Chopinly › tools › Pitch pipe

The pitch pipe

Any note, any octave, in tune. Tap a note and a sustained reed-like tone holds until you tap again.

Open the pitch pipe free · no sign-up · works offline

What it does

Twelve notes, laid out as a ring. Tap one and it sounds — a warm, sustained tone with enough harmonics to be easy to match by ear — and keeps sounding until you tap it again or tap another. Choose the octave so a bass gets a low reference and a soprano a high one. The note name shows both spellings where they differ (C♯ and D♭), and the reference pitch A4 can be set between 430 and 450 Hz so the pipe agrees with the piano in the room.

Why a pipe and not the piano

A pitch pipe gives one note, holds it, and does nothing else. That is its virtue. Before sight singing you want the tonic in your ear without the rest of the keyboard tempting you to play the melody. Choirs and vocal ensembles have used pitch pipes for a century for the same reason; this one simply lives in your phone and is always in tune.

Where it fits in Chopinly

• Before sight singing. Sound the tonic, sing the scale, then start the exercise. The sight-singing tool counts you in with the tonic chord as well, but a held tone is easier to lock onto.
• Before ear training when you want to anchor the key in your ear.
• Checking a memorised starting pitch. Sing the first note of the piece, then sound it, and see how close you were — the beginning of relative pitch.
• Tuning by ear. Sound an A and tune the violin to it, then check with the tuner.

Details

• Runs in the browser, installs to the home screen, works offline.
• No ads, no account, no tracking. Octave, volume and A4 are remembered on your device.
• The tone is synthesized on the Web Audio clock, so it starts instantly and never crackles.