As Dave McMaster and others have pointed out, people who are truly
musical seem to make up a tiny fraction of our population.

One of our memorable encounters with the musically unsophisticated
occurred a few years ago while we entertained a visitor in our home.
After a brief verbal introduction to the artistic qualities of
reproducing pianos, we selected what we thought would be a good
demonstration roll, endowed with appreciable dynamic contrast, and
our Ampico began to play.  As the music moved into a pianissimo passage,
our visitor commented, "It's not as loud as it was a while ago, is there
something wrong with it?"

Dave McMaster's comment about ballroom dancers with tin ears is not
surprising, but it's not the whole story, either.  As an avid ballroom
dancer, I'd like to elaborate by pointing out that there are people in
the ballroom dance community who are professional musicians.  One
beautiful dancer who comes to mind works as a rehearsal pianist for a
ballet company in La Jolla.  Also among our dance friends are some
regular concert-goers and opera buffs.

However, by way of contrast, we know other dancers who look great on the
floor and consistently win competitions, but who have had to struggle
valiantly to learn to find the downbeat in the music to which they dance.
For the most part, dancers are trained to focus on rhythm and tempo,
rather than harmonies or melodic aspects of music.  Strange as it may
seem to non-dancers, dance talent has little or no correlation with
musical aptitude or sensitivity.  Aptitude for dancing seems more closely
related to athletic, rather than to musical, ability.

But lest anyone be left with the mistaken belief that ALL ballroom
dancers have tin ears, it just isn't so!

Dave Saul

 [ "Hug a musician -- they never get to dance!"  -- Robbie ]