r/perfectpitchgang

Hello everyone - this community is in need of a few new mods, and you can use the comments on this post to let us know why you’d like to be a mod here. 

Priority is given to redditors who have past activity in this community or other communities with related topics. It’s okay if you don’t have previous mod experience and our goal, when possible, is to add a group of moderators so you can work together to build the community.

Please use at least 3 sentences to explain why you’d like to be a mod and share what moderation experience you have (if any).  

If you are interested in learning more about being a moderator on Reddit, please visit redditforcommunity.com. This guide to joining a mod team is a helpful resource. 

Comments from those making repeated asks to adopt communities or that are off topic will be removed. 

My son is learning the clarinet. One day he asked me whether you can train perfect pitch — he wanted to be able to do it too. I told him no, you're either born with it or you're not.

Then I actually looked it up, and I was wrong, at least partly. Two studies changed my mind: Van Hedger et al. (PLOS ONE, 2019) had adults train for about 8 weeks, and some of them reached genuine absolute-pitch performance and kept it months later. Wong et al. (Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 2020) trained adults for 12–40 hours, starting with three notes and slowly adding more up to all twelve; a minority (about one in seven in their preprint) ended up naming all 12 notes at 90%+. So: possible, for some, with a lot of practice. Not a miracle.

So I built him an app that starts the way Wong et al. trained people: three notes first, more only once you're accurate. You hear a note, you tap the note.

The newest update fixes something that bugged me: real pianos are stretch-tuned, the top octave sits up to ~35 cents sharp because that sounds right in music. For a pitch trainer that's wrong. The app now uses a real recorded grand (the free Salamander Grand, a Yamaha C5) with every one of the 60 notes retuned to exact A4 = 440 Hz, all within ±1.1 cents, measured. Before, it was a synthesized tone that sounded like a test signal.

What else it does: nine levels, from three notes with color hints up to chords and melodies. A "Weak Notes" mode drills the pitch classes you keep missing, and since the last update a wrong answer plays your note and then the right one, so you hear the difference instead of just seeing red.

The onboarding says what I learned, no more: full absolute pitch is mostly a childhood thing, but adults can measurably improve, and some get very far. I'd rather undersell that than promise a miracle.

It's iOS only, free to start; the higher levels are a one-time purchase (on sale until Oct 31). Link in the comments. I also have 20 free codes for the full version: leave a comment and I'll DM you one.

Happy to hear what training approach worked for you — and if anyone has perfect pitch, I'd genuinely like to know whether the piano sounds right to you.

(I'm not a native speaker, so I had AI help with the English. The story and the app are mine.)

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6762354184?pt=117720297&ct=reddit-perfectpitch&mt=8

I recorded this two weeks ago, the first chord is supposed to be F#dim but when I play it on the guitar it doesn't sound the same. did I press the wrong finger? Did I tune badly that day?

(The other two chords are F major and E major)