Test Your Sense of Pitch
Have you ever wondered how a musician can pick out a single wrong note in a
complex piece of music? Has anyone told you that you are tone-deaf or have a
tin ear? These all relate to a sense of pitch—roughly speaking, the highness
or lowness of a sound. It's what distinguishes a soprano from a bass singer
and gives each piano key a distinct identity.
Our ability to distinguish pitch is not fully understood, but we do know
that it involves some processing by the brain after a sound is perceived.
This means tone deafness is not necessarily linked to any hearing disorder.
An individual with perfect hearing may still have trouble distinguishing
pitch because of how the brain interprets the sounds.
Research shows that several percent of the U.S. population has problems with
pitch perception. Studies in twins also indicates that the role of
inheritance in deficits in pitch recognition is extremely high, with little
effect of environmental experience. Tone deafness appears to stem from
nature, not nurture.
Want to test your own sense of pitch? We've developed an online version of
the Distorted Tunes Test, a standardized survey in use for over 50 years. In
it, you'll listen to a series of snippets from well-known tunes—some of
which have been distorted by changing various notes' pitch. Your task is to
pick out the incorrectly played tunes.
No personal information about you will be collected while you take the test;
scoring will be handled by your browser via JavaScript. This means you must have
JavaScript and cookies enabled on your browser to take the test. Please
review the NIDCD privacy policy
for more details about our use of information.
You must be 16 or older to take this test. Tone recognition is not fully
developed at younger ages, and test results may not be meaningful. If you
agree to the conditions of this test and certify that you are 16 years or
older, click the button below to proceed. Good luck, and have fun!
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