Been some time since I linked to a test, so here we go. This time it’s for musical skills. It’s really three tests which you should take in this order: Tone Deaf, Adaptive Pitch and Rhythm Deaf. You’ll need a quiet room (or a good earphone) and about 15 minutes.

For what it’s worth, here are my scores:

– tone deaf: 83.3% (in the “very good” range, which goes from 80 to 89%)

– adaptive pitch: 2.7Hz (in the “normal” range, which goes from 6.0 to 1.6Hz)

– rhythm deaf: 64% (in the “normal” range, which goes from 60 to 69%).

I knew I had good musical memory, which is measured by the first test, and I also notice when some instrument is off-tune – in the second test, a halftone would be about 30Hz.

However I’m rather surprised at my normal score in the third test, as poor rhythm memory and perception have consistently foiled me when I tried to learn at least a dozen musical instruments – I can’t manage to learn to dance either, much to my wife’s distress. I suppose this confirms my theory that I suffer from an IQ gradient which goes from 100% at my head to almost 0% at my feet; I enjoy listening to complex pieces like Dave Brubeck‘s and Don Ellis‘ which feature unusual time signatures, although I can imitate only the simpler ones with my hands, and tapping my feet in time with them is hopeless. I also have a problem making sense of song lyrics (in any language) or of spoken poetry… though I suppose that’s not related to the other symptoms.