Pitch accuracy is how close each note you sing is to the note you aim for, measured in cents: 100 cents make one semitone. This free test plays a note, you sing it back, and you get the error for each note, a score out of 100 and whether you tend to sing sharp or flat. No microphone? Use the Hear the difference tab for a fine pitch hearing test.
Pitch Accuracy Test
Hear a note, sing it back and see how many cents sharp or flat you were. Or test your ear: can you tell which of two tones is higher?
A note plays; sing it back on “ah” and hold it steadily for about a second. Headphones help, so the microphone hears only you.
Press Start and allow microphone access. Sound is analysed in your browser; nothing is recorded or uploaded.
Top bar: microphone level · bottom bar: hold the note until it fills
Your pitch accuracy
- Accuracy score
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- Notes in tune
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- Average error
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- Sharp or flat?
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- Steadiness
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- Settings
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| # | Target | You sang | Cents | Result |
|---|
Two short tones play. Choose whether the second tone was higher or lower than the first. Each right answer makes the next pair closer together, until the test finds the smallest pitch difference you can hear. It takes 2–3 minutes. Use headphones in a quiet room.
No microphone needed. Set a comfortable volume first.
Your pitch hearing
- Smallest difference you can hear
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- At A4 (440 Hz) that is
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- Pairs answered
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- Correct answers
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A guide for practice, not a medical or hearing test. Sing gently and stop if anything feels strained.
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How to Take the Pitch Accuracy Test
- On the Sing the note tab, choose Your voice: Lower voice (G2 to D4), Middle voice (C3 to G4) or Higher voice (G3 to D5). The target notes come from that range, so you never have to strain.
- Choose what counts as in tune: Relaxed (±30 cents), Standard (±20 cents, the default) or Strict (±10 cents). Then choose 5, 10 or 20 notes.
- Press Start singing test and allow microphone access. A note plays. When it stops, sing it back on “ah” and hold it steadily.
- When the bottom bar fills (about one second of steady singing), the note is scored. Press Next note to continue. Use Replay note to hear it again, or Skip note to move on (a skipped note scores 0).
- After the last note, press See results, then Copy result to save them or Test again for a new round.
Singers often match a note an octave lower or higher than the one played. With Accept the same note in any octave ticked (the default), that counts as a match, and the result table tells you which octave you sang in. Untick it for a strict test in the exact octave.
What Pitch Accuracy Means
A cent is one hundredth of a semitone, the step between two neighbouring piano keys. The distance between two pitches in cents is 1200 × log2(f1 ÷ f2), and 50 cents is exactly halfway to the next note. This test uses standard tuning with A4 = 440 Hz.
This is a pitch matching test: you hear a note and sing it back. It does not test perfect pitch (absolute pitch), which is naming or singing a note with no reference at all. A high score means you match notes you hear well, not that you have perfect pitch.
How Your Pitch Accuracy Is Scored
The test finds the middle (median) pitch of the note you held, skipping the first part of it, where many singers slide into the note. It then compares that pitch with the target and gives points:
| How far off | What it sounds like | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 0–5 cents | Spot on | 100 |
| about 10 cents | Very close | 89 |
| about 20 cents | Close, but you may hear it | 67 |
| about 35 cents | Clearly sharp or flat | 33 |
| 50 cents or more | Halfway to the next note, or a wrong note | 0 |
Points fall in a straight line between these rows. Your accuracy score is the average of the points across all notes, so a note that was not heard, or that you skipped, counts as 0.
Understanding Your Results
- Accuracy score (out of 100): one number you can compare from one test to the next.
- Notes in tune: how many notes landed within the tolerance you chose.
- Average error: the average distance from the target in cents, sharp or flat.
- Sharp or flat? Shown as a tendency only when at least 3 notes were close enough to judge, you were off by 5 cents or more on average, and at least 60% of those notes leaned the same way. Otherwise it says there is no clear tendency.
- Steadiness: how much the pitch moved while you held each note: Very steady, Steady, Some wobble or Unsteady.
- Note table: the target, the note and Hz you sang, the error in cents and a result (In tune, Flat, Sharp, Wrong note, Skipped or No note) for every round.
What Is a Good Pitch Accuracy Score?
| Score | What the test tells you |
|---|---|
| 90–100 | Excellent: almost every note right in tune |
| 75–89 | Good: most notes in tune or very close |
| 50–74 | Fair: usually close, with some notes drifting |
| Below 50 | Needs practice: many notes more than a quarter of a semitone off |
These bands describe your result in this test, not you as a singer. The score changes between rounds because the notes are random, and it depends on your voice setting, tolerance and how many notes you sing, so compare tests that use the same settings.
Pitch Accuracy vs Pitch Stability
Accuracy is where a note lands. Stability is how much it wanders while you hold it. Because the score uses the middle of the held note, a small wobble does not ruin it, but wide swings show up as “Some wobble” or “Unsteady” in the Steadiness result. Steadiness is not part of the score. If you want to add a controlled wobble on purpose, see learning a steady vibrato.
The Fine Pitch Test: Higher or Lower?
The Hear the difference tab tests your ear, not your voice, and needs no microphone. It plays two short tones and you choose whether the second was higher or lower. It starts with a gap of 100 cents (one semitone). Two correct answers in a row make the gap smaller, and a mistake makes it bigger. The test ends after 8 turning points, or 60 pairs, and gives the smallest difference you can reliably hear.
Each pair starts on a different random pitch, so you compare the two tones instead of remembering one note. Use headphones in a quiet room. It takes 2–3 minutes. The result shows your threshold in cents, what that means at A4 (440 Hz), how many pairs you answered and how many you got right.
| Hearing result | What the test says |
|---|---|
| 6 cents or less | Very fine pitch hearing |
| 6–20 cents | Normal pitch hearing |
| 20–50 cents | Slightly coarser than average; ear training usually helps |
| 50–100 cents | Coarse; differences under about half a semitone were hard to tell apart |
| 100 cents or more | A semitone or more was hard to tell apart; retest with headphones in a quiet room |
These bands are this tool’s own guide, not clinical norms. This is a practice tool, not a hearing test or a medical or diagnostic result. If you have concerns about your hearing, ask a hearing or music specialist.
Is It Your Ear or Your Voice?
Compare the two tabs. If your singing score is low but your hearing result is about 20 cents or less, you can hear small differences, so the work is linking what you hear to what your voice does. If both are low, retest the hearing tab with headphones in a quiet room. If your hearing result is good and your singing score is high too, try the Strict setting.
Why Singers Go Sharp or Flat
- Notes outside your comfortable range. Accuracy often drops at the edges. Choose a different voice setting, and read about singing outside your tessitura.
- Tension. Pushing or tightening, especially on higher notes, can pull a note sharp.
- Tiredness or no warm-up. Low energy, especially at the end of a phrase, can let a note sink flat.
- Not hearing yourself. Loud backing tracks or a loud room make pitch drift. In a group, see holding your choir part in tune.
How to Improve Your Pitch Accuracy
- Warm up first. A short routine from vocal warm-ups for beginners gets the voice ready.
- Use Replay note to hear the target again before you sing. Listen, then sing a steady “ah”.
- Read the Sharp or flat? line. One consistent direction is easier to correct than random errors.
- Retest with the same settings and compare your score and average error.
Microphone, Accuracy and Privacy
- Use headphones so the microphone hears only your voice, not the target tone. Test in a quiet room with your phone or microphone at arm’s length.
- Sing one clear voice on an open vowel like “ah”. Music playing in the room, several voices, whispering and humming are harder or impossible to measure. The detector follows pitches from about 60 to 1,400 Hz.
- The singing test needs microphone access on a secure (https) page. If your browser blocks the microphone, the hearing test still works without it.
- Sound is analysed in your browser while you sing, and the tool does not record or upload it. Read the privacy policy and how our tests measure pitch for the wider site.
- This is a practice guide, not medical advice. Sing gently and stop if anything feels strained.
Pitch Accuracy Test FAQ
What is a good pitch accuracy score?
A score of 75 or more is Good, and 90 or more is Excellent in this test. A note within 5 cents scores full points, and a note 50 cents off scores 0.
How many cents off is out of tune?
It depends on the tolerance you pick. The test counts a note as in tune within ±20 cents by default, ±30 on Relaxed and ±10 on Strict. At 50 cents you are halfway to the next note.
Why does my score change each time?
The target notes are random within your voice setting, and no note repeats twice in a row. Your voice also varies from day to day. Compare tests with the same settings.
What is a fine pitch test?
A fine pitch test finds the smallest pitch difference you can hear between two tones. The Hear the difference tab does this with higher-or-lower pairs and gives the result in cents.
Can it score a whole song?
No. It scores single held notes, one at a time, against a target tone you hear first.
Do I need headphones?
They are strongly recommended. Without them the microphone can pick up the target tone from your speakers. The test ignores the microphone while the tone plays, but headphones give the cleanest result.
Is my voice recorded or uploaded?
No. Sound is analysed in your browser as you sing and is not recorded or uploaded by the tool. The hearing test does not use the microphone at all.