I heard a few times that if you play the violin (or any string instrument) then you become pitch perfect. I understood why that would happen but as i wasn't a violinist i never thought about it.

I always had quite a good ear but wasn't able to recognise notes by hearing them. I've now been playing violin for just over 5 months, and have practised intonation in detail every day since day 1, and now not always but quite often i'm able to recognize notes by hearing them. I dunno if it has anything to do with playing violin and all the daily intonation exercises etc. but i'm guessing it must do. =/

How many of you have perfect pitch? Has anyone been playing violin for years but not have perfect pitch?

I'm really hoping it develops into perfect pitch It's actually really weird, i'm like "that was a D, and that was an A... wait, how on earth do i know that??" and i check it and the notes are right. it's very weird XD

Many, many of us!!! (The latter, that is!)

hmm. maybe strings players are more sensitive to intonation as our fingers have to be very precise in where we place them. changes in position and scales that go higher and higher on the highest string... it's natural that string players' sense of intonation will sharpen over time.

maybe you could tell that those notes were D and A because they're... violin open strings? well, these are the 4 basic notes that any violinist should recognise anywhere.

I don't have a perfect pitch yet, even though I've been playing for about... 9 years or so. probably because my piano is tuned to 435, which is quite low. I play the piano more than the violin, so it might have affected my perfect pitch somehow.

P.S. this is why my friends groan and curse when they get a string player (especially violinists) for their ABRSM exams.

I'd never considered the fact that I could have perfect pitch until someone suggested that they thought I did a few weeks ago. I'm still not entirely sure that I have it, I just thought that most instrumentalists could hear a note and name it. I think I'll have to do some more research. But I can see why playing a string instrument might help I suppose - and I've been playing for 6 years.

Excellent and very sensitive relative pitch, but not perfect pitch. However, I do know of several string players who've gradually 'learned' what what one could loosely term as perfect pitch.

I can now tune my violin perfectly (check it with a digital tuner afterwards) without any help, from 12 years of it...I now found I can tell some keys, like E major, and E flat minor, and G minor...don't know why some and not others. And my relative pitch is very good. I guess this is one of the better things that comes of uncountable hours of scales and crappy intonation work...

I wouldn't say I have perfect pitch however I've been told I have relative pitch as due to the 'cello I can pitch an A and I have also used the tuning of the open strings of the 'cello (C,G,D,A) to develop my sight singing

The other way around (perfect pitch = string players) isn't always to the players liking My friend who is fortunate enough to have perfect pitch played violin for 4 years and hated it, everyone told him he played beautifully but all he could think to himself was "Why are they telling me this I was so flat!"

I'm not a string player, but I've noticed that, since starting playing the recorder in the summer, i've got better at recognising notes (especially F). Rather than being linked to string-playing, maybe it's to do with intsruments' 'main' notes (open strings for violin etc, F/C for recorder ...). Thinking about it, maybe string players are better, given that they have 4 main notes, rather than one. Equally, I've played the piano for years, but never been able to name notes, so i should think this has something to do with the fact that all the notes are 'equal' for a piano (although, maybe beginner pianists are really good at recognising middle c).

OMG, i've gone on a bit of a ramble, sorry about that.

I think i'm like most people here. I have a good relative pitch I can easily recognize certain notes like C and F but I've only been playing instruments for the 4 years. From what I've found string players (and pianist) usually have good relative pitch to what the open strings are and when they play a note they know when its not in tune and they can just slide the finger up or down.

Why is it tuned low -mine is tuned to 440?

Btw perfect pitch in orchestras and choirs is horrible. Sometimes we are playing in orchestra and the oboe just can't give an in-tune A and then you spend 2 hours playing a quarter tone flat. ARGH. Hurts your head This is where really good relative pitch is much much better, or being to block out any kind of perfect pitch you have. Horray for developed semi-perfect pitch

I have a violinistic 'perfect pitch' in that I can always sing an A (so many years of tuning a violin) and then work out the other notes from there. I can also work out what notes a violinist is playing but I think this is more to do with recognising the sound of various notes because of the resonance, sound of open strings, guessing what double stops they're doing etc etc. It's perfect pitchish but it isn't the same as the inborn uncorrupted (because I think perfect pitch is inborn but usually gets lost) perfect pitch some people have.

It's because I did not call a tuner in for some number of years... and when she came it was around 425. so after about 2 or 3 tuning sessions, it's gone from that to 431, and now 435. My next tuning is due in January or February, so I'll probably get my piano back to 441 or 442 pretty soon.

If I'd had one like that I'd have probably encouraged them to drop it down to 415!