BBC R3 test: How Musical Are You?

[Mark Sealey]

Isn't facility with these what allows us to explain how we achieve the response in question? Aren't they akin to our being able to say, 'The poet is using irony because mistresses' eyes usually are like the sun'?

…Do these comprise "musicality" or is that something different?

[Panjandrum]

No, I'm not at all happy. It is the attitude of sheer destructiveness I abhor. No balance and downright rudeness.

And the lack of reading and common sense. I made it perfectly clear that it was to prompt discussion rather than sticking the boot in. Quite obviously, it was done in short hand - the post was long enough as it was.

The very attitude is so removed from my understanding of music, I would mark it as zero. Not nasty but self-defence from such. I'm out of it to leave it to disdain so if that was the mission, success. I wouldn't be supporting the site at all if I felt this was commonplace.

LT, aren't you over-reacting a trifle here? I know it's never easy marrying being a host with contributing to threads but I think you've got to try to be a bit more disinterested, shall we say, as a host on these boards. However, inadvertently, you have demonstrated just how difficult it is to come up with a meaningful questionnaire for testing something as complex and elusive as "musicality".

[Anna]

Literacy is usually considered to consist of a number of skills: reading, writing, speaking, listening; possibly plus comprehension/analysis.

For music the comparable skills would be knowledge of music notation (reading), composition (writing), performance (speaking), aural skills (listening), and analysis (i.e. intellectual (rather than emotional) comprehension). Do these comprise "musicality" or is that something different?

On that basis I am completely unmusical (or am severely lacking in musicality) as I never learnt an instrument (except a few years back taught myself a little piano. This involved finding middle C and counting up and down the notes. When it came to using two hands at the same time - I just couldn't do it) So, I cannot read or write music, cannot sing in tune, come from a totally non-musical family and referring to Pianorak's theory about size of ears, well, I think mine are just about the right size!) Having said all that, if anyone asked I would answer that I am very musical but only for the fact that I love music but I enjoy it on an emotional, rather than intellectual level. To me, a world without music would be so drab and sterile. As regards literacy, I consider myself to be very literate, but is this all about which sides of our brain we use or does it go back to nature v nurture?

[subcontrabass]

On that basis I am completely unmusical (or am severely lacking in musicality)

That is why I raised the question of whether musical skills (categorised in comparison with literacy) should be equated with musicality. Musicality might, perhaps, alternatively be considered as something more fundamental, just as basic language awareness is more fundamental than full-blown literacy.

[french frank]

I know it's never easy marrying being a host with contributing to threads

I think I must step in hastily and say that if Hosts were not allowed to be fully participating contributors to the forum, expressing their own views, I might find myself quickly bereft of Hosts. I would not wish that.

Enough. Two equal rules: don't give offence, don't take offence

[Anna]

That is why I raised the question of whether musical skills (categorised in comparison with literacy) should be equated with musicality. Musicality might, perhaps, alternatively be considered as something more fundamental, just as basic language awareness is more fundamental than full-blown literacy.

I think musicality is innate. Look at the joy on a child's face when they clap and sing along to a nursery rhyme, name me one culture where music does not play a huge part. I think we are all born with the ability to enjoy music (whether we understand the technicalities or not)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've just seen Lat's questionnaire. It has much to commend it, but there's still the question of personal taste affecting the result.

[Flosshilde]

Lat
Producing a workable questionnaire is not something you or I can do while finishing off breakfast. Companies pay huge fees to have them made. Even for a quiz night, the wording of the questions has to be very careful or you’ll have a fight.

I am sorry if I sound patronising but I think we’d better leave lists and questions here. These things can easily touch people’s ‘emotion’ and can get nasty.

Hit the nail on the head, doversoul. The key point in devising a questionnaire is to start from an understanding of what it is you want to find out, & then devising questions that will give you that information. Any questionnaire has to be given a test run, to check if the questions really do give you the information you want, then it can be adjusted & launched properly. Lateral has a rough idea of stage 1, & has devised a questionnaire - posting it here could be considered a test run, so it's rather disappointing that lateral's response to Bert's thoughtful feedback is simply to call it 'rather sour'. My feedback would be that there are far too many questions; 'probably' & 'maybe' are not distinct enough to use on a scale; some questions are better answerd by 'yes' or 'no'; some questions are pace Bert's response, unaswerable - does anyone remember what they were like as a five year old?

[Anna]

anyone remember what they were like as a five year old?

I think I was really cute

[Mary Chambers]

Look at the joy on a child's face when they clap and sing along to a nursery rhyme

Ah, so that's who the question about clapping and singing along was aimed at. (Children, I mean, not Anna :))

[Zucchini]

Isn't this what they describe as 'amusia'?

Listener comment on R3 blog:

"1. At 09:24am on 10 Jan 2011, Martin Price wrote:
I listened to the item on the Today programme. Lots of musical enthusiasm, but nothing for the four per cent of the population with amusia - an inability to appreciate music. In any musical situation 4 per cent of people are faking it - although it is considered peculiar to admit it. I have never understood the appeal of any music without intelligible words. I now collect the names of famous people who have also come out. Vladimir Nabokov, Che Guevara, Margaret Drabble to name a few.

BBC Radio 4 Frontiers covered this a couple of years ago and the programme and the amusia listening test is still available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/...20061213.shtml

Perhaps people might like to compare their results on the amusia test with the new one."

Incidentally, you will find Pedroc T saying that the study will hopefully be extended to R1 and 6 Live. It's perhaps understandable that it should first be tried on the limited number of R3 listeners and refined if necessary, before getting involved in big numbers and costs.

Of course, a problem with this sort of research is that you always have to qualify it by: "Our findings amongst people who like filling in questionnaires and doing quizzes..." - or somesuch

[Vile Consort]

The key point in devising a questionnaire is to start from an understanding of what it is you want to find out, & then devising questions that will give you that information.

I think he's done that. He's trying to find out whether you react to music the same way he does.

[Lateralthinking1]

At 5, I used to stand on a sack of potatoes in my grandmother's rented greengrocery shop and sing to the customers. At school, we sang Kumbaya. At home, I sang into a tape recorder. We still have the tapes. I can visualise the shop, the school hall, and the living room vividly.

I also looked at the hundred or so Christmas cards we received and could say who each one was sent by from the picture on the front, even when they were re-ordered. In fact, I did it not by a well-defined understanding of the picture on each card but by the impression of it I felt.

There are relatives who are still living who would confirm this - and the school, largely unchanged, is five minutes from where I live now. I am sorry that the questions proved too difficult.

Mark - The lights are back on. It was a fuse so a bit of quick wiring fixed it. Lat.

[Bert Coules]

Zucchini, thanks for that link. It's an interesting test (and for what little it's worth I scored 26 out of 30 on both parts). The task itself is simple: given two short melodies, are they the same or different? It would be fascinating to have a detailed breakdown of the way one scored, and to know which particular types of difference one didn't catch.

[Lateralthinking1]

Goldsmiths' back in favour?