MusicReasonPitch, Tuning, Intonation, and Fret Geometry
Is my pitch drifting over this session?
Enter a series of cent-deviation readings over time, one at a time. This tool summarizes the series with a median, range, and a labeled descriptive trend slope. It is a local trend review only, never a diagnosis of why any drift occurred; samples stay in your browser unless you explicitly export a numeric summary yourself.
Answer
Want to learn more? Tuning, Cents, Temperament, and Reference Pitch
Understand
A single cents reading only tells you where a pitch is at one moment; a series of readings over time can reveal whether that pitch is trending in a direction, which is a fundamentally different kind of question. This tool labels that trend a slope, in cents per second, and states plainly that a slope describes a pattern in the numbers, not a cause behind it.
Worked examples
A series of readings that never actually change value always produces a slope of exactly zero, correctly reporting no trend. A series that rises by a steady amount every second produces a positive slope matching that exact rate, computed by ordinary least-squares regression across every entered point, not just the first and last.
Method and limitations
The median and range come directly from the entered cents values; the slope is a standard least-squares linear regression of cents against time. A noticeably larger-than-typical gap between two consecutive sample times is flagged as a gap in the review rather than silently smoothed over or treated as missing data to interpolate. Samples exist only in this page's active browser state and are never sent anywhere; an optional local CSV export contains only the numeric time-and-cents series you entered, never audio or any other derived signal.
A positive slope means the tracked pitch trended sharp over the session and a negative slope means it trended flat, but the tool deliberately stops there: a rising trend could mean a string slipping out of tune, an embouchure fatiguing, a room warming up, or simply a different note being played each time a sample was taken. Distinguishing between those causes needs context this tool never collects, which is exactly why "trend" and "cause" are kept as two separate, clearly labeled ideas rather than blurred into one diagnosis.