Perfect Pitch Test Online with a Relative Pitch Mode
Press Start round, name twenty notes on twelve buttons with no reference tone, then read your score and the notes you mix up.
Press Start round. A note plays. Tap its name.
No permission needed. It opens at 10% volume. A score says nothing about how musical you are.
How it works
One note, one answer
A note plays and you press its name. In the plain rounds no answer is shown until the end, because a shown answer becomes a reference for the next note. The misses say more than the score.
Sample
7 of 20 right, median answer 3.1 s.
Score
7 of 20
Median answer
3.1 s
Missed most
F♯
How far off
7 at 1 semitone, 4 at 2 semitones, 2 at 5 semitones
20 notes
More options
Rounds, misses and anchors
Your runs in this tab
No round yet.
Your best score for each round is kept in this browser and nowhere else. No answer is sent anywhere.
How this test works
Each run draws its notes so that every note name comes up about equally and the same name never plays twice in a row.
Your answer is compared by note name, so any octave counts. The time of each answer is kept for the median.
Your best score for each round is kept in this browser only. Practice runs, where answers are shown, are never kept as a best.
On a keyboard, press A to G for a note, hold Shift for its sharp, and R to hear it again.
This perfect pitch test online plays twenty notes and asks you to name each on twelve buttons with no reference tone. You get a score out of 20, the pairs of notes you confuse and how far off each miss was. A relative pitch mode plays a labelled reference first. Start quietly.
Read the full guide
Name twenty notes cold
Press Start round, listen, then press a note name or type its letter, with Shift for a sharp. Replay, or the R key, repeats the note, and answers are timed. Right answers stay hidden until note 20. A shown answer would be a reference, a known note to judge the next by. It opens on Today's set, All twelve notes, one octave. If you score near guessing, about 1.7 out of 20, untick Today's set and pick White keys only under Round.
Read the misses, not just the score
The result sorts each miss by its distance, counted the short way round the twelve notes. Every miss off by the same amount means you followed the intervals from a wrong first guess. That is relative pitch, and Reference A first scores it. The page highlights the rows that fit your run, plus an anchor for each note you missed most.
Leave a minute between runs and do not hum the last note. A note still in your head is a reference.
Wear headphones for the five-octave round. Its lowest note is C2 at 65.41 Hz, which small speakers barely play.
Think you carry a tuning A in your head? Sing it into the voice pitch test and see how near 440 Hz you land.
Questions and answers
Can an online test prove I have perfect pitch?
No. This page counts how many of twenty notes you name, how far off the misses are and how long each answer takes. It cannot see how you reached an answer, so a high score may be absolute pitch or quick relative pitch from a remembered note. It never hands you a label.
What is the difference between perfect pitch and relative pitch?
Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, is naming or producing a note with no reference tone. Relative pitch is naming a note from its distance to one you already know. It is common among musicians and grows with training. Whether an adult can learn absolute pitch is still debated.
Does a low score mean something is wrong with my hearing?
No. Naming a note is an act of memory and labelling, not of keen ears, and this is not a hearing test. The page plays tones at whatever level your device is set to and measures nothing about your ears. If your hearing worries you, see a qualified professional.
All 30 rows
Quiz rounds 8
All twelve notes, one octaveTwenty notes drawn from C4 (261.63 Hz) up to B4 (493.88 Hz), twelve answer buttons and no reference tone. Every note sits inside one octave, so nothing changes from note to note except which of the twelve it is. Start here.
White keys onlyC, D, E, F, G, A and B between C4 and B4, on seven buttons. These are the notes that listeners tend to name best (see the row about sharps and flats), so this is the gentler half of the keyboard. With seven buttons blind guessing averages 2.9 right out of 20.
Black keys onlyC sharp, E flat, F sharp, A flat and B flat between C4 and B4, on five buttons. Each has a second name (C sharp is also D flat, because both names land on one key), and the buttons show both. If the full round goes wrong mainly on these five, practise them here.
Show all 30 rows (27 more)
Quiz rounds, continued
Starter round: C, E and GThree buttons for the three notes of a C major chord: C4 at 261.63 Hz, E4 at 329.63 Hz and G4 at 392 Hz. E is four semitones above C, and G is three above E. Blind guessing averages 6.7 out of 20 here and reaches 12 only about once in 77 runs, so 12 or more means you are hearing the difference.
All twelve notes, three octavesC3 (130.81 Hz) to B5 (987.77 Hz). The octave jumps about from note to note, which makes it harder to judge a note as simply higher or lower than the one before. You still answer with the note name alone: a pitch class is every pitch a whole number of octaves apart, so C3, C4 and C5 all count as C.
All twelve notes, five octavesC2 (65.41 Hz) to B6 (1,975.53 Hz), the widest round. Small phone and laptop speakers play the bottom octave weakly or not at all, which leaves you naming overtones, so use headphones or full-size speakers for this one.
Reference A firstRelative pitch mode. A4, 440 Hz, sounds first and is labelled on screen, then the test note follows and you work out the distance between the two. Relative pitch is common among musicians, above all those who play by ear, and it can be developed through ear training, so expect this score to climb with practice.
Reference C firstRelative pitch mode with middle C, 261.63 Hz, as home. The seven white keys are then the steps of the C major scale, so you can sing do, re, mi upwards from the reference until you land on the test note. Some teachers tie each interval to the first two notes of a well-known song.
What your misses tell you 8
Misses one or two semitones awayNear misses. Neighbouring notes differ by only 5.9 percent in frequency (a ratio of 1.0595), and two semitones make a whole tone, the step from C to D. Most neighbouring white keys are a whole tone apart; E to F and B to C are the two pairs only a semitone apart.
Misses a fourth or fifth awayC named as G, or G as C. After the octave these are the most closely related pair: a fifth is a frequency ratio of 3 to 2, and the third harmonic of any tone with overtones sounds a fifth above its second harmonic. You may be naming an overtone. Switch the tone to sine, which has no overtones, and compare.
Misses a tritone awaySix semitones, exactly half an octave (a ratio of 1.4142, the square root of 2), which is as far as one note name can be from another. A run with misses at every distance, this one included, reads as guessing.
Every miss off by the same amountIf each wrong answer is, say, two semitones flat, you followed the intervals from note to note accurately and hung them on a wrong first guess. That is relative pitch doing its job without an anchor. Take a reference round and the same ear should score high.
Sharps and flats missed, naturals rightA documented pattern. In a 1990 study of listeners with absolute pitch, most named the C major notes more reliably than the five black-key notes, which fits how much more often the white-key notes turn up in everyday music. Run Black keys only until the five stop blurring together.
Right with a reference, lost without oneThe usual result for a trained musician, and no failing. Relative pitch names a note from its distance to one you already know; absolute pitch needs no known note at all. They are distinct skills, and the first is the one that playing by ear, tuning and sight-singing depend on.
Low notes missed mostThe bottom octave of the five-octave round runs from C2, 65.41 Hz, to B2, 123.47 Hz. A small speaker plays those fundamentals weakly, so what reaches you is mostly overtones and the note name gets harder to pin down. Run the bass steps on the speaker and headphone test, or put headphones on.
Slow answers that come out rightThe page times every answer. A person with absolute pitch can reproduce a tone on an instrument without hunting for it. Correct answers that take several seconds usually mean a hunt: humming up or down from one remembered note, such as a tuning A. That is a real and useful skill, and it is built on relative pitch.
An anchor for each of the twelve notes 12
C, as in middle CC4 is 261.63 Hz, the C nearest the middle of a piano and the note a C clef marks. On the keyboard it is the white key just left of each pair of black keys. Octave numbers change at C, so the note one semitone below C4 is B3, not B4.
C sharp or D flat277.18 Hz in octave 4: the left-hand key in each pair of black keys. One key, two names: it is C sharp when the music has raised a C and D flat when it has lowered a D. The quiz gives both names one button.
D, an open string on violin, cello and guitarA violin's second-lowest string is D4, 293.66 Hz, and both the cello and the guitar have an open D3 at 146.83 Hz. On the keyboard D is the white key that sits between the two black keys of each pair.
E flat or D sharp311.13 Hz in octave 4: the right-hand key in each pair of black keys. Alto and baritone saxophones are E flat instruments: their written C sounds a concert E flat.
E, the outer strings of a guitarA guitar in standard tuning runs from E2, 82.41 Hz, on the thickest string to E4, 329.63 Hz, on the thinnest: one note name, two octaves apart. A violin's top string is the next E up, E5 at 659.26 Hz.
F, the note the bass clef marksThe bass clef is an F clef: its two dots sit either side of the line for F3, 174.61 Hz, the F below middle C. One octave up, F4 is 349.23 Hz, and the lower of the two tones in the North American dial tone, 350 Hz, is within 4 cents of it.
F sharp or G flat369.99 Hz in octave 4: the first key in each group of three black keys. It is six semitones from C in both directions, so it splits the octave exactly in half.
G, the note the treble clef marksThe treble clef is a G clef that curls round the line for G4, 392 Hz, a fifth above middle C. G3, 196 Hz, is the lowest open string of a violin. On the keyboard G is the white key between the first two of each group of three black keys.
A flat or G sharp415.30 Hz in octave 4: the middle key in each group of three black keys. Many ensembles that specialise in baroque music tune their A to 415 Hz, which is a modern A flat to within 2 cents, so a written A in their recordings sounds a semitone lower than on a piano.
A, the tuning noteA4 is 440 Hz by international standard (ISO 16), and a violinist tunes the A string to it first. The upper tone of the North American dial tone is also 440 Hz. Orchestras often tune a little higher, between 440 and 444 Hz, so a remembered concert A can sit up to 16 cents above this one.
B flat or A sharp466.16 Hz in octave 4: the last key in each group of three black keys. A B flat clarinet playing a written C sounds a concert B flat, and the common trumpet is a B flat instrument too.
B, one semitone under CB4 is 493.88 Hz, and B3, 246.94 Hz, is the second string of a guitar. B sits directly below C with no black key between them. In the 1990 study B was the odd one out among the white keys: named reliably, yet no more quickly than the black-key notes.
Reading a score against guessing 2
What blind guessing scoresWith twelve buttons each guess has a 1 in 12 chance, so guessing averages 1.7 right out of 20 and reaches 3 or more in about 23 percent of runs. Seven buttons lift that average to 2.9, five buttons to 4.0 and three buttons to 6.7. A score in this range tells you nothing yet, so drop to a smaller round.
Five or more right with twelve buttonsGuessing gets this far about once in 46 runs, so something real is at work, often two or three notes you know cold. At 10 or more the odds against luck pass 700,000 to 1. The page still cannot say whether that is absolute pitch or quick relative pitch from a remembered note: the answer times and the row about misses off by the same amount are your evidence.