BBC R3 test: How Musical Are You?

[Mark Sealey]

Good; but you didn't wire across the fuse, did you?

…It was a fuse so a bit of quick wiring fixed it. Lat.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

So - why do you need to do a test to tell you what you are? Don't you know? Most of these things are self-fulfilling prophecies, aren't they? More interesting, as Lat discovered, is writing a test. That tells you much more about yourself. [BTW when answering one of these things, questions mean what you want them to mean, or what you think they mean, regardless of any imprecision of wording - this isn't an exam, where you have to guess correctly what some anonymous b*st*rd thought THEY meant when they wrote the stuff, or they'll wreck your life - what is this fetishism of the examination people are suffering from?!?]

I was much more interested in Lat's memories, his account of the development of his musicality, and would have liked to hear it extended: when he gave up listening to Tchaikovsky, because he thought it would make him go blind, when he realised that was rubbish and began to wallow uncontrollably in Myaskovsky, Glazunov and the piano duet suites of Arensky.

I hope we're not communicating with each other in the hope of establishing absolute verities by dint of careful comparison. What I want from a discussion about music is the whiff of someone else's enthusiasm for something which I have hitherto not appreciated. I want to extend the range of things from which I derive pleasure - not reduce it by dismissing more and more as second-rate, inadequate, unfaithful to the score etc. Even if I ultimately disagree, I can at least enjoy their enjoyment - though Lord Harewood did say that one of the pleasures of being eighty was that he felt he could give up trying to like Parsifal.

Are there any takers for a thread of Musical Biography? How you came to it, what, when, why?

[Lateralthinking1]

Once I had completed at age 11 my involvement in the Croydon Schools Music Festival - three concerts at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, the record obviously - it was really a question of where you could go after Copland's Old American Songs and "The Demon of Adachigahara" by Gordon Crosse. That was '74. There were the years of experimentation, of course, then I guess that was where The Clash came in, along with a lot else.

Mark - No, I don't think so, it was a bit tricky because it all looked ok, then I switched things round. The lights came on, the bell went off, and then it was plain sailing. Everything hunky dory, as they say. I've come down where I ought to be. Lat.

[doversoul1]

vinteuil 153
require listening to in a fairly sophisticated way - you have to have 'learned' your way into their particular 'languages'require listening to in a fairly sophisticated way - you have to have 'learned' your way into their particular 'languages'

The language analogy is very apt. I expect in your globe-trotting (?) career, you came across people who did not have the ‘language’ of Western classical music. Did you ever have opportunities to talk to them about music?

Bert 156
the aural equivalent of the eyes and brain not immediately recognising something until what seems like a random arrangement of shapes and colours suddenly clicks into place

I never thought it that way but it makes perfect sense. I often have this effect visually but rarely aural. Do you think it is because we don’t usually try to ‘make sense’ of music, as music does not represent anything that has to have sense made (?).

Bert 158
ever met someone who had no feeling whatsoever for music of any type? In the same way that some people never read novels

I know a number of people who do not listen to music at all not because they don’t want to but they are simply not bothered and can happily live without music. I think if you ask them, a lot of them will say they quite like music when they are washing the car or painting the walls but see no point in just sitting and listening to music. This is obviously not ‘biological’ make up although most of them will not respond to classical music, but this is because, as vinteuil says, they have not learned the ‘language’. So the test posted by Zucchini will be interesting way to find out the difference.

Mark 166
The poet is using irony because mistresses' eyes usually are like the sun'?

You can only tell that if you have ‘done’ English literature. It is the same as the ascending lark. You can only ‘see’ it because you have learned to ‘read’ the sound.

subcontrabass 196
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 this is where the Goldsmiths test is half baked because in their test, innate and learned skills seem to be all mixed up.

[Lateralthinking1]

This is most definitely not an attempt at starting this up again. However, 3VS, as you were kind enough to do the "test for fun", I do owe you a score. I reckon you got 218 out of 312. As I said, mine was 233 and I find it encouraging that the two are both scores that certainly do not discourage interests and could be viewed as on a range. In fact, giving room for the possibility of statistical variation, they probably are about the same. Best regards, Lat.

[Bert Coules]

I never thought it that way but it makes perfect sense. I often have this effect visually but rarely aural. Do you think it is because we don’t usually try to ‘make sense’ of music, as music does not represent anything that has to have sense made (?).

I'd argue that when we come upon a piece of music without first being told what it is, we do try to make sense of it in exactly the same way as we do of the momentarily-puzzling visual encounter: we search for recognition, based at least initially on relatively superficial qualities: sound, speed, basic melody. Music doesn't have to "mean anything" in any deeper sense to have those properties. Your experience with the Elgar, I'd say, is an exact parallel with the kind of visual snapping-into-place I talked about.

But I've no idea why you - or anybody - should find one happening more frequently than the other. Fascinating!

[Lateralthinking1]

Recent serious medical research - I can't find a link - has found that the age at which children react to, and process, sound, is much earlier than the equivalent visual response, and that visual processing develops at a far later age than previously thought. This might be a contributory factor in the more frequent delays in visual processing in adulthood. The aural connectivity is more instinctive and "sounder" for being acquired earlier and hence more deeply rooted.

[3rd Viennese School]

LT
So I scored 70%!
I don’t know what this test tells me, however. I know more about Stravinsky than Bill Haley?

When reading music I know what the symbols mean but could never play and follow it. When trying to write down my own 12 note pop tunes I eventually gave up with the official notation and just wrote the letters down eg. F#, E, D, etc.

I can play the keyboard with one hand but not an acoustic instrument.

The opera Question. “Do you enjoy opera?” Surely if you don’t that proves you like music!

Additonal information : my first Symphony was Tchaikovsky 6.

3VS




“We are all but cows looking over a gate for half an hour”

[Lateralthinking1]

Hi 3VS, it tells you that you got 70%, enjoy it!, Lat

[Anna]

I did the melody test as posted by Zucchini in #176. I got 23 in the first part and 27 in the second. I can only assume the difference was in the level of concentration, not the level of difficulty in the melodies. I have not, as yet, done Lat's test. With all these tests the difficulty lies with the wording. Can you imagine a life without music? Answer, yes I can of course but if came to a choice between music and food or being warm, I would choose food and warmth of course.

[Lateralthinking1]

Anna - I can guarantee you a good score. The science is a bit lacking in all of them but mine has the universal feel good factor. - Lat.

[Anna]

Anna - I can guarantee you a good score. The science is a bit lacking in all of them but mine has the universal feel good factor. - Lat.

I doubt that I would get a good score Lat, seeing as I don't know me A from me E and I think Pitch is what roadmenders use!! But I will do your test.

[Lateralthinking1]

Great. I'm here with clipboard and cheerleaders.

[subcontrabass]

On the Radio 3 website there is a Blog posting from Michael Orwell (the BBC person behind the test). You can read this at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/20...ality-te.shtml . In it he says: "Some have asked me what this test has to do with Radio 3 and I have to say I’m surprised by the question! If Radio 3 is not the guardian and exalter of musical excellence and purity, then I don’t know who is!" There are a handful of comments, most of which give a forthright response to that statement.

[Flosshilde]

Apparently it was vital that it appeared during the Mozart bore. Why? It seems to have very little to do with Mozart, apart from the fact that he had some musical facility But then, so do most of the people who's music is played on radio 3.