Note identifier by sound: hear a note, see its name

A note identifier by sound listens through your phone's microphone and tells you which musical note you just sang or played, such as A4 or C#3, along with its frequency in Hz and how many cents sharp or flat it is. Tonarly is a free music note detector app for iPhone and Android: hum, sing, or play one note on piano, guitar, violin, or ukulele and the name appears in under a second.

Hear a note, see the name

1. Open Tonarly and allow microphone access (the only permission it needs).
2. Sing, hum, or play a single clear note.
3. Read the result: note name and octave, frequency in Hz, and a cents value showing how far you are from the center of the note.

That's useful when a song is stuck in your head, when you want to know the first note of a melody, or when you're checking which key you just pressed on an unlabeled keyboard.

Voice vs instrument: what Tonarly is best at

Tonarly identifies one note at a time from live sound, and that works for voice and for instruments. For singing, the Pitch Monitor tab (see our voice pitch analyzer guide) follows your voice continuously, so you can see whether you are holding the note or drifting. For instruments, play one note cleanly and let it ring. When you strum or press several notes at once, chord detection (Pro) names the chord and the notes inside it.

It identifies notes from sound only. It does not scan or read sheet music.

How note identification works

Every musical note has a fundamental frequency. A4 is 440 Hz, and each octave up doubles it, so A5 is 880 Hz. A note detector measures the frequency of the sound coming into the mic, finds the nearest note on the standard scale, and shows how far off you are in cents (100 cents is one semitone). Tonarly does all of this on your phone; your audio is never recorded or uploaded.

For the cleanest result:

• Use a quiet room; background voices or music can confuse any detector.
• Play or sing one note at a time and hold it for a second or two.
• Keep the phone about 30 cm (1 ft) from the sound source.

Practice uses for singers and learners

• Find your starting note: hum the first note of a song and see what it is before you sing.
• Learn the keyboard: press a piano key and check its name to learn note positions by sound.
• Check your ear: guess a note you hear, then confirm it with the app.
• Find your range: sing your lowest and highest comfortable notes and write them down.

FAQ

Related

• Tonarly: vocal pitch monitor and music note identifier for iPhone and Android
• Voice pitch analyzer: what it shows and how to use it
• What is a vocal pitch monitor?
• How to practice singing pitch with a pitch monitor
• Singing tuner app vs vocal pitch monitor
• More singing and pitch guides on the blog