The Song Fight Bulletin Board

It's a bit surprising to me that I know a bunch of folks who are musically inclined but are also tonedeaf to some extent (including several people in the choir I sing in, oddly enough). I ended up finding this online tonedeafness test that takes just a few minutes and I'm curious where Song Fight! folks fall on the tonedeafness spectrum.

Incidentally, my score is

100% (not tone deaf), which is unsurprising as I also have some degree of perfect pitch.

Result: Not tone deaf!

Stage A: 12/12
Stage B: 12/12
Stage C: 12/12
Final score: 36/36 = 100%

This is one of those areas where I completely absolutely take for granted how I experience the world and it really feels inconceivable to me that some people don't/can't perceive the world the same way. Human perception is fascinating.

Yeah, absolutely, like it's incredible to learn that there are people who cannot visualize things in their imagination or memory, or people who don't have an internal dialog/"inner voice" for their thoughts.

Result: Not tone deaf!
Stage A: 12/12
Stage B: 12/12
Stage C: 12/12
Final score: 36/36 = 100%


Whew!

I got 100% but if they asked me which notes they were I'm sure I'd be terrible

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Fri May 03, 2024 11:38 pm

Result: Not tone deaf!

Stage A: 12/12
Stage B: 12/12
Stage C: 12/12
Final score: 36/36 = 100%

This is one of those areas where I completely absolutely take for granted how I experience the world and it really feels inconceivable to me that some people don't/can't perceive the world the same way. Human perception is fascinating.

I feel like I got 100% because I have been tuning guitars for over 40 years so I am used telling if notes match or are going up or down. I am not sure that teenage me would have got 100%.

When I taught myself to play guitar - I remember finding the whole tuning thing very difficult. Because I knew a little bit about physics- I would actually tune using the speed of the “beats” as the wavelengths got closer rather than listen to the actual note. I could tune the strings of a guitar to each other. But I was totally lost when it came to comparing a note on a pitch pipe or piano to a guitar string.

When I was in a bass player in a band as a teenager - my mate Dave the guitarist had to check that our guitars were in sync. That skill was beyond me at the time.

Thank goodness for electronic tuners.

I have a hard time believing most people wouldn't do well on this test, ie, I doubt it's a true test of tone deafness. I would love to see the stats on all the results. Most of the examples in the note comparison followed a pattern and was pretty obvious before hitting the second note, with only one exception I can think of.

But I could be wrong as I've never read anything about tone deafness in the past.

Oh, right, the results:

Stage A: 12/12
Stage B: 12/12
Stage C: 12/12
Final score: 36/36 = 100%

Yeah and there’s other things that need to be tested, like whether two notes are the same but in different octaves, or whether an interval is major or minor or whatever.

I certainly don’t have perfect pitch

Finished!
You identified 24 of 62 correctly, or 38.71%
Note Times Heard Times Wrong Accuracy
C 16 12 25.00%
D 25 11 56.00%
E 21 15 28.57%


https://tonedear.com/ear-training/absol ... pitch-test

Finished!

You identified 40 of 40 correctly, or 100.00%
Note Times Heard Times Wrong Accuracy
A 5 0 100.00%
C 14 0 100.00%
D 9 0 100.00%
E 12 0 100.00%

I’m finding this quite fascinating. I thought that once I heard one note - I would be able to identify other notes by comparison. But no. 38%!!! I had no clue whatsoever!!


Not sure if this is an innate skill - or something that can be learned. I simply never think of “notes” as such. I just play what seems to fit together without understanding why.

Perfect Pitch: I did super awesome great until they add the A and the A#. Everything else felt like it was in the key so I had at least a decent feel for the notes. Once the A was added I had some trouble. I mean to stop at 100 but got carried away with a run of correct answers.

You identified 79 of 102 correctly, or 77.45%

Note Times Heard Times Wrong Accuracy
A 8 3 62.50%
A♯/B♭ 16 5 68.75%
C 30 3 90.00%
D 23 5 78.26%
E 25 7 72.00%