Listen to two short tones and say whether the second is higher, lower or the same. An adaptive staircase makes the gap smaller each time you are right, so in a few minutes you find the smallest pitch difference your ears can detect.
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🎧 Headphones in a quiet room give the best result.
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Can you hear which tone is higher?
You will hear two short tones. Decide if the second one is higher, lower or the same as the first. The difference shrinks when you are right and grows when you are wrong, until the test finds the smallest pitch change you can hear.
Trial 1Difference: 200 cents
1first tone
2second tone
Listen…
Your pitch discrimination threshold
0cents
Your staircase: pitch difference on each trial (log scale)
Your previous results
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How to use the Tone Deaf Test
Put on headphones, press Play sample tone and set a comfortable, moderate volume.
Press Start test. Two tones play one after the other; the circles light up as each one plays.
Answer Higher, Lower or Same for the second tone compared with the first. Press Play again if you missed it.
Keep going: the difference gets smaller when you are right and bigger when you are wrong.
Read your threshold in cents and Hz, and check the staircase chart to see how you converged.
Cents, semitones and hertz
Pitch differences are measured on a logarithmic scale because our ears hear frequency ratios, not fixed differences in hertz. The interval in cents between two frequencies is c = 1200 × log₂(f₂ ÷ f₁). The table converts common thresholds into hertz at the reference pitch A4 = 440 Hz.
Difference
Semitones
Second tone (from 440 Hz)
Change in Hz
Change in %
5 cents
0.05
441.27 Hz
1.27 Hz
0.29%
10 cents
0.10
442.55 Hz
2.55 Hz
0.58%
25 cents
0.25
446.40 Hz
6.40 Hz
1.45%
50 cents
0.50
452.89 Hz
12.89 Hz
2.93%
100 cents
1 (semitone)
466.16 Hz
26.16 Hz
5.95%
200 cents
2 (whole tone)
493.88 Hz
53.88 Hz
12.25%
How the adaptive staircase works
Instead of testing every difference many times, the test follows your answers. It starts at 200 cents (a whole tone). After two correct answers in a row the difference is divided by the step factor; after any wrong answer it is multiplied by it. The direction changes are called reversals. Once you reach the target number of reversals (6, 8 or 12), the test averages the later reversal points. This rule (Levitt's 2-down 1-up procedure) settles where you answer correctly about 70.7% of the time, a standard definition of a discrimination threshold.
Tips for an accurate result
Use wired headphones or decent speakers. Tiny laptop speakers distort low and high tones.
Keep the volume moderate. Louder is not better and can be tiring.
Focus on the direction of the jump between the two tones, as if it were the first two notes of a tune.
Take the test twice. The first run includes some learning, and the second is usually more representative.
Frequently asked questions
What does tone deaf mean?
In everyday speech, tone deaf means someone who cannot sing in tune. The scientific term is amusia: a lifelong difficulty perceiving pitch and melody, estimated to affect roughly 1.5 to 4% of people. Many people who think they are tone deaf can actually hear pitch differences well and simply have not trained their singing voice.
What is a cent?
A cent is a unit for pitch intervals: 100 cents make one semitone (the step between two adjacent piano keys) and 1200 cents make one octave. Two tones c cents apart have frequencies in the ratio 2^(c/1200). For example, 10 cents above 440 Hz is 440 × 2^(10/1200) ≈ 442.5 Hz.
How is my threshold calculated?
The test uses a 2-down 1-up staircase: two correct answers in a row make the difference smaller, one wrong answer makes it larger. Steps are a factor of 2 at first and √2 after the first two turning points (reversals). Your threshold is the geometric mean of the last reversals, ignoring the first two, which corresponds to about 71% correct.
What is a good result?
As a rough guide: under 10 cents is excellent and typical of trained musicians, 10 to 50 cents is common for untrained listeners, and needing more than 100 cents (a semitone) suggests real difficulty following melodies. Fatigue, volume, cheap speakers and a noisy room all make results worse.
Why are there 'same' trials?
Same-pitch trials catch guessing. If you often hear a change when there is none, you may be relying on a bias rather than on the sound. They do not change the staircase; they are reported separately. You can switch them off for a classic two-choice higher/lower test.
Can this test diagnose amusia?
No. It measures pitch discrimination for pure tones in one session, which is only one part of musical perception. Clinical assessments such as the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia also test melody, rhythm and memory under controlled conditions. If you are concerned about your hearing, see an audiologist.
Why does the base pitch change every trial?
The first tone varies randomly between 350 and 700 Hz so you have to compare the two tones of each pair, instead of remembering one fixed reference pitch across the whole test.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
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