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Comment by 0x416c6578 | Hacker News Reader

An "impossible" mode could remove the sound played when selecting a note. Only those with perfect pitch would be able to get it though (or someone using another piano / keyboard for reference).

As a slight aside, I have always wondered (and never really found a conclusive answer) whether it's possible to train your absolute pitch perception. I have perfect pitch so I can't really test myself fairly (although it does make this puzzle very easy for me!). I've read on multiple occasions that exposure / training as a child is the best way to get it for life, and being musical as a kid might explain my ability to detect absolute pitch.

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It is technically possible to acquire as an adult, but challenging: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18227794, also https://news.uchicago.edu/story/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-...

I've always had great relative pitch but not "perfect pitch"; hearing a note out of the blue without any known context and being able to name it was always a struggle for me, but I did manage to do it first try on this quiz. Different timbres make it easier or harder in my experience. I'm also pretty sure the only reason I can do it now is because with age I got some hearing loss that's not evenly distributed across frequencies so now the difference between different notes is more pronounced.

It's possible but for anyone who would actually care to acquire it (i.e. musicians), relative pitch is just as useful for any task that matters and much easier to acquire. Most acquire it by accident. And arguably, perfect pitch isn't desirable anyway, since standard 12-tone equal temperament is not the "perfect" form of music by any measure. The tuning basis of 440hz is completely arbitrary, and there are plenty of examples of the tuning in any genre being changed (usually to a higher pitch) for excitements' sake. Plus, mathematically any form of dynamic just intonation is superior to fixed 12-tone equal temperament. Relative pitch remains useful in these contexts, while absolute pitch does not.

> relative pitch is just as useful for any task

relative pitch is not just useful, it is absolutely mandatory to do any music at all. Absolute pitch on the other hand is just a convenience.

There's plenty of percussion instruments where pitch isn't a concern at all.

But enough where it does matter that a percussionist will probably have to consider pitch often enough.

I remember reading a paper ages ago that claimed perfect pitch rates were higher in populations whose 1st language was tonal - if true that's support that it is to some degree evidence of learn-ability, but maybe only extremely young (even pre-language).

This is well-established: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

There's good evidence that adults can learn. Studies show that adults who practice everyday achieve significantly better than random scores on tests of perfect pitch.

Or maybe make it so there’s no backspace? It’s a bit easy in it’s current form.

@aidos Did you try "hard" mode, out of curiosity? If that's still easy, maybe an "impossible" mode with 3 listens, 8 tiles, and no backspaces is something we can do...

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