This test will tell you if you are tone deaf. I’ve always wondered if tonality can be taught or if it’s purely an innate talent.
Are you tone deaf?
This test will tell you if you are tone deaf. I’ve always wondered if tonality can be taught or if it’s purely an innate talent.
I don’t mean to sound like an ass, so help me out here.
Is this test really difficult to master for many people?
I found it perfectly easy.
I also don’t understand how this has any implications on whether recognising tones and their relationships are taught or a talent.
You’re right, it was perfectly easy. Looks to me like a thinly veiled promo for the company’s paid offerings.
It reminds me of when I was wanting to get into computer graphic design back in the late ’80s and I took DeVry’s evaluation exam. I aced it. But it was so easy, it made me realize that it was intentionally that way so as to encourage people to plunk down their $15K tuition for who knows what sort of content. Glad I didn’t bite. I learned far more on my own from the software manuals and OJT.
Ah, that makes much more sense.
I took the test and found out that Jim is tone deaf.
You found it easy because you are not tone deaf. Approximately 4% of people are actually tone deaf.
See below. You might as well claim that your ability to read English effectively means that illiteracy is a scam.
Hi,
I’m the creator of the test. First off, thanks for giving it a try! (and thanks to Dave for sharing it here on The Loop)
I can understand your concern. To be clear, this is not a test of inherent musicality or musical talent.
The purpose of the test is to help clear up some of the misconceptions around tone deafness. Many people (often because they have difficulty singing in tune) decide that they are “tone deaf”. Then, believing this to be a diagnosis of some kind, they feel excluded from the world of music making.
The truth is that they could be just as musical as anyone else, with a bit of training.
There is a tiny proportion of people who are genuinely clinically tone deaf, meaning they cannot distinguish differences in pitch. The scientific literature on the topic indicates this is no more than about 3% of the adult population.
The ToneDeafTest site is designed to help you figure out which group you are in. If you’re in the first group, the test will indeed be perfectly easy! Many people score 100%. If you’re in the second group, the test will be a challenge. We’re seeing about 1% of people failing so far.
I hope that helps explain the purpose of the test. There’s more information in the “About” and “FAQ” items in the sidebar if you’re interested, or feel free to drop me a line at christopher@EasyEarTraining.com.
Sorry for my skepticism. Now that you’ve filled us in on the situation I think it would help you to relate more of this information on your site, so that it doesn’t look like the “cheap trick” it seemed to me to be earlier.
Thanks for clarifying this (to @hisshadow:disqus, too).
I wasn’t aware of this at all.
Please forgive Daniel’s and my scepticism, but in some ways it felt like a “Which member of the TNG crew are you?” test, partly because of the way the results page was styled.
Admittedly I was intrigued because sound and hearing are near and dear to my heart.
I liked that the test features a piano, a guitar and synthetically generated notes.
No problem! I appreciate that the “About” pages on the site which cover this aren’t very prominent at all – I’ll see about improving that in the next update, thanks.
No worries, I can totally understand where you were coming from. I’m glad to hear my explanation made sense.
The goal was to make something which was light and fun so that people would use it (a la TNG character quizzes) but still sent the right message about this subject. Perhaps we’ve erred too much towards making it socially shareable!
Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback.