We’ve just found a fascinating BBC Labs survey called “How musical are you?”
It takes about 20 minutes to complete and comprises a series of self-assessment questions with some practical listening questions.
Firstly you have to group 16 short tracks by genre, there is a task where you assess whether a click is on or off the beat, one where you tap along with the beat of a song, and one that I felt was quite tricky (but I surprised myself by scoring highly) where you had to identify whether a pair of melodies in different keys were still the same or a different melody.
My scores are above average. Now I would say that (certainly in comparison with the professional musicians I work with) I’m not that intrinsically musical but having played several instruments as a child, and still immersed in music day-to-day as part of church and also my job here at Musicademy, I think I’ve developed a reasonable ear. This is evidence that to a degree you can train musicality to some level. I think there are those who have very low underlying musicality, but even those people when really working through an instrument and focusing on listening skills can improve in part.
Do take part in the survey, and let us know what you think in the comments below. I’d be interested in how many high scores our readers (probably self-confessed musos) get and whether there are any surprises.
