Perfect Pitch Test

How the perfect pitch test works

• You hear 20 single notes between C3 and C6. All 12 note names come up at least once, in random order and in random octaves.
• Only the note name counts, not the octave. Your first answer for each note is the one that is scored.
• You can replay a note as often as you like before you answer.
• Between notes you hear a short burst of random notes. It clears the last note from your ear, so you name each note on its own instead of working it out from the one before.

What is perfect pitch?

Perfect pitch, also called absolute pitch, is the ability to name or sing a note without hearing a reference note first. A person with perfect pitch can hear a single piano key, a bell or a car horn and say which note it is. It is rare, and many experienced musicians do not have it.

Perfect pitch vs relative pitch

Relative pitch is the ability to name a note by its distance from a note you already know. If someone plays C and then G, a person with relative pitch can hear that the second note is a fifth higher and work out that it is G. Perfect pitch needs no starting note. Relative pitch is the skill most ear training focuses on, and musicians build it through regular practice.

Can adults learn perfect pitch?

Scientific studies suggest that effortless absolute pitch develops almost exclusively during early childhood, usually before age seven or eight, when auditory sensory processing links naturally with verbal labels.

While adults rarely acquire universal absolute pitch from scratch, consistent ear training allows adult learners to develop strong pitch memory for specific familiar reference tones (such as concert A or middle C) and fast, flexible relative pitch. For musicians, well-developed relative pitch and pitch memory are practical, reliable, and more than sufficient for everyday playing, transcription, and improvisation.

How to read your score

There are 12 note names, so a random guess is right one time in 12. Over 20 notes, guessing gets fewer than 2 right on average.

• 18 to 20 correct: consistent with perfect pitch.
• 6 to 17 correct: well above guessing. Random guesses reach 6 or more fewer than one time in 200, so you have some memory for pitch.
• 0 to 5 correct: in the range of guessing, where most people score.

The result also counts answers that were one semitone away, such as F for F#, and lists the notes you missed most often, so you know which ones to practise.

Practise naming notes

Switch to Practice above to train with as many notes as you like. Start with C, D and E, then add notes as they get easier. When you miss, you hear the right note again so you can compare the two. After a test, the practice button starts you on the notes you missed.

To play the notes yourself, open the ScreenPiano virtual piano. To hear how notes combine, try the piano chord chart. If you are learning to play melodies by ear or with letters, browse our easy piano songs with letter notes.

Perfect pitch test questions