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Comment by dumpsterlid | Hacker News Reader

Well yes, the pitch of any violin note except an open string is set by where the finger is placed.

However, being perfectly in tune is also a big red herring kind of thing. People, especially people who like seeing math in music, get obsessed with chasing ideas of perfection in music and music is art... it isn't supposed to be perfect. To have sounds at perfect intervals or sounds perfectly in tune is after a certain point just an annoying detail compared to literally every other aspect of a piece of music.

A lot of advanced digital synthesizers will carefully detune oscillators from each other so they aren't "perfectly in tune" in order to get thicker sounds.

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> A lot of advanced digital synthesizers will carefully detune oscillators from each other so they aren't "perfectly in tune" in order to get thicker sounds

As noted in other comments, this also applies to singing and arbitrary pitch instruments, possibly at a subconscious level, and it has the opposite "mathematical" implication than you seem to think: any fixed tuning is a serious constraint that makes some chords sound wrong, and only being able to tune individual notes perfectly allows the introduction of aesthetically pleasing imperfections.

including multiple methods for the user to detune oscillators is quite common on modern synthesizers, advanced or otherwise. it’s almost never a fixed amount of detuning.

one of those methods is called a “chorus” effect. this is extremely common across effect platforms and is not limited to synthesizers / keyboard-type instruments.

How does all of that sound to people with absolute pitch?

Varies a lot depending on the person. "Absolute" pitch isn't really absolute, in the vast majority of cases. It's a degree of an ability to retain a given pitch and then produce it later without prompting or context.

Keep in mind also that a lot of musicians with "perfect" pitch have to deal with performing situations where the main pitch is not the standard A=440 Hz. For instance in the Baroque repertoire which I perform often, the most common pitch is around A=415, which is around a half step lower, but there are other tunings that pros have to deal with which are both above and below A=440 (European orchestras often tune higher, music before the Baroque is often at A=390, music from the classical period is often around A=430, etc.).

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