How does the melody memory test work?
A short tune plays once. Then three choices play in turn, A, B and C: one is the tune, one has a single note changed, and one has two neighbouring notes swapped. Pick the tune. You can hear the choices again as often as you like, but not the tune, so the test is how well you hold it in mind.
The first tune has 3 notes. Each right answer makes the next tune a note longer; a wrong answer keeps the length and costs one of your 3 lives. The run ends at the third mistake.
How is your Melody Memory Test result calculated?
Your result is the longest tune you picked out correctly, in notes. Because each round has three choices, some right answers come from luck, so a single run at the low end says little. The table shows what pure guessing would score, worked out from the game's rules.
| Longest tune | Chance by guessing alone |
|---|---|
| 3 notes or more | 70% |
| 4 notes or more | 41% |
| 5 notes or more | 21% |
| 6 notes or more | 10% |
| 7 notes or more | 5% |
Guessing averages about 2.9 notes and fails the first tune 30% of the time. The site's tests check these odds against a simulation. No published average exists for a test built like this one, so there is no rating.
Which notes does it use?
Notes from the pentatonic scale C, D, E, G and A, across two octaves from C4 to A5, played on a piano-like tone at 380 ms a note. The pentatonic scale has no two notes a semitone apart, so any order sounds tuneful and every change is at least a whole tone. A note never repeats straight after itself, and a changed note never makes one repeat.
What makes a wrong choice hard to spot?
The swapped choice always changes the tune's shape, its pattern of ups and downs, at the swap. A changed note may keep the shape and only alter how far the tune moves, which is harder to hear. Dowling and Fujitani (1971, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America) found that when a melody is replayed at the same pitch, listeners recognise it by its exact notes; when it is moved to a new key, they lean on its shape. Here every choice plays at the tune's own pitch.
- Follow the shape. Up, up, down: the outline is easier to hold than the notes.
- Mark the highest and lowest notes. A choice whose peak or lowest point has moved can't be the tune.
- Hum it silently. Replaying the tune in your head keeps it fresh while the choices play.
Is this a musical aptitude test?
Not a formal one. Tests of musical aptitude began with Carl Seashore, whose Measures of Musical Talents appeared in 1919; its 1939 and later versions include a tonal memory test alongside pitch, loudness, rhythm, time and timbre. This is a short game in the same spirit, with no norms behind it, and not a hearing test.
For fine pitch differences, try the Pitch Discrimination Test; for naming notes with no reference, the Perfect Pitch Test.