For fun and with slight trepidation I took the BBC's 'How Musical Are You?' test and I was amazed at how accurate the results were. Although I have worked as a professional singer and dancer and director of opera's all my life many of my associates have never considered me 'musical' as I do not play an instrument.
It is not for want of trying! I have tried to play the piano, tap dance and type all my life but I can never get past page one. This has been somewhat of a disability but was put down by all and sundry that Janette Miller was 'Not Musical'.
Well of course I am Musical! You don't work for Britten without being musical or marry Wagnerian loving husbands without appreciating the master and loathing Brahams and Puccini!
As you see I scored 100% for my relationship with music but it was in my other scores that my disability was noticed. It picked up my rhythm problem. I find it hard to beat in time with my hand. I am always inaccurate. Ditto typing!
It seems in retrospect I have something amiss with my hypothalmus, a small organ in my brain that controls my nervous system. I cannot remember sequences from brain to hand and that means every time I sit at a piano or a typewriter, it is like I am being introduced to it for the first time.
I never get any better. Oh my poor piano teachers. I used to practice and practice my scales for hours one day but the next when I got to the lesson it was as if I had never seen the keyboard before. Consequently I was labeled by many of my teachers and colleagues as 'Unmusical' solely on my inability to play an instrument although I can sing like an angel and I love Schoenberg!
The BBC's test was impressive. I started badly because I had to skip the musical genres section where one had to chose which genre a tiny sound bite fitted in. I couldn't recognize any! Later I found out it was rock, hard rock and two other genres with which I am unfamiliar. Like asking a rocker to recognize Mahler, Mozart, Schoenberg and Stravinsky with just one note to go on so I just scored nil in that section. I reckon I could do that with classical composers .
Most of my musical friends will score better than I but having been considered unmusical for most of my life and never able to pass any practical test as singing did not count. I was OK on the theory it has come as a delightful surprise.
Here's the link to BBC's How Musical AreYou?
