Colour Blind
Since I wrote the piece a couple of days ago about knowing my left from my right, I’ve been surprised by the number of people who have said they’ve never been quite sure, or they have to think about it.
I think the reason I’ve always been so certain about it is because I am very, very right-handed: my right hand generally knows what it’s doing and my left one just doesn’t. When I play the piano I am only conscious of reading the music for the left hand. I read it with difficulty and my left hand plays it with difficulty too. My right hand, on the other hand, appears to read its own music and get right on with playing it without any apparent input from me.
When playing the descant recorder, where all the music is in the treble clef and hence would normally be played by the right hand on the piano, my left hand seems able to join in. Give me a descant recorder and you hum it, I’ll play it: it’s as though both hands think they’re the right hand. Odd.
Rhythm I’m sure about too. Tap out a rhythm and I’ll tap it right back to you. I know someone who doesn’t understand about rhythm. Watching him try to march in time to music, as I did once, was astonishing to me. Left - - - right. Leftright. Left. Right. Left - - - - - Right. To hear him play a well-known piece on the clarinet was also amazing – the notes were in the right order, but that was it. To him, Beethoven’s Fifth, instead of going Duh-duh-duh-DUH, might as well go Duh DUH duh-duh – he simply can’t hear the difference.
To me, who can hear it, it is hard to imagine not being able to. Rhythm is a very basic skill – almost all of us have it. Often I find that people who have other abilities – perfect pitch, the ability to draw, the ability to dance – take their – to me – astonishing skill very much for granted and find it hard to imagine that other people can’t do it. (PE teachers generally find it impossible to imagine that anyone might not want to play their tedious team sports, let alone might not be able to, but that’s a bit of a digression).
When I applied to do teacher training, years ago, part of it was a colour-blindness test. Lots of the usual blobs of colour. We were all in a queue to do this test and as each one of us approached, they turned the page to give a different picture.
The man in front of me looked at the very clear picture of a rather blobby horse. He looked very puzzled.
“There’s nothing there,” he said. “It’s just blobs.”
In slight panic, he turned to me.
“Look,” he said. “Nothing. Nothing at all. You can’t see anything, can you?”
I could see that he was colour-blind, and that he didn’t know, and that he was about to find out, and I felt very sorry for him, because his whole world picture was about to change.
I think the reason I’ve always been so certain about it is because I am very, very right-handed: my right hand generally knows what it’s doing and my left one just doesn’t. When I play the piano I am only conscious of reading the music for the left hand. I read it with difficulty and my left hand plays it with difficulty too. My right hand, on the other hand, appears to read its own music and get right on with playing it without any apparent input from me.
When playing the descant recorder, where all the music is in the treble clef and hence would normally be played by the right hand on the piano, my left hand seems able to join in. Give me a descant recorder and you hum it, I’ll play it: it’s as though both hands think they’re the right hand. Odd.
Rhythm I’m sure about too. Tap out a rhythm and I’ll tap it right back to you. I know someone who doesn’t understand about rhythm. Watching him try to march in time to music, as I did once, was astonishing to me. Left - - - right. Leftright. Left. Right. Left - - - - - Right. To hear him play a well-known piece on the clarinet was also amazing – the notes were in the right order, but that was it. To him, Beethoven’s Fifth, instead of going Duh-duh-duh-DUH, might as well go Duh DUH duh-duh – he simply can’t hear the difference.
To me, who can hear it, it is hard to imagine not being able to. Rhythm is a very basic skill – almost all of us have it. Often I find that people who have other abilities – perfect pitch, the ability to draw, the ability to dance – take their – to me – astonishing skill very much for granted and find it hard to imagine that other people can’t do it. (PE teachers generally find it impossible to imagine that anyone might not want to play their tedious team sports, let alone might not be able to, but that’s a bit of a digression).
When I applied to do teacher training, years ago, part of it was a colour-blindness test. Lots of the usual blobs of colour. We were all in a queue to do this test and as each one of us approached, they turned the page to give a different picture.
The man in front of me looked at the very clear picture of a rather blobby horse. He looked very puzzled.
“There’s nothing there,” he said. “It’s just blobs.”
In slight panic, he turned to me.
“Look,” he said. “Nothing. Nothing at all. You can’t see anything, can you?”
I could see that he was colour-blind, and that he didn’t know, and that he was about to find out, and I felt very sorry for him, because his whole world picture was about to change.
posted by Daphne at 7:24 pm
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