Well when starting the test didn't know how it would go, after the first couple of sounds I realized what it was about. Simultaneously some couple of notes followed by another couple, so that the sounds might feel as if go up and/or down in frequency. Whichever you seem to pick first or more easily, then matching with the target table (which depends on the intricacies of the intervals played I'm sure), seems to classify you as "fundamental" or "overtone" hearer.
Well, I don't have perfect pitch hearing, but I sang as a baritone in a choir for almost four years. We were trained to get acustomed to harmonies and simultaneous notes ("dibises" as our instructor called them) within our own kind of voice and with respect to the other voices in the choir (particularly with sopranos in our pieces, but then also with tenors and altos). We needed to anticipate those dibises and harmonies especialy when they had a tendency to go out of tune in the group, whichever the voice at fault. We had to feel those dibises and identify if they were in tune and were kept in tune while singing them. We were also encouraged to freely "enjoy" them, even though some times they sounded quite odd. We had to memorize how they sounded and how they felt for us to tackle them properly and confidently in concert. Also we were instructed to try to listen to higher pitch notes that we weren´t actually singing, but that could be heard (or perceived?) coming out of our voices somewhere when singing the dibises or harmonies (were those "higher harmonics" or "overtones"? not sure of the exact term in music, and in English).
In any case, I can easily hear both simulatenous tones in pretty much all the samples. Here´s my analytic description of what I heard. At least to me all samples sounded like two notes played simultaneously, followed by another couple of notes played simultaneously, in general it seems one higher in frequency than one of the previous, another lower in freq. than the other previous one.
Anyway, only in samples #3 and #6 it wasn't immediately obvious to me the decrementing "sound" or interval. In all the other cases I could hear both tones and perceive both an increment and a decrement played simultaneously with respect to the immediately preceding "dibise" (sort of, can't explain it better). So I decided to write the table indicating whichever type (increment or decrement) I could detect, and using Capital letters for the one that kind of stood out first to my ear.
Code:
Code:
[left]IncrDecr 1xX 2xX 3X 4xX 5Xx 6X 7Xx 8xX 9xX 10xX 11Xx 12Xx[/left]
What I can see from the table is that in general I seem to have a preference to detect the increments more easily. If I sort of normalize that table choosing one column only, the most easily detectable to me, it would be the following:
Code:
Code:
[left]IncrDecr 1-X 2-X 3X- 4-X 5X- 6X- 7X- 8-X 9-X 10-X 11X- 12X-[/left]
Which gives a score of 8/12 if I counted correctly. So it seems my ears are slightly in favor of fundamental tones. This doesn´t tell me much though, since I could clearly distinguish the simultaneous increment and decrement in 10 out of the 12 cases. Chose one in each case because the exercise ask us to do so, otherwise I would have just thought of those increments and decrements occuring simultaneously, without any reason to choose one vs. the other. As in the choir, we were expected and encouraged to be aware of all intervals, increments and decrements we were making (in fact, we were encouraged to learn all voices in the choir, not just our own).
Did this test with Grado SR60's plugged directly into the headphone out of my laptop. Took it two times to confirm which one, increment vs. decrement, stood out first or more easily.
