UPDATED: 18th January to include further information from Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen.

Researchers from the “Music, Mind and Brain research group” at Goldsmiths, University of London are embarking on a project to discover how musical people are – including those who don’t consider themselves musical at all!

In collaboration with the BBC Lab UK, they have developed a simple 25-minute test which you can take online to discover how strong a sense of musicality you have.

The research hypothesis is that people without any level of musical training will be able to do very well – and in some cases just as well as formally trained musicians who take the test. They think it’s possible that people develop a strong sense of music just through everyday exposure to and appreciation of music; even if they’ve never considered themselves a musician.

Click the image below to take the test:

(You’ll need to register with the BBC website if you haven’t before – it’s quick and easy!)

What is “Musicality”?

The test is in seven short parts. Three ask you various questions about music, what it means to you, how much training you’ve had, and so on. Four are interactive musical tests, which ask you to do things like tap along with a song, or arrange short clips into groups that go together musically.

But before you start worrying that you’ll have to whip out your instrument, or brush up on your singing – there’s no need, as the test focuses on aural skills. Dr. Daniel Müllensiefen, one of the lead researchers on the project, explains “Musical performance is one aspect of musicality but by far not the only one – and maybe not even the most important one.”

At the end of the test you’re shown your scores for each of several dimensions of musicality, including “enthusiasm for music”, “musical perception” and “emotional connection”. Click to read the rest…

Greetings Ear Trainers! My name is Nick and I am a musician and broadcast engineer.

My personal musical odyssey began at 14 when I started playing the guitar. It wasn’t long before a hobby became an obsession and I joined the first of a succession of bands. For me collaborating with other musicians and playing for an audience is what music is all about. Over the years I’ve played Indie, Soul, Country, Heavy Metal, Punk, Post Rock and everything in between.

I love the challenge of mastering new instruments. Along with guitar I play bass, mandolin and even dedicated some years to playing the drums which will be the focus of my first sequence of articles. At the moment my main musical outlet is playing bass in my band Dark Energy (www.darkenergyband.com)

I’ve been involved with radio since university and spent much of my career working for the BBC designing and building studio and production systems.
Though I’m a qualified broadcast engineer I haven’t had a formal musical education. I’m not the kind of person who is interested in theory for theory’s sake, but as a self taught working musician I’ve found time and time again that I hit a wall that can be overcome with theory and ear training.

In my articles I hope to provide tips and advice aimed at the self taught gigging, or recording musician. Ear training has helped me to transcribe and learn music faster, sing backing vocals at gigs with bad monitoring, and produce better sounding demos and I hope it can help you to do the same!