Saturday, November 10, 2007

Aptitude test

You Should Play the Violin

You are highly intelligent, and mastering difficult subjects never intimidates you.
And while you may not be musical yet, you have a good ear - and you're sensitive to subtle differences in music.

You are dedicated and studious. You have a great work ethic.
You study well under a teacher, and you don't mind repeating tasks or following instructions.

Expressive and moody, you are very likely to convey a variety of rich emotions through your music.
You are definitely a passionate person... passionate enough to truly love the violin.

Your dominant personality characteristic: your high intelligence

Your secondary personality characteristic: your sensitivity


I saw this on Maricello's blog, and of course I had to try it. I came up with violin on the first try, but wanting to explore other option kept going back to the questions to try different combinations of answers. I got violin almost all the time I answered that I wanted to play in a symphony, plus harp, piano, and lots and lots and LOTS of accordion with other combinations of answers. I think that whomever wrote this quiz could use a good music appreciation course. His/her knowledge of instruments appears to be very limited. Or perhaps they think the accordion is funny, so engineered the quiz to return that answer most of the time.

It reminds me of my first screening for musical aptitude. I was about five years old, and I sat with a man who asked me lots of very silly questions. The one I still remember had something to do with the voices of Mama Bear and Papa Bear, and where spatially you would put their relative voices. Well, I was getting suspicious of this guy and his nonsense, so feeling sure this was a trick question, I motioned that Papa Bear was high (with one hand up) and Mama Bear was low (with the other hand well below.)

Silly me. What instrument did they pair me with? The accordion. You know, the 'cello works that way, too, but this was pre-Suzuki and they didn't start kids on 'cellos at that age. I remember how easy it was to learn to play each hand's part, and how impossible to play them together. Of course, the teaching method went something like "Wow, each hand sounds really good. For next week I want you to play them together for me." Right. When I finally got around to taking piano lessons in much-later adulthood I was partially convinced I would never be able to play hands together. Thanks Pat, for for getting me past that fear. The teacher is so important.

One of my earliest scarring memories has to do with that accordion. The shop where I took my music lessons had an accordion band, probably 20 or 30 of us. After one performance I tripped on my way back to my seat and must have skidded 20 feet across the tile floor on top of my accordion. Great sled potential. Of course, everyone laughed. I'm sure it was pretty funny seeing a cute little girl with an accordion almost as big as she was skidding across the floor. And of course, I was mortified. I think the roots of all of my performance anxiety issues are in that evening.

6 comments:

Guanaco said...

I was seven when I got my first instrument - also an accordion! I remember really trying to learn how to play it, until my older brother decided to see how far he could stretch it apart...

Even though I begged, my parents did not replace it.

But it did spark an interest in music that eventually, if not belatedly, brought me to the cello.

Maricello said...

Interesting, my cello teacher also plays accordion. She always wanted to play as a child, and finally took it up a few years ago.

About high and low, I was working in the violin shop yesterday when a man came in to replace a string. "It's the high string," he said, "the G string." I said, "oh, you mean the E string." No, he meant high as in the string with the highest elevation as you hold the violin in playing position.

So sorry about your accordion slide, but it does sound amusing!

Melissa said...

Apparently I should play the violin, too. Ummm...I'm thinking NOT!

But I never played the accordian. Somehow, I'm okay with that.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but LOL about the accordian story. I have photos of my grandmother as a young woman playing her accordian while standing on and rolling an oil barrel across the farm. She played accordian and piano "by ear". I tried barrel rolling and piano playing and, unfortunately, was never particularly successful at either.

T. said...

I got paired up with a harp. Would never have figured that... :)

Thanks for the Veterans' Day mention!

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