Tone recognition test

[Tayshaun]

Are you tone deaf? http://www.jakemandell.com/tonedeaf/

I'm a jazz pianist and expected to shine. I spend time transcribing solos and playing "by ear" without (I thought) altering anything I heard. I spent hours and hours in my life concentrating on musical phrases and expected a 100% score. However, my score is 80.6%. Test was difficult (only one hearing of each sample), and humbling.

[fripping]

83.3% and haven't played music in years. suck it, trebek.

[Tayshaun]

83.3% and haven't played music in years. suck it, trebek.

Ouch

[stopharian]

83.3% Correct, but i cant play a damn thing.

edit:83.3 seems popular

[Tayshaun]

[Tayshaun]

83.3% is impressive. According to test, this means potential of being excellent musicians (world-class musicians at 90%).

[stopharian]

ah come on pal, you can take it again.

besides did you really want to leave anything unaltered........may as well improve it a bit along the way

[stopharian]

what instrument should i take up at 32? trumpet or guitar?

[fripping]

it's just a dumb test. i used to be a decent musician but my penchant for screwing around always kept me from being so great.

what instrument should i take up at 32? trumpet or guitar?

guitar. when you play a wind instrument there's all this tricky internal stuff you have to do with your airways to sound good and stay in tune but with guitar it's all external, just have to develop finger toughness, dexterity, and muscle memory. if your guitar goes out of tune you just tweak the whatchamacallit a little bit and then forget about it.

[Tayshaun]

I used to be a decent musician but my penchant for screwing around always kept me from being so great.

The reason why I started playing jazz. Freedom and theoretical knowledge to screw around really well.

guitar. when you play a wind instrument there's all this tricky internal stuff you have to do with your airways to sound good and stay in tune but with guitar it's all external, just have to develop finger toughness, dexterity, and muscle memory. if your guitar goes out of tune you just tweak the whatchamacallit a little bit and then forget about it.

Learning the trumpet has advantages as well and one of them is actually the "tricky internal stuff you have to do with your airways to sound good" (this is less of a problem with the flute, clarinet, saxophone). I have a 25 year old professional jazz pianist friend who just picked up the trumpet and is loving the challenge.

An obvious advantage of knowing how to play the guitar is social. The guitar is a transportable polyphonic instrument (unlike the piano). Therefore, you can bring it along and play in a wide variety of contexts. Learning a polyphonic instrument is really worth it. Musical theory is easier to visualize and you learn to master harmony much faster. This is why many jazz musicians use the piano to practice harmony and theory.