Sacks describes the confusion hefeels when noting that people with amusia can be virtually normal intheir speech skills while profoundly disabled musically. He asks if thetwo can be so totally different, given that speech involves tonal andrhythmic changes which appear to have a musical basis. Maybe thisgenetic distinction offers a pathway to exploring his question.

sabelle Peretz and DominiqueVuvan conducted a large-scale sample in 2017, with 20,000participants drawn from the general public. They reported that ‘theprevalence of congenital amusia is only 1.5 per cent, with slightlymore females than males, unlike other developmental disorderswhere males often predominate’.11

People with the NF1 disorder are highly likely to sufferfrom amusia, an inability to hear differences in musical tones.