November 11th, 2006
Test your musical skills in 6 minutes!
Posted by
jake in
Music and the Brain
While working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel in Boston, I developed a quick online way to screen for the tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability. The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct. Give it a try!
You will get instant results after taking the test. I recommend having a good sound system or headphones. Flashplayer 8 or 9 is required.
WOW - very interesting indeed. I scored 77.8%… and am sure I missed a few right at the beginning when I wasn’t sure what to expect!
Thank you for putting this together; I’m forwarding the link.
78% is great, nice job! Feel free to pass the link along…
that was pretty tough! i’ve done something similar before so i knew what to expect… i scored 83.3% *grins obnoxiously* i’m pretty sure it was down to luck most of the time though…
that was very interesting, thank you! i’ve sent the link on too
Hmm… I got a 94.4% Only two wrong! I’m going to have to have my wife and a few friends try this out. Cool little tool!
91.7% I wish i knew how to play an instrument so i can dazzle people with my deaf toneness. Fun test - i’m going to pass it along to my dj friends!
I got 91.7% (3 wrong) the first time and 97.1% (1 wrong) the second time. I wish I could find out which ones I got wrong. I suspect they were passages with a very subtle difference, but who knows, maybe I missed a similarity.
Honestly, I’m a little bummed I didn’t get 100% the first time. I’ve been playing and singing pretty much my entire life (43 years). And I’ve played guitar mostly by ear since I was 15.
I tried to go back to see my score again but it started the test over. I think I got 68.7%. If you’re tired like I am you’ll want to hear them again but you can’t. I play the piano, used to play the trumpet, and have started playing a little guitar. I do notice, though, when I play something by ear I do have to listen to the source repeatedly. For me, I don’t think it’s as much discerning the sounds as it is remembering what it was (and in the right order) that I just listened to. I believe some people that have poor memory but decent tone recognition would probably not do well on this test.
Cool test. I got a 94.4%. I am 43 now and haven’t played since I was in my 20’s. Guess I still got it.
I wondered why I always seemed to be able to learn to play songs on the guitar and bass by ear. The test kind of reminds me of that old game “Simon” where you have to listen to a sequence of notes and then duplicate them.
Thanks again for a fun tool to let me show off to my friends!
77.8% the first time, 91.7% the second time with headphones
Thank you , Jake - that was a lot of fun - I’m putting it on my blog.
77.8% first time, tricky hehe
Thanks for the test! You made my week - 97.2%
I suppose I might be cut out for this music thing after all.
Neat test I got 69.5%..I’m an artist, not a musician. By the way I really liked those cool shiny buttons…did you make those yourself, or did you get them from somewhere? If it’s ok, I’d like to have them for future web use….
hey jake ! ya got dugg. i got %91.7 the test was so long !
Hi, the tonedeaf flash detection fails for Firefox 1.5 with Flash Player 9 installed. Can you tweak it when you get a chance? Thanks! - Ian
Thanks - this was really interesting. I would have loved to have seen which ones I got wrong at the end however - maybe with a second chance to hear the samples and even an explanation of the sort of ways in which they were different. Some of the pairs seemed very easy to me and some extremely hard.
I want to second Mike, who said he thought you tested memory as much as pitch perception. In a few of the longer segments I distinctly struggled to remember whether or not any of the notes (particularly in the harmony) varied the second time around. Thanks for the clever, fun test.
Hi — very nice. Thanks for putting this up.
Since I got 91.7% too, I’m really not sure that getting over 90% is as uncommon as you thought it would be. Even accounting for the self selection of the commentors, you’ve got a lot of 90%+ folks in the comments.
I don’t play any musical instrument, and my wife rolls her eyes at church at how flat I sing the hymns. I have a terrible time finding the key. If your test is valid, that suggests that I’m very good at discriminating relative pitch in music when listening only, but not nearly so good at hearing relative pitch in music I make. Interesting.
Thanks for taking the test - we currently got DUGG so there may be some server difficulties for a while…
To answer a few questions:
Mike and Mike are correct - it is as much a test of musical memory as it is pitch perception. However, in our research on tonedeafness, we found that people who are “tonedeaf” have NORMAL musical memory.
This is a rough screening test that we used to find subjects for our neuroimaging studies on tonedeafness. In order to classify someone as tonedeaf for research purposes, we would need to give a standardized 2 hour test and also measure pitch perception thresholds in hz.
Even though a lot of people posting here are posting amazing scores, it really is a hard test. In a group of 40 standardized subjects, the highest score was 88%, and that included a couple professional musicians. After we got dugg, the test has been done over 1,000 times, so you can imagine quite a bit of selection bias….
Have fun!
Jake
Hi Jake,
It’s one of the few flash sites that I’ve truly liked. I scored a modest 72% but I wanted to suggest that you could perhaps publish a distribution graph of the scores of people who’ve visited the site and taken the test, filtered by IP address for uniqueness.
Hey Musignoramus, that would be a fantastic idea…. However I am embarrased to say that it sounds a bit over my head - I am not much of a flash programmer (as you can tell by the simplicity of the test)… A distribution would be amazing, though…. Any ideas how to do it?
Thanks a lot, Jake
i got a 97.2!
i have to say i’m quite chuffed with myself right now.
thank you for boosting my ego!
k
I’m not sure this is the best-designed test for its goals. Yes, it is difficult. A lot of the difficulty come from things like unusual harmonics (due mainly to the selection of synthesized sounds) and a wide variety of instruments; given that most people listen to a few genres of music, it’s not that surprising to see, say, a classical musician have trouble with the organ and bass sounds.
Secondly, perhaps I use the wrong definition of being “tonedeaf”, but I always took it to mean people who couldn’t do things like match their voice to a pitch, sing a simple melody (especially one they knew well, like a Christmas carol) with accompaniment and/or other singers also sining melody, or recognize relative pitch (i.e. given two notes in sequence, is the second one higher or lower).
If being tonedeaf is instead the lack of ability to differentiate between two often-complex sequences of notes played in succession, I can design a test that will make nearly everyone fail: have the entire test consist of significantly long “non-traditional” sequences of notes (i.e. those found outside standard North American genres, including rock, pop, more common styles of jazz, and classical up to/including part of the Romantic period). Given long enough sequences, all but those with the best auditory memories would fail, and thus be declared “tonedeaf”.
While enjoyable, this test really doesn’t test much more than auditory memory, which is, to me, very different from being tonedeaf. It also provides an unfair advantage to those with musical training. On a large number of the test cases, I was able to compare the two sequences on a harmonic basis, either by picking out odd intervals from the sequence, recognizing the harmonic structure or chord progression, or identifying other musical constructs (for example, one test case was a major scale). Clearly, having studied music adds a high bias to my score, and likely to the scores of many people who have taken the test, for this reason. On the other hand, many people who don’t have any formal musical training are both good vocalists and are not tonedeaf (think of African Americans in the southern US before the civil war for a strong example).
In short, your test is a lot of fun to do, musical background or not, but can’t speak strongly to anything besides the auditory memory of the average person.
77,8!! hard to remember some of the long electric melodies!!! I don’t think I have a pitch problem, I think that would be something like hearing a sound and then have to find out the same sound like C and C and stuff!
I got 83.3 % right. Fun stuff!
got 89.something percent. Played guitar on and off for 2 years and piano for like 3 years when I was in elementary school. It seemed like a really easy test, I was watching tv while I was doing it.
thanks! your test is great! 97,2 and i know i made one mistake! oh, i like it!
Jake, excellent test!
One thing you could possibly improve, though, is adding a “rules” page in the beginning. I, for one, wasn’t sure how to classify a couple sequences that appeared to have the same “tone”, yet a slightly different “timbre”. If I knew you used the same exact patch in both samples, I would’ve classified them as similar, but I ended up putting them in different baskets just because I wasn’t sure what your testing method was.
Maybe you could also add a few extra sequences that could be used in combination with an “I’m not sure” button, since there is no “repeat”.
My score was 88.9% - I’ve had some music training in the childhood, I’m listening to a lot of different genres, but haven’t played or composed anything “seriously” in a long while.
Thanks a lot!
I got an 80. A couple suggestions:
You might clarify what you define as difference between two musical phrases. Presumably melody and harmony, but what about rhythm, note duration, or dynamics? I presume that when the answer is “same” you are using the exact same file?
Additionally, it might be nice to allow people to see which ones they got wrong, or step through a version which shows you the correct answer after playing each, replaying as necessary. I am just curious what I missed.
Anyways, it was fun and cool, even if (as a “professional musician”) I expected better of myself.
Hi,
I hate to sound dense, but where do I click to take the test? I looked over this page and I can’t find a link to take the test. Thanks
Jake, can you comment on the results for taking the test a second time?
Since it is 36 different phrases, I wonder how much musical memory can do for you… I was a lot better the 2nd time.
Marco
I also found this similar, but much easier test at http://www.delosis.com/listening/home.html
It relies on more traditional phrases and only had a melody, no harmonies. Jake’s music was much more fun to listen to - but on the other hand I got 100% at the other test *g
Thanks everyone for taking this test - this site got over 27,000 unique visitors from all over the globe in the past two days!
Krace - A rules page would be a good idea - maybe even an example comparison that doesn’t count so people know what to expect…
Neezels: The test was designed so that there are a certain number of pitch differences within the same key, a couple with differences jumping into a different key, and a couple rhythm differences. Since there has been so much (surprise) interest in this test I will probably post the “official” answer key…
Hector: sorry, we’ve been having server problems, just try again…
Marco: Almost everyone does better taking the test a second time. After you hear both sounds to compare the second time through, you’ve essentially heard similar phrases 4 times already…
By the way, no one’s reported a score of 100 yet!
Feel free to ask any more questions you may have. If you are interested I can post some more details of the tonedeaf neuroimaging research we did…
Take care,
Jake
I got a 61 which says I’m ok but I’ve always thought I was tonedeaf.
I got 83.3%. There were a few that I suspected were wrong in my hearing but not in pitch. I’d consider myself a musical enthusiast with previous DJing experience but no formal musical training.
Oh great, I have always thought I was more or less completely tone deaf, but now I know I’m more or less not, I got 75%. Crap, that means my off-key singing is just a lack of talent, and not a lack of ability like I thought.
Very cool test though, I’m going to get some other folks to try it too.
[…] Try this tone-deafness test. I scored 63.9%, which I guess isn’t bad for someone with my crappy ears. No Comments so far Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> […]
I’d really love to see which ones I got wrong, along with a breakdown of the phrases and how they differ. Am I good at noticing rhythmic changes (thanks to lots of Guitar Hero), but bad at noticing changes within a key? Are you capturing that data, or just the overall score?
66.7 — yea some of those long ones are hard to remember, but yea cool test.
[…] Many people, especially musicians claim how well developed their hearing is. Now they can test online. Today Lifehacker reported on a pretty good test on pitch perception and memory. It is really interesting but takes a rather long time since there are 36 phrases playing back to back. Though check it out. After completing the test I remembered that I had bookmarked a test on the audibility of distortion once. It is a very tough test, though worth your time. […]
[…] A friend of mine posted a blog entry about a tone-deafness test. Not being a musician, I tried it with the standard speakers on my PC, which are the usual junk. I scored 80.6%, which pleasantly surprised me. For me I think it was more pattern recognition than tone detection. I’m also guessing that since there were only 36 questions, for most people the statistical error for a single test is over +/- 5%. So I’d guess I’m really between 76-86%. […]
72.2% Correct. I liked the test, and it got me to install the updated flash player in Opera. I did better than I expected
Wow, 91.7% with my lame little laptop speakers! I sing and I used to play violin, but I’m strictly an amateur, so I feel pretty cool now.
I got only a 77.8, and I’m a professional musician (soloist, even!) with a Doctorate in music and theory teacher who prides himself on his ears! I think that some of the things I wasn’t sure were different or not and chose “different” were actually the same. I would have definitely done better if I could have listened to some of the examples two times apiece instead of just once, because in several cases, it was a question of whether the last note was different or not. I also found it hard at first to hear the pitches distinctly in the bell-like organ sound. I was surprised that no examples tested for differences in timbre, rather than notes or rhythms. Why aren’t you testing for that?
(P.S. I used little Yamaha speakers, no headphones, for whatever it’s worth.)
83.3% correct first try, using laptop speakers. I know I have decent musical abilities but nothing professional or even amateur. Love it… will try it again later with headphones.
In one sequence, I thought I heard the same pitch, but with a different characteristic of the notes (timber?). Wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to identify differences in other note characteristics like that… or just pitch.
91.7
for sure
Are You Tone Deaf?
Painful little test that will determine how good of a musicial ear you have.
86.1 … I think it’s my memory that’s off. And did’t I see this at McGill already? Yours is a little nicer to listen to.
anyway, cheers
I only got a 72.2%. I am a bit bummed, but will give myself a break since I had cartoons on and two small children talking to me.
This is really cool. Can we put the link into our myspace site???
I agree with one of the comments above. This is not a test about tone deafness, this is about memory. Musical memory at best.
(97,2%)
One of them is the beginning of a Robert Wyatt song…but I only scored a 75%
77.8 I’d have to agree with some earlier comments. Even the ability just to replay the first phrase once would make it more a test of pitch than of memory. Fun, though, and an interesting challenge.
80.7%
honestly didn’t know if I was supposed to vote on whether the tracks were identical or in the same octal range….Not sure what I decided on!! lol Maybe I really got 19.3% but did everything the opposite!! lol
Been playing g’tar for 15years or so….whole family learned by ear, so I’m hoping my 80.7% stands!
Anyhow, I’ll have to give it a try again later.
I got 75.0%. You can’t select that as a response - it has to be either above 75% or under it.
Anyway, I have no musical training and sing very badly, so I thought that score was interesting. I do have a good memory, so that might be the reason for it.
88.9%! Pretty good, considering I have almost no formal training.
[…] Interesting test for the tonedeafness. 86% myself, which isn’t terrible considering I had music on in the background … 12th Nov | […]
97.2%
And I thought I was deaf after mixing all that Black Metal..
94.4%
Very interesting test.
That was a fun test. I got 91.7% as did several of the responders. I have been an amatuer musician for most of my life (age 46). I first studied North Indian classical music with the sarod when I was 18. Perhaps this was very good training for my ears and musical memory. I play fingerstyle guitar and renaissance lute nowdays.
Guess I’m tonedeaf.
83.3% Correct
i’m a musician, and i got a 97.2
it wasn’t that hard
i even know one i messed up on
because i sounded off but i wasn’t sure because i wasn’t paying enough attention
any musician should get at least 90
well, any GOOD musician. with TRUE talent
Real cool test. Kinda fun and the first of its kind that I had done. Gotten a 77.8% even thou I have “no professional training whatsoever”.
Thanks for the fun!
83.3%. This is NOT a test of anything other than the ability to memorize sounds on the first hearing. I fail to see what that has to do with tone deafness.
Scored 83.3 while eating chocolate bars…. significant? lol
hmmm…I was half asleep and still managed a score of 83.3%.
Pretty interesting.
Sweet 86.1% nice I’m going to pass this along to every one of my friends that plays music.
83.3%. but as someone else said, i did’nt know what to expect.
anyway, i hope some other test will be available shortly cuz this was fun!
thnx!
First time in my life I was not told, I am musicak deff, I did 61.1 and I did not try,,,
Hi,
I think the test designer is tone-deaf for choosing terrible samples, conflating Western musical aesthetics with ill-defined universal musical principles, and subscribing to a naive concept of musical difference. You’re fired from music.
91.7% Correct…
fun stuff~
91.7% mothafuckers! I am going on tour now!
Smokin’ test! Kind of like playing the game Simon.
97.2% not bad.
Thanks!
[…] http://jakemandell.com/2006/test-your-musical-skills-in-6-minutes/ […]
91.7% with a 6-year-old asking me questions. It’s a great little challenge although I agree musical memory is a large part of what’s really being tested. Lots of fun and worth handing around. Thanks for the opportunity.
[…] About what I expected. What am I talking about? Find out here. I’d love to see your scores in comments, unless they’re higher than mine. […]
Very neat test! 94.4%, about what I expected for a pianist/percussionist/DJ
Sent it all around, thanks!
I recently found a very interesting website:
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There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.
[…] Here’s an online test (requires Flash) that provides you with 36 pairs of melodic/harmonic gestures and you have to answer if the pairs are identical or not. Boy oh boy I got smug before thaking the test—I am usually aces at this kind of thing—but I only scored 69.5%. There are some really tough ones. […]
%86 Woo hoo !!
But I guess hearing them once is all part of the test.
Cool test, I think I’d be able to get them alright if I could here them a couple of times
83.3%!
Good enough for me!!!
Sweet sounds and licks, very fun and interesting!
Cool test. I was surprised to score exactly the same (72.2%) both times that i took it..
Whahey! 94.4%
But I was interested to read the comment by the professional soloist who didn’t do as well as they thought they would. I think how well you do on this test has a lot to do with how you learn, and continue to learn, to play music.
I’ve played the viola since I was about 8 or 9, and guitar since I was 16. Playing in orchestras when I was a teenager I often noticed that many fellow musicians, despite being very very good musicians and certainly not tone deaf, were terrible at sightreading (which is admittedly a different skill) and at hearing something and playing it back.
I don’t have lessons anymore - I only learn new pieces of music by hearing them and figuring out - conceptualising - how a song was put together and then reproducing it on the guitar.
77.8….I can’t play or read music….But I sure can listen.
83.3%. I’m happy with that. I’ll post a link here on my blog if that’s okay with you. I think my readers will appreciate this
[…] Lustiger Musik-Test Bei mir waren am Ende 77,8% richtig; das scheint ganz zum Glueck noch ganz OK zu sein. […]
88.9% nearly got it… but happy with that.
Andy
I got 72.2%. I’m pretty pleased with that since I thought I was tone deaf. I think the results in the comments are a bit biased, because people who get good scores are more likely to post them.
100.0% \o/
75%
I suck
94.4% Correct. i feel happy to see that my ears still work. Thanks !
Got a 64.8 and enjoyed the test, not as tone deaf as I thought. I’m 75 and beginning to play the vibes. I might try yhe complete 2 hour test.
no music background whatsoever and still 80.6. Not too bad for my one taste. Nice test, gonna try is with some other people. See what they will do with their music background.
Wow, this helps to explain why my partners singing is so annoying to me - he only scored a 52% and while I scored a 78%! Obviously I can hear what he can’t
Nice test. I’m doing over 90 in a noisy env. good to have my absolute hearing confirmed
haha means all the dj-ing hasn’t affected that haha.
thanks for this test
44.4%
I took a much longer test in middle school similar to this, and I completely failed it too…so it’s no surprise. I was just hoping I could improve over time.
At that time, they were testing to see who could be in band or not…and I really had wanted to play the violin, and I was told flat out that I would never be able to play any musical instrument.
Wow, some of those timbres made pitch detection really tricky!
75.0% for me, and I think I might well have done a little better if I didn’t have a raging ear, nose and throat bug at the moment. Fun test!
I scored a 97.2! I’ve allways loved music. I even dream full songs that are original or variations on music I’ve been listening to, but ive never lerned to really play anything. I guess I need to get on it! Thank you.
Jake,
80.3%. Two questions: 1) have you considered preceding the test with two sample items, so that test takers will be more oriented to the test format prior to the first item? 2) What does your distribution of scores look like, both in your research lab and here?
Interesting test. Thanks!
77.8%
However, I too found ADD kicking my ass during this test. That, and the fact that I have zero musical training (and not much more musical ability).
Fun test all the same. I liked the tones and am off to check out your music.
I thought this test was particularly interesting because I was born deaf and have had a cochlear implant since the age of 5 (I’m 25 now). Although I can speak with a nearly imperceptible accent, I am pretty musically deficient- for instance, I can never figure out the difference between pitch and tone. I scored 55.9%, which is just slightly above chance as near as I can figure it.
83.3% not too bad being that the first few iIwasnt sure if I was to match a score, tone or a pitch and the TV was on too.
I play piano and sing. When I was a child taking piano lessons my teacher had thrown the book aside saying my improvs were brilliant and I had a great ear for music. Hearing a note out of tune gets me like fingernails on a chalkboard to this day. Great test !! I will definatley pass this one on.
Odd…the test worked long enough for me to take it and hear and answer all 36 samples, but then I waited for several minutes and never saw a result! Maybe it was secretly a colorblindness test?
i got a 55.6%. there is no category that says what i am. infact, noone of the things have a result for the scores 59- 50.
i always knew i was tonedef… haha
all i have to say is that im a drummer, percussionist really, for i do play the bells and timpani (dont tune ‘em though), and for good reason.
33.3%? not bad for a bipolar/asperger/autist irl.
91.7% both times I tried it. I wish I could find out which ones I am getting wrong. I’m not an overly musical person. But I guess listening to Winamp all the time does pay off after awhile.
Much like JFSIII, I found A.D.D kicking my ass during this test as well. =’(
An additional point to study would be the proportion of high scorers who choose to crow about it in the comments section, compared to the apparently paltry proportion of low scorers owning up to their “tone deafness” (according to this particular test). Perhaps even examining the various subtle (and less than) techniques for lording their aural fineness over the rest of we mere mortals.
I got a 61.1%, which will do me just fine though who among we test-takers wouldn’t want to score higher? Any other Queendom junkies here?
So I suppose I too wouldn’t mind seeing a chart of how actual respondents completing all 36 “questions” come out, rather than just seeing the self-reported scores of people in the comments section.
Good times. Spank my a$$ and call me half-sung Ginger.
Spag
(Joining the bandwagon with Leanna although I dont know her)
For a guy with profound deaf hearing loss (96db loss in right, 100% deaf in the left hear), I had 63.4%. It was easier for me to detect the 1KHz area than the low and high end of the audio frequency.
94.4… It was easier if I “let go” and didn’t try to work too hard. If I surrendered to my ears the difference was obvious, but there were times when I could feel my consciousness trying to intervene, … wondering if I had heard it correctly, trying to hum it back or review it before the second repetition, getting panicky. But if I just relaxed and let my ears do it, it worked.
There were a number of times when it seemed like the difference was right at the beginning and I thought I might have missed it. Were there many of them?
Fascinating test!
All my life people have told me I’m tone deaf. The first time I took the test I got 52, then I took it again (five minutes later) and got 68. By tomorrow I will be composing I guess.
78%. Fun test with some rather tricky passages. During high school and college, I sang in the chorus. Due to the high number of samples that were in the lower range, the test probably favors bass guitar players, tuba players and bass singers.
I scored 100. I figure I should try again to make sure it isn’t a fluke. Being an oboist probably helps.
55%! Pah, who cares, I make music and I make people happy making it, doing everything from electro (see http://www.myspace.com/cassettecassette) to Brazilian maracatu drumming.
And I hated the musical phrases; nothing like what you get in real music. Reminded me of those awful academic exercises in music, which suck all the life and soul from what music is.
So there!
Strangely, the Flash starts to loop endlessly at sample 35. Anything I can do?
Wow! This is cool! I got 86.1% Correct (around 5-6 mistakes, I think) I like it. =)
I did it once without paying too much attention and I got about 77 and then I did it again while closing my eyes and concentrating and I got 88.9, does it count like 90?
I couldn’t get past trial 35 either, using MSIE 7.0. (Flash version 8.x, I think.)
I prefer Firefox, but I also use ad blocking, and my Firefox ad blocker filtered out the test entirely. On those occasions I usually just switch to IE rather than reconfigure my ad filters.
Would be interesting to see a comparison of stated test scores with actual.
I assume the ips are logged somewhere.
Thank you for sharing this intriguing test. I found some of the passages jumped out at me as more interesting. As the test went on, I changed strategies. During the short period between the passages, I “rehearsed” the passage in my head, and that seemed to help a lot. It reminded me of the “mirror neuron” phenomenah that everyone is raving about now.
Some friends and I were discussing an aspect of performing music the other day that I always wondered about, and it seems like it might be right up your alley. After a live performance, I will sometimes think that I did a particularly poor job, or I will have noticed a whole lot mistakes overall. Yet, people in the audience will have noticed nothing at all out of the ordinary. Sometimes people do notice mistakes, of course, but mistakes don’t seem to really bother people. But some mistakes get noticed more than others.
We were speculating about what mistakes get noticed, and which do not. I proposed this order: 1) Vocal disharmony 2) Vocal melodic errors 3) Vocal timing errors 4) Percussion timing errors (in fact, I’ve noticed that people often percieve the hottest jazz drummers as “making mistakes all over the place” … their loss!) 5) Other Instrumental timing errors 6) Instrumental Pitch errors.
Among the instruments, people are more likely to notice errors in higher pitch range. Nobody notices bass pitch errors (except bassists, of course!)
This is pure speculation. I am pretty sure tests could be designed to test my thoughts. And I bet your test could give pretty excellent preliminary results.
I wasn’t expecting a high score (I was barely above 50), but I think the memory aspects of this test brought my score down a lot. If someone has a good memory and/or is an audio learner, this is probably a fair test. For a visual learner with not so good memory, this ended up feeling more like a memory test. If you can create a version that uses the same sound sequences but allows us “in one ear out the other” people to replay the sequences, you will probably get more accurate results regarding tone deafness.
Very interesting. My professional musical mate did it and got 84.7% I just listened and said when I disagreed. Then two days later another friend did it and got 75% , again I disagreed on some of his choices but we were clicking the buttons for him - then I did it just now and got 94.4%
I had a feeling I’d be good at it and clearly am. But I suppose that having already heard the test twice I should be given some kind of handicap. What do you think, maybe 5 per cent for every listening?
Great test. Well done and thank you.
Hello,
I took the test (88,9% correct). Thanks for compiling it.
I am an amateur musician and composer.
Synthetized sounds used and loudness level variations could be
annoying during the test.
I think (as many comments have already pointed out) that they are different abilities tested (of course musical memory) but you should probably give the result in three or four classes according to the kind of difference, the length and the tonality. Differences in ending (giving a definite difference in tonality) are easier to spot and cannot be treated as the same ability to detect a tonal difference or a repeated/not repeated note inside a melody for instance.
If you want to make your test really hard, you should probably go deeper into polyphonic variations and chords reversal, for instance, and not limit yourself to tempered tonal music.
I believe that the memory component is over emphasized. While, I still managed to score ‘excellent’ I tend to have a short attention span. At the beginning of the test it was fine, but as things progressed my mind sometimes wandered, I’d find myself thinking about other things and so I really hadn’t heard both phrases in these cases, making me simply guess.
Perhaps in a “clinical” situation, my attention would be more focused, but possibly not. In a “real” music situation, I would of course be more focused, but that’s a bit difference. Regardless, I’m a composer and pro musician, and I have a good enough ear that I’ve notated out big band music from recordings, but in such a situation repeat listening is allowed. I do think that if “tone deafness” is what your focuse is, the memory component should be less important in the test…
Loops at sample 35! Same as Roach
I do not think that this is an accurate measurement of pitch perception or musical ability, but more like the ability to remember melodies. Having sung in the choir for most of my life (including many difficult chamber choirs), I got a 55, which is not accurate at all. This is more a memory test not a pitch perception test. Perhaps you should look at what you are trying to measure again and see if it actually measures it?
Excellent test. I scored 83.3%. I’ve found out what I can do with my musical abilites now. Thanks it was really interesting.
94.4%…music teacher used to say I had ‘perfect pitch’ - who knew?
But I gave up playing because I hated the lessons
PITCH TEST needs to be emphasized.
The rhythms were very slightly changed in
some that were likely supposed to be clones.
Had to go back and read the fine print.
My DSL perhaps was too slow for I had to
wait a long while before my response
would kick in and also start the next
sample. I’d be in other pages working
then keep coming back so I might have
missed one from that.
Clear up the distinction from rhythm
for this test then create another for rhythm!
SLOW (for me) but a good idea!
DenisBach.com
Cool. I keep getting 88.33%, though.
Cool idea.
I’m certain there where rhythmic variations rather than tonal variations in some of the samples…
i scored “86.1% Correct”.
cheers. i now know im not a complete musical retard.
I liked especially the sounds in sample 31. Do you have any music with that sound? I like melodic music, like melodic heavy or game music, but also some sountrack, dance, and rock music.
I like the concept of the test, but, like some other commenters I’m not convinced that it serves as an acurate yardstick for diagnosing “tonedeafness”. The variable that I believe creates the most trouble is the multitude of midi-sounds produced. A more sophisticated and standardized test might involve recording “player piano” controlled by midi such that the tonal character is the constant but the tonal sequences are the variable. The problem with that, then, is that the test is nothing more than a pitch sequence memory test. Defined by my understanding of “tonedeafness”, my ideal test for this would be playing a singular tone followed by another tone slightly under or over the pitch of the first tone (we’re talking A-440 versus A-438 here) to see if people can discern the difference. I got a 77.8% and play Bach fugues on the pipe organ for fun, whatever that means.
I’ll echo others’ comments that a way to see and replay the ones you got wrong would be helpful.
i had the same problem–it keeps giving me #35 over and over again! very frustrating after completing the rest of the test.
Great job!
83.3 !!!
I scored 88% but found too many things confounding the variable (pitch) that we are supposed to be able to perceived if we are not “tone deaf”.
The greatest confounding variable in this method is the memory of the test subject. I can see how the use of varying the rhythm and some sounds of the instruments are being used to measure if people are actually perceiving the changes in pitch rather than those other elements but the phrases on some of the examples are miles too long. This then makes it more a test of short term memory.
97.2%
I guess I’m worthy to make guitars and amplifiers !
%80.6. I do not play a musical intrument nor do I consider myself “musically” inclined. But I am an artist so maybe that helps me in some way achieve results on this test. Thanks for putting this together. I’m eager to see all the test scores. What is the average?
I got 88.9%. Does this mean that if I really try to learn guitar, instead of just fooling around as I have in the past, I can eventually quit my job and become a rock and roll star? How about just a back up musician for, say, Britney Spears or someone equally monotonous?
ha. that was fun. i only scored a 72% Hopefully it’s no reflection of my singing…haha!
I got a 77.8 and have virtually no musical ability. I can not even keep a simple beat on a drum, so I would have to agree with those that say this leans more to short term memory.
[…] Are you tonedeaf? […]
I scored 63.4, but now I realized I didn’t pay attention to the instructions! I guess there were passages that were similar enough to be called the same but I called them different? Anyway, it was a fun test. I hope to get my Mom to take it. People have told her she has perfect pitch.
This was a fun test, but I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove. Your finding that people with “tonedeafness” perform well on this task might simply be due to the fact that this is actually more of a working memory test. Were the tone differences audio sample sequences of tones below the discrimination threshold of your “tonedeaf” population? And if so, did they perform just as well as normals? If the answers are yes and yes, then this would be an interesting finding as it implies that people can detect a difference when different tones are presented in an ordered sequence vs. when they are presented alone. On the other hand, if your tone differences were above threshold then no conclusions can be drawn.
Sorry but this test holds little water. As stated, it is to test one’s “musical skill” however, most of the examples are dissonant garbage, which are anything BUT music.
I liken it to asking a group of people to test their culinary skills, then testing them by feeding them sand from various parts of the world, and sawdust from different species of trees.
The test also doesn’t take into account the guessing factor.
With a 55+ db hearing loss in the low
My sister (14yo) and I (19yo) both did this test, both using the same sennheiser headphones, and we both got the same score of 61.1%. She’s been having individual music lessons for the last 4 years. I have no musical experience really. Could there be a genetic component? Haha it seems like an obvious explanation for the SAME score.
the flash needs one thing, PRELOADER
1st i thought the flash was not workin’ then i refresh the web page again and again, and then somethin hit me, maybe the file size was big, so i waited, with a blank and white screen 
there are still people like me who is 50k’ers on connections
*cheers*
Cool test. I was caught offguard initially, wish there were more detailed instructions on the test.
Also, many of us would be multi tasking, hence it’d be a good idea if we could replay the sounds to catch what we missed.
And give us the liberty to confirm our answers! i hit a wrong answer by accident.
had 86.1 % though
I got 91.7%. I’m not being boastful as a lot of it is down to my genes and good teachers, really, but I might have scored even higher had I had some samples beforehand. I’m sure I declared a few false positives because I was confusing background noise with slight differences in pitch. As I eventually realized, where there was a difference it was (to me) actually very stark, so examples of “this is what we’re testing for” would help.
Incidentally, to what extent is memory being considered as an aspect in these tests? I had more trouble on the longer phrases, merely because it was a lot to mentally absorb and then compare with another large amount of data. It might be useful to repeat tests with the same volunteers to examine that as an extra axis.
80.6%
By reading these comments it seems like everyone is getting high scores. Im sure that people with high scores are many times more likely to post a comment in order to show them off… you should really not compare your results against these. I wonder what the mean really is…
Wow, I had a 91,7%.
I always say that I think that I have a good hearing, and now I can confirm it by this test.
I’ll pass the link to my musical friends!
88.9% Correct… Great ^,^
very nice way to enlarge your samplesize. If only european starlings would go online….
Hi,
Great Test, I scored 83.3% whilst at work!!
The only thing… I am deaf in one ear, so my hearing has always been acute in certain frequency ranges.
You might want to try using left & right speakers as an additional test.
Cheers UK
Me too!! I had 91,7%!!!!!
I liked your sounds btw…
I had my whole fam take the test, here are the results… they pretty much correlate not with age, but w/ how much formal musical training we’ve had:
Mom (almost no training) 61
Dad (no training) 69
Sis (age 30, high school training) 69.4
Bro (age 19, college training) 72
Me (age 27, grad school training) 77.8
It would be nice to have years-of-training data as part of the results so we could study the correlation.
Cool test!
um….okay. i like how the majority of people who posted scored in the 80s and 90s. this test seriously pissed me off. well, not really, just kindof. i have perfect pitch (which, i know doesn’t necessarily mean that i sing every single note perfectly, but my ear/brain is flawless - i guess as flawless as any human being’s could be - so i know when something’s even the slightest bit over or under pitch. which is why they call it a ‘curse’, rather than a gift.)
then again, i only took this once and probably should have payed closer attention. this seemed like more of a memory test to me, so if you miss the sound samples, you’re pretty much screwed. (unless there was a repeat button that i just didn’t find.)
anyway, mr mandell…how do you score (probably perfectly because you recorded these sound samples)??? even on a cold first run-through, i was a little bit shocked by my embarassing percentage of 75%.
I want to third the notion that including a graphic display of the result would be very intriguing. If Jake’s original 80% comment (on intro page) is true, many posters on this site here are apparently seeking trophies or something.
I suspect that everyone could improve their score by doing four things.
-Be in a quiet environment and use headphones
-Repeat the tune in your head immediately after you hear it and then sing along with it when it replays, listening for discrepancies in the tune.
-Concentrate. Don’t get distracted. It’s five minutes.
(repeating the test over and over would also improve the results.)
Try those tips and post if- and by how much- your scores change
Hey, this is a great tool. I tried it last night and scored 97% and tried again this morning and got 100%. I think I’m in the wrong line of work! I should have stuck with my guitar.
Thanks for puffing my ego
All the best,
Tom
Hey…!
I made almost 87%. I knew, I should have learned an instrument or something (I always wanted but never got the chance to do it)! Though I’m only twenty years old, I think, it’s too late now. Shouldn’t instruments be learned in childhood?
Yeah, 75%!
Real great program.
best wishes
I scored 94.4% listening on laptop speakers.
I have never played an instrument and have no musical ability.
Perhaps it is an inherited genetic trait as my father played the drums and guitar professionally.
Fun test tho!
Honestly, the test replied heavily on memory, but then again thats only if you looked at one side of it.
It was interesting.
94.1 I think I got.
I am seriously depressed. I got 75 the first time, and only 80.6 the second time, and I have been teaching, playing and conducting for about 30 years. Much of the test has to do with being able to focus on each example without getting distracted. Also - does ANY variation count as “different?”
There are several “questionable” examples where the space between two sounds is not the same length.
Maybe because I am taking the test with a roomful of students…?
Otherwise, I need to find a new career. 80% is just not acceptable.
I knew I should’ve gone into research.
I agree with some of the comments above that one should be able to hear the phrases again if needed. Some of them were so unmusical that I simply couldn’t remember what I had heard, which has nothing to do with pitch perception
91.7% on the first try. I think it’s a VERY good test, but I don’t believe it measures far beyond photographic memory recognition. May I suggest a few other tests such as:
- Chord/note recognition.
- Figuring out the various instruments playing.
- Figuring out the vocal parts of a chorus.
- Dissonance test (may be subjective).
Well, I got 88.9%, but I am really wondering since I never thought I have any talents for music. I never played any instrument or activily practiced music. Perhaps it’s also a test for concentration, that would make sense.
OMG im only 14 and i got a 90.1%
IM SO HAPPY
i didnt think i had that good of music talent lol. awesome!
Cool test! Took 86,1% That’s pretty good I guess. Some of the things have been realy tough to decide though. Thanks! And good luck!
i only got a 68.6 or something percent….. which i’m actually proud of since i always thought i was pretty tone deaf… i could never tune my cello in high school…. anyways, i like your music too… just curious what program(s) you use to make them.
i did surprisingly well concitering i’m on laptop speakers and i’m pretty sure i never once correctly tuned my cello in highschool….
anyways, i like your music and i’m curious what program(s) you use to create it, i’ve been toying around with fruityloops, but its difficult to make anything i really like there….
77,8% Wohooo
I couldn’t see this coming, since i don’t play any instrument and hardly ever listen to music. I honestly thought i would suck 
How many did i miss? Greetings from munich, bavaria 
63,9% - i’m not quite as good as i thought i’d be. i’ll have another try later on. btw: nice little tool!
Thanks a lot for the fun. (77,8%)… I’m not musician.
I think I have a concentration problem but good ears.
Bye.
I scored an 80.6 while being repeatedly punched in the face. I NEVER should have hocked my glockenspiel.
94.4% Correct. I’m just a hobbyist music producer, but I think there might be a genetic basis for adeptness at this sort of test. Particularly, if you’re into Indian music (or are Indian) then you’re likely to score 100% and find it easy, because Indian music deals with very much smaller increments in pitch between notes. 12 TET is very extreme: each note is twice the pitch of the preceding.
Got 86.1% my first time through. I couldn’t find my headphones, so I just used my laptop’s speakers. I will try it again later with headphones.
Really neat test! My husband got 83.3% and I got 75%. Forwarded it onto some other folks to try! My husband thinks he can sing…but he can’t..oh well, can’t get it all!! Thanks for the 6 minutes of fun! Cheers! Good luck with your testing..
Jake,
I see that you are a medical student and musician working on this research. I think it’s really awesome when people are doing research in music cognition because it’s pretty rare. I think that your project would be more successful if you collaborated with (or at least got some advice from) a cognitive psychologist.
I’m a PhD student in cognitive psychology, as well as a musician. As an undergraduate I also received a minor in music theory, and took a course on the psychology of music. So, of course, I found your test a whole lot of fun to take!
In spite of stellar listening and singing scores in my actual music theory classes, I got just a 78% on this particular test. A friend of mine sent me the quiz, and I wrote her this in response. I figured I’d share it with you because it includes my own experiences as well as a bit of cognitive psychology at the end:
——————————————
After I took the test, I figured out from the comments that half of the samples were “same” and half were “different.” Well, I definitely put in a lot more differents than sames. I doubt I ever marked two signals as being the same that were in fact different. In fact, I found most of the differences to be ridiculously obvious, and sometimes with multiple changes. But then there were ones that were probably in fact “same” that I ended up over-thinking. It was always the long ones, first of all (which means really I was having a memory problem, not a perceptual one.) If the passage followed western norms, I sometimes over thought it and wondered whether the two passages had ended in two different equally plausible ways that both sounded “right” to my western ears. If the passage was not western, upon my second hearing I’d think, “gosh, that sounds totally off” and I’d want to say different, even though I had listened to the same thing for the first passage. From reading the comments, I realized a few other trained musicians had the same experience (a strong bias towards saying “different”.)
So probably if I changed my decision criterion I would do better, according to my theory. I think the examiners should qualify their test by saying it’s one of pitch and phrase memory as much as it is a test of perceptual skills. If they actually wanted to make a hard test concerning tone deafness or perceptual skills, the way to do that is NOT to increase the phrase length (though that also makes the test harder). The way to keep testing the same thing you’re meaning to test while making it harder is to make the changes themselves much smaller, but keep the musical phrases extremely short (1-3 notes). As it stands now, about ¼ of the phrase in the test were above the capacity of the phonological loop and therefore working memory (which means a lot of musicians would run into using top-down processing/previous knowledge strategies to remember, much like I explained that I did.)
————————————————————-
Upon reading your comments I realized that you did indeed concede that the test is one of memory. I’m looking forward to seeing the results, specifically, which kinds of passages are hardest to get right: 1) long passages, 2) passages with just one, subtle change. I’d also be interested to see how many people have a “different” bias like I did as well as some others in the comments. Finally, it would be interesting if your test asked for some demographic data on music training.
Simply Great!
Ok, I’ve tried this out, and realized that my ears are working fine, but I have *absolutely* no memory.
Thanks for the test, it proved me that eight years of active learning and twenty years of active listening to music had its effect.
Seriously, my 69.4 percent could have been better if I could even remember those damn tunes
(Considering that before the test I thought I was totally tonedeaf.)
[…] secondly, i jacked this off someone’s site, someone who would never happen to land his eyes on this puny blog. nevertheless, i took this pitch/tone deaf test, and i’m not tone deaf so woohoo. take it and you might just learn that you are tone deaf…haha. i took it twice and the second time i did tons better. […]
thank you for this quick little test - the result didn’t surprise me that much though…
oh, got a 94.4% score btw
thinking back to my violin-teacher’s response after testing me, i suddenly understand his enthusiasm…
i guess this is a good tonedeafness test, but those who are taking it to boost their musical egos are cheating themselves. i got a 91.7, and i have terrible pitch recognition. it’s funny to read all the people who got > 90 and are saying “hey look, i’m a musical genius!”
Very interesting - my wife and I both scored 86.1% on the first try.
She’s a classically trained singer and pianist and has experience on
viola di gamba and is much more the “pure musician” than I am.
I’m primarily a rock guitarist who learned by ear, taught myself
keyboards and drums and then learned notation and have been
playing in rock, jazz, electronic, bluegrass, musical and church
groups and “strange/unclassifiable” bands in many different
venues as well as studios.
Weirdly, I always felt that I never had perfect pitch but my relative
pitch was better than average. I guess better than I thought.
I’ve sent a couple of guys I know who I feel DO have perfect pitch
this way, I can’t wait to see how they score.
Smoked a joint, wasn’t really expecting something, did the test, scored 77.8 % the first time
*feels stupid about his low score*
80.6 %, pulled an all nighter for engineering homework and still a little stoned from smoking in the morning
been playing music my whole life
75% … The first test of this kind which is nicely programmed, in particular that the system reacts instantly to the ‘different’ button and you don’t have to wait until the pattern stops.
(I still claim that #18 *is* the same.)
I got a 52.8% that’s terrible … I have bad memory
I got 75% and i was stopped from singing at school due to being tone deaf apparently…. Pah! In your face teacher!
There’s a mistake in melodies number 33. They are different….
i scored a 77, and i agree with whoever said that the rhythms on some of these seemed a little different-after listening to ones i got wrong, they still sounded a little different in some way. Maybe i was just focusing on a different part of the music each time. The phrases are exact clones right?
For the ones that I got wrong I put “different” when it should have been “same.” I think the reason for this was that the tonality of the previous samples affected my percieved tonality of the samples in question. Since the latter sample starts as soon as you click the button, it sometimes sounds like the musical continuation of the former sample, especially when the two samples have similar timbres. When people do taste testing they always have pallet cleansers in between each taste of wine or food, so that the previous taste doesn’t affect their perception of the taste in question. I think this test would be more accurate if there were some sort of “pallet-cleansing” tone, played before each sample and its counterpart. That would relieve the intervallic confusion that has probably has caused a lot of musicians to err on this test.
83.3. Suprised everyone got such high scores, they say musicians rarely score over 80- meh. I want to be a musician- but I did really bad at the pitch deaf test. Maybe I can improve on my pitch or something? OYE.
Nice test!
But leaves me with question! I scored a tone reliability of 20.4 Htz apart to identify them at 500 Htz (tonedeaf????) but i scored 88.9% at adaptive test and 96% at rhythm. So what so i made of it???
this is a great way to tell your tone deaf friends to stop singing.
I thought this was a good test to take, but where does it say your score? It didn’t seem to tell me what my score was…