Test your sense of pitch

Hi Folks!

Here in the USA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has an online hearing test called 'Distorted Tunes: Test your sense of pitch'.

Part of the summary is:
I took the test in about 5 mins, which has 26 sound clips that you listen to and rate if the song is played correctly or not.

After completion, the result it gave me was:
Sadly, it does not tell you which one(s) you got wrong.

We discuss topics related to hearing perception here on the forum all this time, so, while not specific to ukulele, it is related to music in general, and if you have trouble recognizing when your playing is off, or your instrument is out of tune, this might shed some light on the source of the problem.

I thought it might be fun to share this link with UU and have folks report back and share their results here.

You can find the test here:

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/tunetest/Pages/Default.aspx

I cannot take credit for discovering this myself, but found it on the Ycombinator 'Hacker News' feed this morning, with relevant discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10219662

Have Fun!

That was interesting - I got 100%, despite there being a couple of melodies that I did not recognize. The ones that sounded wrong seemed obvious to me - perhaps because I fumble-finger-play so many wrong notes on the uke!

It also claimed I got one wrong, probably some kind of input error on my part or maybe something wrong with the test design. It actually requires you to have heard all these tunes, and conform to some arbitrary standard. So it's questionable whether missing one or two really says anything at all about your sense of pitch. Another problem with this kind of test is that real music doesn't sound like a MIDI file, the lack of musicality is painful, and even when "right", it sounds wrong.

What I have noticed is that many performers don't _sing_ in pitch, let alone normal non-musicians. If I am singing and going off, I can hear it, and it bothers me. Some people either don't care or don't notice.

26 out of 26 correct.

I'm not sure this test proves much of anything. I think even people without good pitch discernment can detect when a well-known melody is played wrong. The wrong notes in these songs are not subtle.

That was painful, about like a trip to Guitar Center.

100% and another reminder of the main reason I don't give lessons.

LDS714 said:

That was painful, about like a trip to Guitar Center.

100% and another reminder of the main reason I don't give lessons.

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LOL. YOU made me laugh


Given the choice of even setting foot in GC again, vs. being trapped on a 4 hr airplane flight with a dozen teething and crying babies, I choose the airplane.

Got them all correct.

The ones that threw me were the correct pitch ones that did not complete the musical phrase.

I got them all correct, too.

You correctly identified 26 tunes (out of 26) on the Distorted Tunes Test. Congratulations! You have a fine sense of pitch.

Thank you for taking the Distorted Tunes Test.

Yay

Fun............I got 100%, which is odd because my hearing isn't anywhere near 100%.

Shades of Charles Ives! 26 right for me. But, I liked some of those variations at lot!

I got 26 of 26. The one that gave me the most trouble was #8. I had to listen to it around 6 times before making my choice.

mikelz777 said:

I got 26 of 26. The one that gave me the most trouble was #8. I had to listen to it around 6 times before making my choice.

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I had to hear it a couple of time too. I think it was the first 5 notes that concerned me. My ear always rebels at the tempered semitone, wanting to hear the notes a wee bit closer together.