Find out if you are tone deaf

Adrian · Post by **Adrian** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:03 pm

tegea wrote:29 / 29

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:03 pm

I haven't read the bumf about the survey on their website, but it seems to me that what these tests both do is test melodic memory more than anything else. Sure, non-musicians with unpractised ears may have more difficulty discerning pitch changes, but as (I'll assume) we all play something on this forum, we are more or less experienced at listening to pitch and our ears are accustomed to it. Classically trained people will have very highly attuned pitch recognition, but maybe less melodic retention than we, who are perhaps atypical of a wider pool of western musicians in that, except for the newbies, we are very accustomed to memorising simple melodies and to learning by ear from the performance of others at short notice. One might expect us to be better than average at spotting changes in melody (something I believe humans are in any case generally pretty good at - most of us have excellent melodic recall even if not "musical"), assuming that our basic pitch and time perception apparatus works OK!

I wonder what the design parameters of the test are? I'll have to go back and have a look, but so often surveys and questionnaires fail to put questions in terms that can elicit truthful answers in the terms that they allow - I'm quite cynical about such things! I think these tests DO test melodic/time&pitch pattern perception and memory, but not basic pitch perception alone as an auditory function, as suggested by the original poster's thread title. I'm glad you posted it, though, Mike/Slowair!

john17 · Post by **john17** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 1:17 pm

Hey Jem:

I guess to really know how appropriate the test is for tone deafness, we would have to know some of the people that are tone deaf who have tried it, and see what their results are.

I do agree, if you are musically inclined, and play an instrument you'll probably fare better on this test than someone who isn't in that category.

What seems so obvious and apparent to us as a difference between the melody/pitch of #1 and #2, may completely be off the radar screen for someone who is tone deaf.

Would it be possible to test tone deafness by only playing one note, followed by either the same note or a different note and see if the participant can tell that they were different? That would eliminate the musical element to the test.

I wonder if this is on par with the color blind tests where they place a colored number in a field of other colors and see if you can pick it out.

Hmmm....

John

jen f · Post by **jen f** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:53 pm

29/30 and 30/30. But I think I would have scored lower on the second one if I hadn't first read Bretton's comment about what they were testing for.

Adrian · Post by **Adrian** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:16 pm

jemtheflute wrote:... it seems to me that what these tests both do is test melodic memory more than anything else.

I was mildly amused by the test being taken by folks here on C&F as probably many would be able not only to discern any difference in the clips but also be able to play it back on their whistle or flute!

sbfluter · Post by **sbfluter** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:59 pm

My memory is terrible. I could tell a lot of them were the same pitch but different rhythms and marked them as different. Was that the wrong thing to do?

I auditioned for choir in high school and scored well above the curve by singing back combinations of notes. I know I'm not tone deaf. But I scored only 20 and 23.

seisflutes · Post by **seisflutes** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:03 pm

22/30 (ugh) and 29/30 (yay!).

Lance_Wallen · Post by **Lance_Wallen** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:43 pm

Thank you for your participation. You scored 29 out of 30 on the first test and 27 out of 30 on the second test.

Yay, I don't suck!

Lance_Wallen · Post by **Lance_Wallen** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:47 pm

I just realized something...

This study is most likely being passed around various music forums primarily... that's gonna skew the results. People with 0 musical interest/knowledge are going to do worse on this test I'd imagine.

Gostrangely · Post by **Gostrangely** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:14 am

25 and 26

Very reassuring as I have 100% hearing loss in my right ear, due to a severed nerve.

Jennie · Post by **Jennie** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:02 pm

Adrian wrote:You scored 29 out of 30 on the first test and 28 out of 30 on the second test.

Happy with this!

I did the same.

It was interesting that on the melody pairs, when there were differences it was always the second tune that was a little "off" from what I would consider tonal center or a fixed key. And I felt a little frustrated that the rhythmic ones, as played with no accent or dynamic change, made it hard to tell at the outset whether something was in triple or duple meter.

I thought I'd gotten them all on the rhythm section and I missed one more than the first. Strange.

Jennie

Jennie · Post by **Jennie** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:05 pm

Lance_Wallen wrote:I just realized something...

This study is most likely being passed around various music forums primarily... that's gonna skew the results. People with 0 musical interest/knowledge are going to do worse on this test I'd imagine.

This is true. Quick, everybody, go sign up your non-musical friends (come on, some of us have a few) to help them get some more valid results.

Jennie

Tucson Whistler · Post by **Tucson Whistler** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:25 pm

Jennie wrote:It was interesting that on the melody pairs, when there were differences it was always the second tune that was a little "off" ...

I was thinking the same thing as I was listening and I wondered if it would be as noticeable if it was the first tune that was "off".

WyoBadger · Post by **WyoBadger** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:27 pm

Two perfect scores, baby!

...what, no new car? No cash prize? No civic monument celebrating my achievemet?

grumbling off to have a cup of tea...Tom

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 10:05 am

sbfluter wrote:My memory is terrible. I could tell a lot of them were the same pitch but different rhythms and marked them as different. Was that the wrong thing to do?

I auditioned for choir in high school and scored well above the curve by singing back combinations of notes. I know I'm not tone deaf. But I scored only 20 and 23.

No, I don't think that was the wrong thing to do. I believe it was correct to consider that if there was any change in the tune at all it should be marked different.

I am sure you aren't tone deaf. I think the test has a lot to do with musical memory---you can only tell if the second tune is different if you can remember the first one. If the test is trying to measure other things, then I would have some doubts about how accurately those other things could be measured---but I haven't read anything about their particular experiment, so I'm not critiqueing it, just wondering.

I think that musical memory can actually be improved---many people say that the more you practice learning by ear, the better you get. And I would think this test would be very similar to what a person encounters when learning by ear, which I find quite hard to do. I would have expected to score lower and I think I made some lucky guesses.