Playing Are Your Ears Painted On? Let's See.

[jbtsax]

This thread takes its title from the old musician joke insult to a player who is out of tune. "Wasamatter, your ears painted on?"

I found a wonderful site to test your pitch discrimination and to see how you compare with others on a statistical basis. http://tonometric.com/adaptivepitch/

You can post your scores if you like and we can give the coveted Golden Ears Award to the member with the best pitch discrimination.

 

[BigMartin]

1.2Hz (second attempt)

 

[PaulM]

Thanks jbt for bringing the test to the Café's attention.

At 500Hz it reckons I can reliably differentiate two tones that are 0.975Hz apart, so about 3 cents. If my teacher knew this she might think it a pity that this ability seems to desert me as soon as I blow into a saxophone..

 

[aldevis]

1.05

 

[jbtsax]

Wow. Lots of contenders already. I was embarrassingly average on my first try. Too cocky I suppose, given my years of training. By the third try using headphones (which helped) I got my score down to 1.05 or roughly 3 1/2 cents.

One of the things that I hope this thread accomplishes is to reassure those beginners who fret when they can't get every note on their sax to register 0 on their tuner. Within 7 to 10 cents of the A=440 pitch of the tempered scale is quite good as far as performance is concerned.

On another repair forum I pointed out that removing approximately .001" from the top of a tonehole while leveling it raises the pitch .5 cents. To those who fret that any filing of toneholes whatsoever to level them "ruins" a saxophone, I say,

"Methinks thou doth protest too much".

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

Did it twice 2.7 both times...

 

[Colin the Bear]

2.1.

I believe you can be too in tune.

The rhythm test was more sucessful for me. Says it all really doesn't it.

 

[BigMartin]

It would be interesting to compare the results with a test where the two tones are played together, say in the left and right speakers. Are they "in" or "out" of tune? Which is higher?

 

[jbtsax]

2.1.

I believe you can be too in tune.

The rhythm test was more sucessful for me. Says it all really doesn't it.

Don't feel bad. That's much better than my first attempt. Listening to all of those little "pitch approximators" in my beginning bands all those years must have taken a toll. After a while they started to sound pretty good.

 

[kevgermany]

Embarassingly I can't get better than 6. Explains a lot I think.

 

[aldevis]

Embarassingly I can't get better than 6. Explains a lot I think.

Yes: performance anxiety.
I will try the test again, but on my only attempt I had to switch my mind from "which sound is higher?" to "which sound is sharper?" as I were tuning an instrument.

 

[TimboSax]

It would appear that my ears, rather than being painted on, have been badly drawn in crayon by a three year old.

 

[jbtsax]

Along the same lines this is not a test, but a listening exercise to compare notes that are played simultaneously 1 cent, 2 cents, 3 cents, 4 cents . . . . up to 10 cents apart. The base tone is A=440 as a sine wave. The simultaneous tone is the same volume but higher in pitch. The question is: At what point is the out of tuneness noticeable? At what point is it unacceptable? Then consider at what note speed or note value would it be noticeable or unacceptable. I have had students tell me they can't tell whether they are in tune or not. This is the type of demonstration that I use to show them that they can tell.

Tuning Study

 

[Colin the Bear]

That takes me back to the days before 24hr tv and waking up with that sound blasting and no idea what happened at the end of the film I was watching lol.

 

[kernewegor]

1.5. No headphones.

Looks like a good gadget for ear training.

Might it be an idea to collect a few of these things and put them on a resources thread, maybe with some expert comment? Probably best to have a thread per gadget, so all comments are on the same topic...

Has anyone any idea how critical one's sound equipment is for this sort of job? Here we are comparing results, some of it may be us comparing our computers' speakers...

 

[photoman]

2.7 - I can hardly hear the door bell, let alone the boo-bips.

 

[Taz]

I'm getting a fairly constant 0.975 which pleases me. I thought I would struggle but it seems not!

 

[Taz]

I just got 80% with the visual test. Thats wierd, I never thought of visualising music before.

 

[Amanda tootin' Taylor]

0.7875 no headphones, first time - better than I thought. Such fun!

 

[Ivan]

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