Introduction:
Although the benefits of musical training have been shown to affect a number of auditory processes, the question of how self-rated musical competence correlates with auditory perception remains largely unexplored. The present study aimed to investigate how self-perceived musical competence correlates with musicians’ ratings of their own abilities in speech perception, spatial hearing, and sound qualities.

Material and methods:
The Edinburgh Lifetime Musical Experience Questionnaire (ELMEQ) was administered on 57 instrumentalists aged 19 to 53 years (mean = 25.1 ± 4.9 years, 34 males and 23 females). All had normal hearing and had undergone formal training on musical instruments for 1–2 years. All of them also regularly practised music for at least 1–2 h/week. Based on their ELMEQ scores, they were divided into two groups: low (ELMEQ score ≤ 7; n = 12) and high (ELMEQ score ≥ 11; n = 16; self-perceived musical competence. Participants were sent a modified questionnaire from the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) using Google forms, and the data statistically analysed.

Results:
A Mann–Whitney U-test showed that participants with high self-rated musical competence had significantly higher ratings on the spatial hearing and sound qualities sub-domains of SSQ compared to their counterparts who had lower ELMEQ scores. However, both groups scored about the same on the speech perception domain of SSQ. A Spearman test revealed a moderate to strong positive correlation between self-rated musical competence and SSQ ratings in each domain.

Conclusions:
The findings show that instrumentalists with high self-rated musical competence exhibited high proficiency in the spatial hearing and sound quality domains of auditory processing.