Given new circumstances, apology accepted.

What new circumstances?

This is such an interesting thread... This is how I think of it. If someone has perfect pitch, they can tell immediately when they are out of tune, and that is probably the one characteristic of it that helps most in violin playing. But, if you don`t have perfect pitch, you still may very well have a very good ear and be able to tell when you are out of tune immediately. I can almost almost always tell when I am out of tune, which puts me maybe 1% behind someone with perfect pitch, so the advantage is slight.

However, this is my main point, and it all comes to how you practise. If you have perfect pitch but don`t dilligently practise when you play out-of-tune in order to play in tune, then it doesn`t make much of a difference. After all, it is your ear that tells you the pitch, it isn`t like your fingers have perfect pitch.

That is why the Suzuki method has you listen to recordings, so you know what is sounds like, and hence know when you play out of tune. When it comes to sight reading, I don`t think that there is any real advantage to perfect pitch that will make you play in tune the first time. It is all how you use it, and if you practise to be in tune.

No doubt, it has its advantages, but your aren`t naturally a better violin player just b/c of perfect pitch. You may be able to practise more efficiently, if you use your perfect pitch, but people with a good ear (forget the term used earlier in the thread) can practise just as efficiently since they can hear it.

-Tim

Tim is exactly right, you do need that muscle memory, otherwise your fingers will automatically go to the wrong places and you will wince every time you play.
I found when I played violin that even if the strings were out of tune (before I learnt to tune it without snapping the strings) I would automatically compensate for this so that the only out-of-tune notes were on open strings.

I dont know what perfect pitch is exactly from all the vague meanings thrown around on this site but one thing i thought was funny was that everyone talked of how rare it was though reading through the post at least 4 people said they had it out of maybe 10 people that posted lol how rare. what coincidence lol.

IT IS RARE. Around 1 in 10 000 people. It is possible to have a high concentration of people with a certain trait in one place.

Well, I guess the most likely people to have it would be musicians. This makes sense to me. So it is rare, but the fact that most people on this forum have something to do with music, it would me *more* common for them to have it...

-Tim

I was confident 6 months after first picking it up cause I was determined!

hi AMB i am in the orchestra in school and it took my teacher 3 mouthes to teach it to us but it was worth