Is anyone here a MENSA member?

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i'd love it if they did a musical IQ test, i don't mean a test about bands/artists, a test about harmony, rhythm, timbre, maybe i should make one...

questions start off easy like...

the whole tone scale has a:

1. natural 4th
2. sharpened 4th
3. flattened 4th

^.^

I don't think I would want to be in MENSA either. I would be idealistical about it before joining then end up being completely disillusioned and start viewing the experience in a negative way.

That would just be a factual test, though. Anyone could memorize that information. It would be no different from a history test or a science test. A musical IQ test would have to test things like someone's ability to discriminate different tones, or their ability to remember and replicate different rhythms, or something like that.

The WISC and WAIS do include one or two subtests that rely on general knowledge (note, not just knowledge in a specific area but very broad knowledge), but I don't think those sections belong on an IQ test anyway. For one thing, there is tremendous cultural and educational bias.

Member, albeit inactive.


M.

Yeah, I forgot to point out that I am a member on paper. Never done anything about it.

i guess the associated board music theory exams are kind of a musical IQ test, you have to transpose things, do time signature stuff, which is, i guess, an amalgamation of music and maths, and stuff like that

MENSA is just for poncey stuck up eejits that want to feel superior.

LOL thats what I thought

If you wanted to develop a musical IQ test then I would think along the lines of:

If we wanted to measure intelligence then I would look at a collection of people and determine (on a personal scale) who is intelligent and who is not intelligent. I would then attempt to simply rank them. I would then cluster the top few and see what they have in common which the less intelligent could not do. If you think about it for long enough you should be able to spot things that the more intelligent can do (even if it is what the less intelligent can do but slower), you can then develop a test to pick those traits out. This doesn't mean your test will always work but it could be a good indicator! I would say my brother is musically intelligent since we went from grade 3 to his dipolma in a year! The trick is to find unity in diversity.

I believe it would be possible to develop the said test, it may just take some time. We can already tell a good musician from a bad musician so how does one quantify this?

Sounds like your math is more sophisticated than mine. So who has bigger pants, a gluttonous midget or an anorexic basketball player?

Bras, shirts, and shoes are also two variable systems, more complex than intelligence. Would the same apply to them?

Since it's a single variable system, was Einstein more intelligent than Mozart?

technique, compositional skills, use of hamony, rhythm, etc, "soul" (when relevant to the genre), innovation...something like that? of course these are still just large generalised words..

One of the topics I study is the concept of measure, what are the fundamental principals of quantifying this like: how long is a line? how much water is in my glass? whats the probability that it rains? They all follow the same principals (For technical detail:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_theory)

The thing is with abstraction that sometimes what we think we understand may actually be tied down by too many assumptions. The question originally was about the ability to 'measure' a bi-variate quantity though a single number. Which I gave you. Now you have re-formulated the question by asking 'Is the measure ordered?' (by ordered I mean that the relation < or > is well defined), this doesn't hold in general theory for specific cases.

So in answer to your question, for any system quantified in size by N variables I can define a single size parameter S = (2^a)(3^b)(5^c)(7^d)...(p^z) where p is the Nth prime number and z is the Nth variable. Remember also that letters can be enumerated as can any finite set of parameters. Suppose I have a random object sized by a number 0-9 and a letter A-E then I can define a size s by s = (2^x)(3^y) where x is the number and y is the number representing the letter. Then say s = 36 tells me that s=(2^2)(3^3) and so our object is sized as 2C, similary s = 144 = (2^4)(3^2) so this object is 4B.

and for your last question: Cannot collect data from either of them so its a matter of debate

Now you need to find a way of ranking these for individuals using a test.

I know when I research I feel the need to get it perfect first time, but with science things evolve. The important thing is getting the idea going, showing how the rest of the world should follow.

You took the words right out of my mouth

Proof?

I would enjoy joining MENSA. The problem with me joining is the amount of stress I have when timed. I have to leave an hour before class starts and get to class 45-30 minutes early to not stress about time.

The only 'real' IQ test I took was after the proctor tested my crash and recovery mental functions with a verbal numerical test in 5 5 minute incraments with increasingly limited time to respond. Needless to say after going through the mangle I only scored "from Superior to Very Superior" But hey, he gave me the Inkblot test "just for fun" and he didn't my sister!=)