Here’s an interesting data point–I used to be unable to, but then I started singing in a choir. The training and practicing that we got allowed me to confidently pick out notes and separate them from other notes. I remember–the first time we were rehearsing (the Star-Spangled Banner, btw, so not exactly arcane), someone had to pull me aside and tell me I was signing it an octave down! I didn’t know. But now I would.
(Insert in brackets mine.)
Any note can be the first note. The c-c-g-g-a-a-g example is in the key of C. If you start on an “a” note, it would be in the key of A, and the sequence would be a-a-e-e-f#-f#-e (then d-d-c#-c#-b-b-a). In other words, if you start on “a,” it can still be done, but it won’t be going to c-c-g-g-a-a-g.
Starting on C will usually make things easier, though, since it will usually reduce or even eliminate the need for the black keys.
At a gut level, I agree with the OP. I can’t imagine how one wouldn’t be able to pick out, say, “Mary Had A Little Lamb” once they learn the mechanics of the instrument, but then I am an amateur musician myself.
But it makes more sense when you recall your very first music lesson–often beginners to start with such simple tunes as MHALL, and they have to be taught how to play them.
I might need to start this as a GQ but I honestly don’t understand this concept of octaves and notes being absolute things that someone can judge. People’s voices and musical instruments vary widely. How can someone pick out a C note as one or something being an octave lower than what is supposed to be. I am a grown male so my voice sounds much different than a young girl. How could someone know which one is right and which is wrong? This is probably the dumbest sounding question ever to musical types but I just don’t get it. To me, a tune is only made being altering notes from a certain baseline and nothing else.
I’ve been ignorant about this subject, too. I could always easily pick out tunes on instruments, even as a little kid, and my own kids have always done it. I figured it’s an innate ability, but had thought it was as common as being able to sing a tune. I guess I’ll appreciate it more now, because I love playing music. Now if only I could draw. I love to draw, but am horrible at it.
Yeah, if it was an instrument I could get reliable sound out of (I can’t make brass instruments make noise. I know it’s possible, because I’ve heard other people do it, but I can’t). But I have decent relative pitch and enough musical training that I know theoretically what I want to do and how to figure out how to do it.
About a week ago, on a whim, I decided to look into buying a harp. (It was a very expensive whim). And so I did go around a music store pounding or plucking out simple tunes on the various stringed and percussion instruments. I’m not sure whether it’s learned or innate. I know when i was little and supposedly getting the aforementioned musical training, it was very hard to learn to rely on reading music. I would go through the music and laboriously pound out the notes a few times, but after a short while, I would rely much more on memory and sound than what was written on the sheet of paper. Of course, that failed once the music got too complex to just remember.
1 - 1 - 5 - 5 - 6 - 6 - 5~
4 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 1~
5 - 5 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 2~
5 - 5 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 2~
1 - 1 - 5 - 5 - 6 - 6 - 5~
4 - 4 - 3 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 1~
Transpose away…
I like 2-7-1 for that last three note run, but that’s me. Gives it a bit of sparkle for the finish.
Alright, so…I was singing in a SATB* choir, right. The notes were laid out in sheet music, and everyone was singing, and the conductor (it being rehearsal) was playing the notes we were supposed to sing on the piano–that way, if one didn’t know the note based on the sheet music, he or she could pick out the note that was higher/lower/highest/lowest and copy it.
What I was doing, that first rehearsal, was singing the tenor line (as it had the melody) even though I was a bass, and then going an octave down when it went too high. So, one set of notes might be** C1 up to E1 up to G1, but I was singing C1 up to E1 down to G0. Which, since no-one else was singing G0, was quite noticeable to people who could hear such things. Does that make sense?
*Soprano (high females) Alto (low females) Tenor (high males) Bass (low males)
**Made-up example
2-5-1 not 7. 7 would sound awful. Sorry about that. You could do 7-8 but it would sound strange. Not bad, just like it was waiting a bit.
The 7 below the 1? Nice…good example why the 7 is called the “leading tone”.
No, that 2 - 7 - 1 sounds cool (check it out). Of course 2 - 5 - 1 will sound good 
I can’t remember the last time I played TTLS so many times. The variations hip it up. Got any changes with good subs for it?
How about 5-7-8 for the last three notes?
I thought I was tone deaf for a long time. A music teacher once asked me to match notes with my voice, and not only coud I not do it, I was astonished that she thought anyone could without training. She might as well have asked me to read Greek out loud. She told me this meant I was tone deaf, and for years I believed her.
Recently I took a couple of on-line test for tone deafness. One asked me to decide if a midi tune had a wrong note or not. The other played a tune twice and asked me if they were the same. (I don’t remember which ones, but both of them were posted by academic researchers on the sites of research institutions. You should be able to find them or similar ones with Google.) On both tests, especially the second, I felt like I was guessing about half the time, but both showed that I have perfectly normal tone perception.
I tried the virtual keyboard that Gary T linked to, and while I don’t think i gave it quite ten minutes, it was perfectly clear I wouldn’t get the tune right in any reasonable amount of time. It was also very frustrating to me, because I could tell the notes were wrong, and they grated on my ears, but I couldn’t usually tell if they were sharp or flat.
I also rediscovered something I remember realizing as a kid when I played around with a keyboard: I have a tough time telling if a note is higher or lower than another note, even if I hear them both. I’m sure I could learn, but it doesn’t come easily to me. I also can’t hum accurately for the same reason. I can recognize Twinkle, Twinkle* when I hear it, and can tell if it’s played correctly, but I can’t hear it accurately in my mind, and when I try, I get it wrong. I spent the several minutes playing around with the virtual keyboard thinking that the third note was intermediate between the first and second notes. When I saw aruvqan’s transcription and taped it out, I immediately realized I was wrong, but I might never have gotten it on my own. I tried every variation of the first two notes I could think of and none of them seemed right to me.
It’s easy to believe that this is a sign of some hearing deficiency, but apparently it isn’t. We spend hours and hours as little children learning our colors, and I don’t know how well I could match a specific shade of blue from memory, nor a series of blues, especially if I had to pick out variations in hue from variations in saturation and brightness. Playing the blues–now that’s just beyond my ability. 
I remember in preschool learning the scale and knowing that the notes got higher as they went, but not understanding how I was supposed to know where to start or how much higher each note got. Actually, I think I remember my mother having to explain that higher did NOT mean louder. I think I still have trouble with that!
[quote=“Gary_T, post:62, topic:589118”]
Well, there you go. Even with a simple tune I couldn’t even get to the second “Twinkle” correctly.
I like that quite a bit. It’s a fun tune to play around with.
When I started secondary school, on the first day we had a music where we had a test like that. How many notes are being played at once, is this higher or lower than the last note, and then a little more complicated - which of these three/four/five notes is the highest, IIRC after 24 years (I remember it surprisingly well).
At that age I’d already realised that performing too well in front of your classmates wasn’t always going to go down well, but this seemed like one of those ‘check if you’re paying attention’ tests, no more. I scored 99% (the test had somehow been arranged so that no-one could score 100%), the next highest score was 70 something, then mostly in the twenties or below. It was actually a bit embarrassing.
If only I’d had the money to have music lessons. 
+1
When I’m listening to something, I can tell if a note is higher or lower and I can tell if it’s being played wrong.
If I’m recreating something from memory I can never remember if it’s higher or lower.
I will whistle whole songs to myself by just alternating between a single high and single low “note”.
As an experiment I just sang the soprano parts to the entire final concert I did in high school … roomie says that they were pretty much spot on. Not bad for a concert performed in May of 1980. I will confess that while I remembered the latin for Veni Veni, I had to do Laudamus in English instead of Welsh :smack: