Comments on: Can’t dance? Test to see if you’re rhythmdeaf!

by: Monica

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:44:34 +0000

My scores on all three tests were around average to slightly below. I’d actually expected lower scores than that. I do agree with some of the other comments that the tonal variations in the rhythms may be muddying the results some. If I heard two different “tunes” that I thought had the same rhythm, I wouldn’t know whether to count that as being the same or different.

I think it would be very interesting if you could come up with a test for the ability to *produce* tones and rhythms. My skills in that area are terrible, which is what made me think I’d do a lot worse on the tests than I did. I am utterly incapable of singing on key and always have been.

And an illustration of my inability to reproduce rhythms: Several years ago, I saw the show Stomp. There’s a part of the show where one of the performers claps out rhythms, which the audience then claps back. The rhythms get progressively more complicated until no one can keep up and we all have a big ol’ laugh.

Most of the audience was able to keep up through most of the sequences and only started falling apart towards the end. Even then, it got some of the more difficult ones on a second try. My friend sitting next to me (not a musician by the way) was easily doing even the most difficult ones on the first try.

I, in contrast, could barely keep up with the very simplest sequences. I kind of perceived it as my brain hearing the rhythms, but my hands losing track of what they were supposed to do. It’s similar with singing on key - I know I’m off key, but I can’t get my throat to do whatever it has to do to hit the right note.

I have a learning disability called Nonverbal Learning Disorder, which gives me problems with math, spatial stuff, and some abstract concepts. I’d be really curious to know whether there’s any connection. If you ever decide to pursue anything in that direction, I’d be happy to volunteer my brain for a PET scan or fMRI.

by: Kevin Quigley

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:10:30 +0000

I had refrained from further criticism in my previous comment but now that I’ve seen so many others I realise it could be taken as constructive. I think the rhythm test tests short term memory too much. I also echo the other comments regarding the tonal changes in the rhythm test. I found myself second guessing. Tonal changes confuse what is being asked and do not test rhythm.

by: Kevin Quigley

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 05:32:24 +0000

I feel very vindicated in saying this as I just got 100%. I’m inclined to agree with the comment above regarding genre. Inspite of getting 100% I tended to struggle a lot with a few because they were unsuited to me. Also, I think the musical deafness test, in which I got 86% vs my 1.05hz result on the pitch one, on some of the longer phrses forces you to rely too much on short term memory rather than tonal recognition.

by: Stephen Hartke

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 19:36:37 +0000

The rhythm test strikes me as being much more a test of textural and timbral perception than rhythmic. It also is very heavily biased in favor of pop style machine drum patterning. Further, it differs from the tonedeaf test markedly in that each musical phrase is in fact made up of two phrases, the second of which is quite often already a variation of the first. (In this it is an interesting demonstration of how hearing something twice does not mean reexperiencing afresh the same music twice, but rather hearing it a second time through the filter of the first hearing.) So I would have to say that this particular test is highly flawed and perhaps ultimately unrevealing or downright confusing in its results — and nearly all the examples are in 4/4! — and tests acculturation much more than rhythmic or metric perception. After all, rhythmic perception could also be tested on the level of ability of perceiving subtleties in rhythmic ratios, just as your pitch acuity test zeroes in on smaller and smaller Hz increments. For example, listening for the difference (in the same metronome mark) of a series of triplet quarters paried with triplet eighths versus dotted eighths with sixteenths versus a quintuplet quarter followed by a quintuplet sixteenth (admittedly a fairly rudimentary test but easily made more complex, for example, even if the rhythms were simply reversed to ’snap’ rhythms).

I also would like to comment that in the tonedeaf test I think that some of the synthesized examples are so buzzing with overtones in certain registers that it is hard to hear the gestures clearly. I would be curious to see what the results from a similar test would be if all the musical examples were played acoustically.

by: ned

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:06:56 +0000

One more thing. Many people have been saying that this test just confirms what they thought about being tone deaf or whatever. I think there should be information on this website that tone deafness is most often not some predisposition necessarily but simply a lack of a particular skill set. Some people need extra tutoring in certain subjects (like math) but this doesn’t mean they can never get it. Some people never get that extra help and so think they can’t do it and everything around them just seems to reinforce the idea. I think there are a range of natural predispositions to certain skills but that the vast majority of people can acquire skills such as tone recognition, rhythm, mathematical understanding, etc. I’ve had experience with this tutoring elementary students in math and teaching dance to adults who thought they couldn’t dance. So take heart, it is possible to learn new things you never thought you could learn!

by: ned

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 20:54:09 +0000

I love your site! I think these tests are great ideas. I have almost no musical training but sung in church choirs for many years as a kid. I always thought I had a decent ear for music but it turns out I am average. The interesting part to is that I have no training in rhythm in the musical sense but taught dance for a number of years. Apparently this was enough to score 88% on the rhythm test which seemed quite a bit higher than the 75% on the music test. (especially considering the percentiles) So it appears that dancing and being sensitive to rhythm really are connected even without formal music training.

by: Ethel

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:22:03 +0000

So under the questions of menstrual cycle y’all left out postnatal nursing. Having an irregular cycle due to nursing is different from PCOS or pre-menopausal reasons for the variability, which makes it less of a useful indicator in trying to link variations in ryhthym with cycle in women.

by: fErNaN

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:13:27 +0000

weird!!, i’ve always tought i was bad on rhythm, a rhytm deaf!!!, but it turns out i got an 84, not bad at all, but i mean, i can’t dance!!, well i suposse there’s the intimidation factor, given the fact that everyone in my family dances like a pop star or something (i’m hispanic, so it wouldn’t exactly be pop but salsa, merengue…that kind music)… it also surprised me to know that i got a 3.5 in the pitch perception test, i expected a higher score, and got what i expected in the tonedeaf test: an 86%. Perhaps my lack of skills at dancing has something to do with coordinating the rhythm i sense and moving my body, or perhaps my sense of rhythm it’s too sophisticated and my family and friends and the world just don’t get it…lol… anyways it’s been a great oportunity to know a little more about my musical skills

by: Ron

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 23:01:13 +0000

75% on tone, 5.2 Hz on pitch, and 72% on Rhythm.
Caucasian, Male, 18 years old. No legit musical background, although I taught myself to play the guitar.

There’s so much that the average human doesn’t know about, just because he/she doesn’t have the ability to know about some things.

Great job on the tests; they’re not only fun for us, but also helpful in a way that helps us find out a bit more about ourselves.

by: Ritu Kalra

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 01:11:18 +0000

I love music but sadly have absolutely no sense of rhythm, pitch or tone, as the people who are near me whenever I try to dance or sing so kindly remind me. I was surprised, however, to score an 86.1% on the tone deaf test. On the pitch test I began with 43hz (the bottom of the bottom percentiles) but took the test several times to see if my ear could learn. It seems like it can, as the series of scores attest to: 43hz, 29.4hz, 7.2hz, 6.9hz and then 1.2hz. After that I seemed to hit a plateau.