Tonedeafness test

November 11, 2006 12:27 PM

Are you tonedeaf? Take the (6-minute) test. via
posted by aberrant (71 comments total)

another one.
posted by aberrant at 12:36 PM on November 11, 2006

Nice. I always assumed that I had a weak sense of pitch, but 72.2% says that I'm a bad singer for other reasons.
posted by Paragon at 12:41 PM on November 11, 2006

75%
posted by JanetLand at 12:42 PM on November 11, 2006

83.3 and I was somewhat distracted.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 12:46 PM on November 11, 2006

This is hardly a test of tonedeafness. It's a test of your short-term memory of (mostly) complex musical passages. Those who are tonedeaf literally cannot hear the difference between two very simple musical passages played very differently. These are jazz-chord clusters, in odd voicings, with nuanced differences. If you're conversant with augmented 13ths and the like you'll probably do slightly better on this test than if you don't.

Oh, and we killed the site.
posted by argybarg at 12:47 PM on November 11, 2006

(still works over here...)
posted by aberrant at 12:49 PM on November 11, 2006

77.8%
posted by odinsdream at 12:54 PM on November 11, 2006

Though I'm pretty sure I got distracted in the middle and misclicked a couple items.
posted by odinsdream at 12:55 PM on November 11, 2006

94.4%

I'm a musician. These are the kinds of things we'd have to dictate after about two years of ear training. Except without the Doogie Howser MIDI sounds.

I also agree that it's more about memory than tonedeafness.
posted by aliasless at 12:57 PM on November 11, 2006

86.something. My musical short-term memory might be fine, but my numerical short-term memory apparently sucks.
posted by aberrant at 12:58 PM on November 11, 2006

77.8%. With the damn dog barking and whining. (Mind, my score would probably have been lower without that.)
posted by maxwelton at 1:01 PM on November 11, 2006

#aliasless: also agree that it's more about memory than tonedeafness.

I think it is more about harmonic knowledge, which is how the better performers encode things into memory.

If it was just a random string of notes, then harmonic structure wouldn't help and it would be more about pitch perception and memory.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 1:01 PM on November 11, 2006

83.3 also, but did anyone else think there were WAY too many different passages for this to be a good test? There should have been more that were actually the same, I'd say...
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:02 PM on November 11, 2006

MonkeySaltedNuts: good point.
posted by aliasless at 1:04 PM on November 11, 2006

88.9...
posted by defenestration at 1:04 PM on November 11, 2006

80.6, and the presentation as tone-centric feels a bit disingenuous since there were some that seemed to have subtle differences in phrasing rather than harmonic structure.

Eh.
posted by cortex at 1:05 PM on November 11, 2006

91.7%

I did this once with electrodes on my head. They didn't tell me my score. Nice to know!
posted by Arcaz Ino at 1:06 PM on November 11, 2006

Damn, I wish they had a replay button. I can't transcribe an oral telephone number unless it's said at least twice. If it's simply a matter of tone recognition and not memory, the test should allow for multiple replays.

My memory-impaired brain got a 61.1% Which is probably more luck than anything, since I can't sing in the shower without making the coyotes howl.
posted by F Mackenzie at 1:15 PM on November 11, 2006

86.1%. Would have been helpful to know which were right and which were wrong.
posted by divabat at 1:18 PM on November 11, 2006

woohoo!
97.1...
good thing, am a music producer
(altho i don't believe i got ANY wrong...lol)
posted by fisherKing at 1:30 PM on November 11, 2006

88.9% first test & 28/30 for the other test. The second test was noticeably easier.
posted by eunoia at 1:43 PM on November 11, 2006

Yeah, I noticed that as well, Cortex. Annoying!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 1:44 PM on November 11, 2006

88.9 percent. I thought most of them were pretty easy.
posted by schmedeman at 1:46 PM on November 11, 2006

80-something, but I need to retake it when I can concentrate w/ good headphones on, instead of listening to the home theater PA across the room.

I honestly thought I would do better, because I thrive on this stuff by way of electronic dance music, experimental and as a DJ. All of the music I love is all about subtle phrase changes and weird tones and tunings. But if the formally schooled and learned professional musicians in this thread are scoring in the mid 90s I probably shouldn't feel so bad.
posted by loquacious at 1:48 PM on November 11, 2006

88.9 and I know I hit the wrong botton for one... too distracted listening to pay attention to which button I'm hitting. Pretty fun though.

(evidently I hit the wrong button for more than one, huh?)
posted by Phantast at 1:51 PM on November 11, 2006

66.7. Being able to hear some of them twice would have helped.

and I drummer, so it doesn't matter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:27 PM on November 11, 2006

100%
posted by DieHipsterDie at 2:28 PM on November 11, 2006

55.6%, the first practically tone deaf person to admit it, woo! good think i'm just a dancer.
posted by wilky at 2:35 PM on November 11, 2006

and I drummer

You certainly are. :)

I got an 86, too. Ear-trained piano player since age 6. The test really is more about memory than anything else. I replayed the first example over in my head and compared it to the second example.
posted by emelenjr at 2:41 PM on November 11, 2006

The weird thing about that for me was that practically all of them sounded different. I clicked on same when it seemed like they might have been the same, because otherwise I was clicking different way too often, but I rarely really believed they were the same... I wonder if that says something about the moment of experience vs. the memory, that it seems new at the time you hear it in a way.

but yeah, it seemed more like a memory test than a music-skills test, and I also would have liked to know which ones I got wrong. (My score was 65).
posted by mdn at 2:46 PM on November 11, 2006

80.6 percent while listening to Ok Go's Invincible, IMing wilky about how mefi doesn't care about her spelling, and sifting out a dozen undergraduate conversations in a computer cluster at an undisclosed university. I think maybe a dog peed on my foot, too. Probably what made me mess up the 9 percent that I shouldn't have messed up.



Probably.


What I found interesting was that there were a lot of them that I thought had very subtle differences to my ear... but I clicked "same" anyways because if they sound close enough I conciously want to categorize them as the same. But my subconcious is all, "nooo, they are the different, fool!"
posted by Mister Cheese at 2:48 PM on November 11, 2006

I found the power move and killed the Tone Boss.
posted by srboisvert at 3:05 PM on November 11, 2006

That's nothing. I got 106%, and I was in the middle of a hostage negotiation.

Would've gotten 109%, but I was also doing two supermodels at once, and their cries of passion drowned out the high notes.

Amateurs.
posted by molybdenum at 3:22 PM on November 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

91.7%
posted by snoktruix at 3:48 PM on November 11, 2006

80.6

I'm a drummer, and I agree that this has more to do with memory than musical ability.
posted by rbf1138 at 4:03 PM on November 11, 2006

molybdenum stole my joke.
posted by papakwanz at 4:05 PM on November 11, 2006

rbf1138:
That's a pretty good score for a non-musician!


I kid because I love
posted by papakwanz at 4:07 PM on November 11, 2006

80.6 and I clicked the wrong button for one.
posted by litlnemo at 4:10 PM on November 11, 2006

76% on the second one. So does this mean I'm in?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:11 PM on November 11, 2006

I clicked "same" a few times just cause I got weirded out by how many were different. It seemed like more of a psychological test than a musical one—"how many times in a row will a person click the same answer?"

That's my excuse for "only" getting 78%, anyways!
posted by Khalad at 4:32 PM on November 11, 2006

80.6. Way better than I expected actually. And I'm going to agree with the others, almost all of them seemed to have subtle differences to me, but on at least two or three occasions, I just assumed it was in my head and clicked 'same'.
posted by quin at 4:42 PM on November 11, 2006

molybdenum stole my supermodels.
posted by jacalata at 4:46 PM on November 11, 2006

alright then, if I wasn't alone in my experience, for you folks who got 90+, how many were "same"? Was it more even than it seemed and my wrong answers were where I made up differences in the memory, or were most of them actually different, and my mistakes were in assuming it should have been balanced and artificially increasing the number of "same" answers to make up for it?
posted by mdn at 4:51 PM on November 11, 2006

a lot were the same.

still, as posted above, a test of memory more than "tone deafness".

and, btw...lame 1980's synthesizer sounds! *shudder*
would have been more interesting with richer sounds, ie violin, better synths, etc.

thank god i don't have to take this test again...
posted by fisherKing at 5:21 PM on November 11, 2006

I've been told before that I am tonedeaf-- and while I personally wouldn't go that far, I think at the very least I have some inherent difficulties with hearing and producing notes correctly. So the fact that I still got 83.3% on this thing is strange.
posted by bookish at 5:25 PM on November 11, 2006

91.7%

Now the test makes me skeptical. I am certainly not a world-class musician and my friends peg me as noticeably tone-deaf in my singing or when judging actual music. Tracking the patterns in those 5-second midi clips is a far cry from being a musician--reproducing those patterns, and constructing patterns of your own.
posted by schroedinger at 5:29 PM on November 11, 2006

For those wondering about the seemingly large percentage of 'differents' rather than 'sames,' going through and hitting 'different' every time gets a 50% score.

So, despite appearences (sounds?) to the countrary, it's a 50/50 split.
posted by bookish at 5:47 PM on November 11, 2006

91.7% and my singing apparently upsets peoples and animals ! I really can't imagine why !
posted by elpapacito at 5:49 PM on November 11, 2006

77.8%. That sounds about right, as I'm a fair-to-middling ear-trained guitarist. Thanks for the post.
posted by Kwine at 5:56 PM on November 11, 2006

69.8 first time, but I thought I might be clicking "different" too much (some phrases sounded slightly different in timing -- probably just my shittastic computer hiccuping.) Part of it was trying to get a handle on how sneaky I thought they'd be on making things sound different. I guess it turns out not so much.

Took it again and got 88.9%. For the record, I was a lousy, but persistent, (French) horn* player for ~10 years but never had much formal musical theory. Always wished I had a better ear for pitch and I still can't hear how well I'm singing on key compared to others.

I bet if some of the more musicianly folks took it over we'd see more perfect scores.

*Yeah, I know, bad axe for the pitch-impaired.
posted by Opposite George at 6:18 PM on November 11, 2006

75.0% the first time, 80.6% the second time.
posted by yeoz at 6:34 PM on November 11, 2006

77.8%. I've always had lousy musical memory - I assumed I'd score lower.
posted by kickingtheground at 6:37 PM on November 11, 2006

88.9 and I've never learned an instrument.

In fact I'd never even heard music before. I think I like it.
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:48 PM on November 11, 2006

WHAT!?
posted by Smedleyman at 8:20 PM on November 11, 2006

72.2, sorry to say. And yes, I think it's more about memory. I found myself drifting away a couple of times. Now THAT is a problem.
posted by etaoin at 8:27 PM on November 11, 2006

72%.

Which I attribute to neither knowing or understanding anything about music, and being an idiot.
posted by Colloquial Collision at 8:28 PM on November 11, 2006

75.0 the first time, 83.3 the second.

25/30 on the other one.

We have some very impressive ears hear at mefi.
posted by wsg at 12:01 AM on November 12, 2006

88.9, w/ three missed knowlingly (I didn't understand what was going on for the first one, and twice I clicked the wrong button while shouting "doh!")

Surprisingly good.
posted by Dunwitty at 12:13 AM on November 12, 2006

63.9, and mostly I was guessing.
posted by orthogonality at 4:46 AM on November 12, 2006

94.4%. Color me shocked, I've been thinking for years that I'm tonedeaf.
posted by zardoz at 4:53 AM on November 12, 2006

91.7%
posted by lazaruslong at 9:41 AM on November 12, 2006

69.4%, which is a little better than I thought I was doing at the time. The sets that sounded more like "real" instruments were noticably easier for me. My biggest problem was that I absolutely cannot hold one sound in my head while I'm hearing another, so while the second phrase was playing I had nothing to compare it to.
posted by hippugeek at 10:11 AM on November 12, 2006

molybdenum: That's nothing. I got 106%, and I was in the middle of a hostage negotiation.

Would've gotten 109%, but I was also doing two supermodels at once, and their cries of passion drowned out the high notes.

Amateurs.

What the deuce... ? You're never this funny in person... what, do you save your best material for Metafilter?!

Opposite George: I bet if some of the more musicianly folks took it over we'd see more perfect scores.

Well, if you look closely you'll see that a few professional musicians have chimed in, perhaps most notably our resident songsmith cortex who only scored an 80.6. So... Occam's razor tells us the test is useless. :)
posted by hincandenza at 5:21 PM on November 12, 2006

83 and I have nothing to do with music.
posted by trii at 5:52 PM on November 12, 2006

And now I'm sure the test is bollocks, because I just took it and got an 80.6%- and fancy myself fairly talented musically. It seems more a musical memory test than a tone deafness test. Both here and on that page's comments, there are a surprising number of "I don't play any instruments and I got a 9x%!" along side "Huh, I'm a professional musician who's been playing for 40 years, and I got a 6x%".

I seemed to be hitting the different button far more often, and the differences were usually in the final notes or obvious harmony; also, the most "musical" ones were the easiest because they could be readily "chunked" as musical phrases and then you can know what you expect to hear on the second playback. As someone in the comments noted, there were some sequences that sounded different more in their playing, not in their notes: I wasn't sure if they were the exact patch, in which case I'd call it different, or just the same notes being played back. I also wasn't sure if timing was considered a difference- some differences were just in the timing of the notes. I always considered those different under the assumption that if it wasn't perfectly identical (as far as I could tell) then it was different, because identical would be easy to do for the test maker.

For a lot of them, the differences were obvious in a musical sense. I think the better tests would be the ones where the main melody is the same, but the harmonic differences are subtle, or like the ones where there was a repeated tone in one walking phrase, and a semi-tone difference in another, which is also subtle but clear if you hear it. Some were far more chaotic and random and thus harder to hear the pattern on first listen to detect a difference; the music wasn't falling into quickly recognized meter or key for it to "make sense" (that might be why some musicians are reporting low-ish scores; they're expecting something more ordered for which their minds are geared).
posted by hincandenza at 5:57 PM on November 12, 2006

maybe that was the point - maybe they were all differently played but the key was which ones were the same actual notes, since it was meant to test pitch awareness not musical memory. I may try it again later with that in mind...
posted by mdn at 6:26 PM on November 12, 2006

83 and I always thought I was tone-deaf having sucked at piano.
posted by reformedjerk at 9:59 PM on November 12, 2006

Solution:

The following are different:
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 19, 22, 25, 27, 28, 31, 34, 35, 36
The rest are the same.

FYI - there is exactly the same amount of sames and differents.
posted by shoesandships at 10:38 PM on November 12, 2006

77.8% - Excellent, apparently. Did anyone else notice the volume seemed to be getting louder as the test progressed?
posted by mosspink at 12:13 AM on November 13, 2006

80.6% here... Surely there's a better way to judge tone-awareness though.

C'mon, Jake! You've written some the most creative and jarring Pluggo patches and this silly little flash app is all you can do when it comes to hearing?
posted by phylum sinter at 2:59 AM on November 13, 2006

94.4% which is reassuring. i drummer see.

It would be more difficult and more of a tone deafness test if the 'wrong' pair weren't so obviously out of tune. A pair of ditties, both of which sound tuneful, but which are not matched would be alot more difficult for me to detect, I imagine.
posted by asok at 8:18 AM on November 13, 2006