How does the perfect pitch test work?
A single note plays, in a random octave, and you name it on a one-octave keyboard. There are 24 notes, each of the 12 twice, in a random order. You only see how you did at the end: knowing whether you named the last note right would give you a reference to work the next one out from.
Your result is how many notes you named exactly, with how many were within a semitone. Guessing gets about 2 right, so that is the score to beat.
What is perfect pitch?
Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, is naming or singing a note without hearing any other note first. Many trained musicians have relative pitch instead: given one note, they can work out the others. That is why this test hides the reference. Perfect pitch is rare: a 1993 review by Takeuchi and Hulse estimated fewer than 1 in 10,000 people have it in North America and Europe.
Can you learn perfect pitch?
It seems to depend a lot on when you start. In a 2006 study in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Diana Deutsch and colleagues tested music students in the United States and China: the earlier their musical training began, the more of them had perfect pitch, and at every starting age it was far more common among the Mandarin speakers, whose language uses pitch to tell words apart. The authors suggested the ability is easiest to gain in early childhood, while language is being learned.
Is this a hearing test?
No. Naming notes depends on musical memory, not on how well your ears work, and the test plays through whatever speakers you have. If you're worried about your hearing, see a hearing professional.
To test how finely you compare two notes instead, try the Pitch Discrimination Test; to test your timing, the Rhythm Test.
What can affect your Perfect Pitch Test result?
The notes range over three octaves, from C3 to B5, and are tuned to the usual standard, A above middle C at 440 Hz. Each is a synthesised piano-like tone, played through your speakers. Very small speakers play the lowest notes weakly, which can make them harder to place, so headphones help.