Is there a friend of yours who always sings out of tune (曲调) but never realizes it? Don’t be so hard on them — they may have amusia — the inability to tell the difference in tunes.

Apart from singing out of tune, people with amusia may also find it hard to recognize music they’ve heard before without the help of song lyrics. Besides, people who suffer from Amusia can have difficulty in recognizing melodies and a total inability to tell between different musical sounds, according to Live Science. However, people with amusia can recognize common environmental sounds as well as the high and lows sounds in human voices, meaning that this inability can be specially related to music.

In many cases, people who have amusia are born with it, as 46 percent of these individuals’ family members were found to have similar conditions, according to a 2017 study. Brain imaging shows that their brains receive and respond to music pitch (音高) information, but it is not reaching conscious awareness, meaning that the mind can’t understand the information.

Scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand also think that amusia is related to people’s special processing skills. They invited people with amusia, musicians and students from non-musical backgrounds to perform a task related to spacial imagination. They were asked to decide whether pairs of images are the same object moving around or mirror images.

The result showed that the amusia group made more mistakes than the other two groups. Amusia might be related to the way brain stores information about the high and low sounds in songs, according to the study.

Although those who aren’t confident about their singing skills often say they’re “tune-deaf”, people with amusia only make up about 1.5 percent of the population, as shown in the 2017 study. “Like dyslexics (诵读困难者) can learn how to read, those with amusia should be able to better their ability to recognize tunes if they start early enough,” Isabelle Peretz, a professor of psychology from the University of Montreal in Canada, told Live Science.

Music is great because it comes in many shapes and forms and can be used for so many different purposes. This is one of the reasons why we humans, whether young or old, love music. I think it’s safe to say though that I like music a bit more than the average person. 【小题1】 When I’m home all day, I listen to music well, all day, and here’s why.

The first reason why I love music is that it helps me to relax. 【小题2】 What I’ve found is that it especially helps me to relax when I’m on the train going to or from work. Going to work it helps me to get into the right mindset (思维模式) for getting my workday started. 【小题3】

Another reason I love music is because I can dance to it. 【小题4】 Be it in class, at a party or at a club. All I need is some good music and I’m a happy bunny (兔子). Apart from that, singing along with songs also makes me happy so music has very positive connotations (含义) for me.

【小题5】 It makes my dark days just a little brighter and my happy days burst with (充满) sunshine. I don’t know what I’d do without music. Whether it is an old song from the 60s or something brand new(全新的): it all has its value and purpose to me. That’s what makes music so interesting: there is so much out there and there is something for everyone.

Piccolo Coro “Mariele Ventre” dell’Antoniano, a celebrated children’s choir from Italy, has toured China during the New Year season for the past five years.

Though the choir will not be able to enter the country this year because of the pandemic, their music will be presented by the Shanghai Children’s Art Theater (SHCAT) with the help of high-fidelity imaging transmission and hologram technology.

Considered a national treasure in Italy, the choir is well-known around the world and is a Good Will Ambassador for UNICEF.

While the choir will be singing in Italy, high-fidelity imaging transmission and hologram technology will help the singers to interact with its sister choir, Hydrangea Choir, in Shanghai, where six concerts will take place from Dec 31 to Jan 3, 2021.

“For the past five years, the songs of the Antoniano choir have been a regular part of the New Year celebration for many audiences in China,” said Liang Xiaoxia, general manager of SHCAT.

“This year, although they cannot come, we still hope to keep the experience alive, and hope that the voices of these children can bring some consolation and inspire more confidence in the face of adversity.”