So you think you can’t dance?
If you often find yourself struggling to keep time with music, you may be suffering from beat deafness, a rare brain disorder that prevents people from synchronizing their body movement with sound.
The uncommon condition was recently analyzed by researchers from McGill University in Quebec, who studied 32 control participants and 2 ‘beat-deaf’ individuals. When keeping time with a metronome—a device that produces regular ticks—researchers found that those with beat deafness had a more difficult time adjusting to changes in tempo than control participants.
Researchers believe this stems from the auditory brain stem failing to efficiently fire off neurons that tell your body to adjust to changes in the beat—not only messing with your tapping skills but also giving you those two left feet, according to Nina Kraus, Ph.D., principal investigator at the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University.
But impressing your lady friend with some sick dance moves isn’t the only advantage to staying on beat. According to the study, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, beat-based abilities offer evolutionary advantages in coordinating one’s own behavior with that of a group.
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Worried you might be beat deaf? Here’s an easy test: Grab some friends and try tapping your feet to the song “Voyager” by Daft Punk.
It plays at 120 beats per minute, which is a fairly standard tempo for dance music, says Kraus. If you struggle a great deal to keep up, you may be beat deaf.
But since beat deafness is so rare, don’t freak if you can’t keep time with the French electro-duo—their music could just not be your thing. Even non-beat deaf people differ in their preferred tempos, suggests Kraus.
Keep experimenting with different genres and tempos until you (hopefully) find one you can keep up with.
