Author Topic: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest  (Read 9537 times)

birdwork

  • Sub Bass
  • *
  • Posts: 29
  • Honor: 1
    • birdwork
    • View Profile
It's funny, and I don't take it too seriously, but this test ranks music at the lowest for me.

I get 60% left brain, mostly analytic (no surprise). Music all the way at the bottom of my 40% right brain. Curious what everyone else here gets!

http://www.arealme.com/left-right-brain/en/

Mussar

  • Administrator
  • Mid
  • *****
  • Posts: 631
  • Honor: 252
    • mussarmusic
    • mussarmusic
    • View Profile
    • My Site
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2016, 08:35:50 pm »
The left brain/right brain thing is actually a myth. We use both parts of our brain for all sorts of tasks, and there is no one specific activity regulated to one half of the brain - just a bunch of different smaller tasks ruled by specific sections of our brain that span both halves. Just google "Left brain right brain myth" for a dozen different articles on it (Same for the Meyers-Briggs personality test, by the way. You're not an ENFP or an INFJ, you're just a person).

We all want to have some simple answer to tell us what category of life we fit in, what kind of person we are, how we interact with people, what our life goals will be, and everything about our existence. It sucks to be ignorant, and we'd rather fit in a box than deal with ambiguity. It's easy to apply labels to everything so you can just go about your day, it's hard to analyze how complex and deep every individual human being's life and experiences have been. I can assure you if you had asked me ten years ago when I was about to graduate high school what I'd be doing with my life, "electronic dance music producer" was nowhere on that list. Keep yourself open and don't trust anyone to try and say you are one thing or you will always be one thing.

birdwork

  • Sub Bass
  • *
  • Posts: 29
  • Honor: 1
    • birdwork
    • View Profile
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2016, 09:08:55 pm »
Absolutely, Mussar! Tests like that oversimplify the amazingly complex and wonderful world we live in, I just thought it was funny it gave me such a poor score on music. It had one audio question, where it plays a wind & rain sample, and a sample of birds chirping, and asks you which you prefer. I was like, uhh both?

Joseph

  • Low Mid
  • **
  • Posts: 177
  • Honor: 33
  • just a guy trying to make some music
    • View Profile
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2016, 02:52:53 am »
Left/right brain just means rational/creative type of person. It's a myth that only half your brain is lit when doing creative work, but it's not a myth in the sense that different types of people lean towards being either a more rational or creative person. A "left brained" person will approach creating music like a machine, analyzing a bunch of music, and combining your knowledge to create something. A "right brained" person will just start making music based on their feelings/emotions and how the notes sound to them.
Obviously, if you want to be a successful producer, you still need to use a lot of your "left brain" to get to where you want to be quickly and efficiently.

In the end, I think it's silly to let a personality test to decide who you are. It's a good way to get a better sense of who you are, but it's not always right. I took the meyers-briggs test and a lot of it was spot on. If you like making music, then make the music, don't let some algorithm that may or may not be right decide who you are.
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal."
-Picasso

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."
-Steve Furtick

Nadav

  • Guest
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2016, 05:03:51 am »
Absolutely, Mussar! Tests like that oversimplify the amazingly complex and wonderful world we live in,

To be fair, all representational constructs (language, pictures, etc.) simplify the world we live in. You can't say the phrase "the world" without oversimplifying what "the world" actually is. The world is definitely more complicated than a little one-syllable noise or collection of five squiggles, right? But this kind of simplification is useful; it allows us to exchange and compare concepts, and build new concepts entirely.

Random tests on the internet have a well-earned reputation for being poorly constructed and useless, and I have enough trust in y'all's remarks about the one in question to not bother even clicking on it.

But there are tests that are well-constructed and provide useful measures of things. Measurements are good to have, even when they're measurements about complex things that are ultimately subjective (as anyone who's used EQ to control musical sounds knows). We can recognize which tests are useful because they have predictive power, and since they're useful they also tend to stay in use for a long time. The standard IQ test and to a much lesser extent the Meyers-Briggs personality test are two such examples: they have a tremendous amount of predictive power about a whole bunch of things (some of which researchers are still discovering), and they've both been in use for decades.

Stuff like "Who am I?" and "Should I be making music?" are complex questions. If we choose to incorporate it, the measurements and information provided by tests can help us determine how we want to think about those questions, but of course no single test or set of tests is general enough to answer them.

So, I'll go back to my EQ analogy: just because a sound can't objectively have a "good" or "bad" frequency spectrum profile doesn't mean that knowing what that profile looks like isn't helpful when you're trying to adjust it.

(Sorry, I know you started the thread as a kind of a light "haha check out this dumb quiz" thing and I just went full philosopher nerd on it...I've spent the whole weekend writing a theory-heavy academic paper so that's just how my mind is working I guess...but hopefully this can add something more than the "yeah, tests are stupid"/"people aren't just numbers" reaction.)

Lydian

  • Mid
  • ***
  • Posts: 512
  • Honor: 107
  • Hi! I'm Danny! Let's talk production! :)
    • View Profile
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2016, 03:21:37 am »
My personality type is INTJ. I am also incredibly analytical about a lot of things including music, relationships, human behavior, life, etc... I'm way to over reliant on logic and don't trust my emotions very much.

The good news for you is that music is literally applied mathematics. Analytical minds like me and you are able to use it as an advantage because we can hear patterns in music that other overly creative minds cannot. I have a friend who is a decent musician but she isn't able to conceive the relation between music and mathematics. People like Protoculture, Zedd, And BT all show high evidence that they are able to analyze music to an incredible extent.

Zedd mentioned that when he hears a song he likes the first thing he does is listens to it and tries to "analyze it" to figure out what it is he likes about it. Protoculture has an album out named "Music is more than Mathematics." BT also claims that mathematics is a huge inspiration for him.

All the music that I listen to I hear in numbers. You may not believe me but it's been this way ever since I studied music theory and was able to form the relationship between music and numbers. Even music arrangement is often looked at in even numbers of 2,4,8,16,32... but mostly 8 and 16. Musical form contains patterns in letter notation like strophic, binary, and tertiary form. When I write my themes I very consciously decide whether I want the song to be based off of only an 8 bar A section or also include a B section.

Just check out all the patterns you can find within music...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTE_W5SMP0Q

- This song for example contains both an A section and a B section. The B section only occurs at 2:25 until like 3:00. Therefore it's in binary form
- The chord progression in Theme A looks something I hear as v,VI,VII,i (5-6-7-8) The chord progression in Theme B looks something that I hear as VI,iv,i,III  with another variation as VI,iv,i,VII
- Theme A's bass is literally a 2 bar loop. The background vocal chop is a 2 bar loop. The drums are practically a 2 beat loop. (Kic snare)
-The structure of the track follows a very linear intro-verse-prechorus-chorus-verse-prechorus-chorus-bridge-chorus-outro form.
- The arrangement elements can be analyzed as Bass, Kick, Snare, Clap, Hi-hats,  Harmony, Lead, FX/Atmosphere, Transitions etc... (A lot of tracks can be analyzed like this actually)
-

There are so many patterns in music that you can find and utilize in your own music. Sound design, arrangement, mixing, mastering, composition, structure, can ALL be analyzed. Notes can be seen as numbers and chord progression as roman numerals. Structure can be seen as multiples of even numbers and composition can be divided as melodies, harmonies, themes, motifs, and countermelodies. Don't see an analytical mind as a limitation because in music it is a VERY strong trait. I would even go as far as to say that music is the perfect blend between symmetry and variation. Too much symmetry and the listener will get bored but to much variation and you create chaos.

Ironically, I scored 54% right brain and and 46% left brain. Not to surprising considering that music is the PERFECT mix of both logic and creativity.



« Last Edit: February 22, 2016, 03:27:22 am by Lydian »
A young 14 year old me with a really bad haircut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMbftWV75w

ZAU

  • Sub Bass
  • *
  • Posts: 135
  • Honor: 44
    • View Profile
Re: This personality test just insulted me by putting "music" at it's lowest
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2016, 03:37:10 am »
That was a fun, whether or not it's a myth! Based on the test, I am "Right Brain Inclined: Imagination", Right Brain 60%. Left Brain 40%. And music was second!


Mussar

  • Administrator
  • Mid
  • *****
  • Posts: 631
  • Honor: 252
    • mussarmusic
    • mussarmusic
    • View Profile
    • My Site

Lydian

  • Mid
  • ***
  • Posts: 512
  • Honor: 107
  • Hi! I'm Danny! Let's talk production! :)
    • View Profile
A young 14 year old me with a really bad haircut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eMbftWV75w