[CAUT] historic temp thoughts

[David Love]

I believe it's not possible to make a equally tempered fretted instrument.
I say that because even the best acoustic/classical guitars made require
slight adjustments to the tuning for different keys.  The quality of the
intervals, especially thirds and sixths, simply don't quite remain the same
as you change keys and most guitarists will make tuning adjustments
depending on the key to compensate.  I can't  offer the scientific
explanation at this point.  

 

David Love

www.davidlovepianos.com

 

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Fred
Sturm
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:34 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] historic temp thoughts

 

On Nov 30, 2009, at 8:09 PM, David Love wrote:





FWIW fretted instruments are not actually equally tempered instruments and
require subtle manipulations of the tuning depending on which key you are
playing in. 

 

            I'm not sure I understand what you mean in your first sentence.
Are you talking about intention (design), or just the problems due to the
fact that design is never perfectly followed? As in woodwind instruments,
where the holes are never perfectly placed, and one always has to
compensate. Or issues of the various strings, all being the same lengths but
different thicknesses, having different tensions, hence different responses
to pressure at the frets?

            Instruments with movable frets - essentially viola da gamba
-move their frets and often slant them, depending on the temperament being
used. And they still have to compensate in order to match pitch.

Regards,

Fred Sturm

University of New Mexico

fssturm at unm.edu

 

 

 

 

 

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