trying the ear training program PurePitch, which comes with a 2 month money back guarantee. I would have wanted a similar program when I was first starting out, and have found it improved my ear, even after more than twenty years of guitar playing. It can be ordered here: Buy PurePitch.