Perfect pitch test
Hear 36 notes and name each one on a keyboard. A burst of random tones before every note stops you working it out from the last. Free, about 5 minutes.
Name 36 notes with nothing to compare them to.
Takes about 5 minutes. Headphones make it more accurate, but speakers work.
How it works
- 1Put on headphones if you have them, and press Start.
- 2After a short burst of random tones, one note plays. Tap its name on the keyboard. The octave doesn't matter.
- 3Answer from your ear rather than by singing up from another note. There's no time limit, but first instincts are usually best.
- 4After 36 notes you'll see how many you named exactly, how many you missed by one semitone, and what that means.
Questions
What is perfect pitch?
Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, is naming or singing a note without hearing a reference note first. It's rare: most people, including most professional musicians, don't have it. The skill musicians rely on day to day is relative pitch, hearing how notes relate to each other, and anyone can train it.
Why the burst of random tones?
Without it you could take the last note, if you knew its name, and work out the next one from the gap between them. That's relative pitch: a real skill, but not the one this test measures. The burst, and keeping consecutive notes at least a fifth apart, takes that shortcut away.
What counts as a pass?
You get two numbers: notes named exactly, and notes within one semitone, because people with perfect pitch often slip by a semitone on unfamiliar sounds. Guessing scores about 8% exact. 85% or more exact is a strong perfect-pitch signal; 50% exact, or 75% within a semitone, shows some absolute pitch.
Can I learn perfect pitch?
Perhaps, partly. In one study some adults trained to near-perfect note naming in eight weeks, but they were chosen for unusually strong auditory memory (Van Hedger and colleagues, 2019). For most people, training relative pitch reaches the same musical goals faster.
Do I need to read music?
You need to know the note names, and they're printed on the keyboard. If they mean nothing to you yet, try the tone deaf test or the singing test instead.