Are you tonedeaf?
 

About 5% of all people are tonedeaf. Most of these people also have no idea, except maybe a lingering suspicion after friends or family gently tell them they cant sing worth a damn. Music apparently sounds different to them than to the rest of us. For these people, if a note is slightly off, due to a hearing defect, they simply cant tell. That is also why you get these hilariously bad singers on american idol who are convinced they can sing, because to their ears, they are repeating what they heard from the radio.

Here's a couple of tonedeafness tests I found, which also functions as a way to possibly tell if your sense of pitch is above average. If you are near the bottom of the bell curve, you might be tonedeaf. If you have a perfect score, you might (probably not) be one of the rare 1 in 10,000 people with perfect pitch. Where do you score?

I scored 86.1% in the short test, and got 26/30, 27/30 in the longer test. Not excellent, but seems to be decently above average.

I have perfect pitch, actually. From a very early age, if somebody played a note on a piano without me looking I could tell them which note it was and in what octave.

Since I became trained in music, I could tell the difference between temperaments on early keyboard instruments versus regular equal temperament tuning on most pianos. I've gotten so people can sit on the piano and I can name all the notes from bottom to top that are being played. For mostly diatonic music (pop, rock, some jazz, anything that's in a main key or mode) I can name the key and tell you the modulations.

Let me tell you, chicks dig it.

I have perfect pitch and that test was annoying. I couldn't get through the second part. WAY too long.

Furthermore, that test, IMO, was about relative pitch and memory. All of the motifs started in the same key. They generally moved a note by a semitone to create "confusion".

Personally, I don't think this test can determine the ability to determine pitch.

As a matter of fact, pick 10 songs out of your iTunes catalog, then tell me what key they're in.

Then, we can talk. :D

I just took the test. I totally agree. Not worth it.

By the way, if I ever make it out to California I'm going to go to your house and we'll settle this like gentlemen. We'll get an objective source and have a perfect pitch-off. I used to do this with a few friends when I went to Eastman, and I would always beat them.

You're on! I'll make sure to have at least 12 of your favorite beers on hand. For the crying part.

:D

I don't have perfect pitch. I scored 100% on that test.

Someone get that man a beer.

You have the patience of Moses.

They really should call that a memory/pitch test

Oh, I know some games we can play if alcohol is involved. Set up 12 varieties of liquor or beer. Each variety corresponds to one of the 12 tones in a scale. Then you play some 12-tone stuff by Schoenberg, Boulez, or one of those guys. For every half step you miss on each of the notes, you take a drink of that particular substance. It was never a problem for me, but a lot of guys would get drunk pretty ****ing quickly if they screwed up one note and off-set the rest of the row.

Sounds like fun! What instrument would you like to use for this test? Double bass? Cello? Mini-Moog?

Piano would be all too easy. :D

I figure it would just be a CD recording of an orchestra. But realistically it could be anything.

I am a bitch. I got 83.3%

Nope. Benn playing and writing music since age 10.

I have no musical training and a memory deficit