Temperament, is there a lutanist in the house?

[Richard Moody]

The question of how frets are spaced on lutes  can in part be answered by
asking
"what would happen if they were different spacing?"
The answer would be something like asking what would happen if heavier
objects fell faster.    So a "proportional" spacing of the frets stands to
reason.  Of course one must understand what "proportional"
    ---ricisaidthatnotclinton

----- Original Message -----
From: Susan Kline <sckline@attbi.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 1:29 AM
Subject: Re: Temperament, is there a lutanist in the house?


| Re: equal temperament on fretted instruments ---
|
| I haven't taken the time to look up lute tunings, but assuming they are
| like viols, they will have a variety of intervals between the strings?
|
| I only have a (little) experience with a bass (not double bass) viol: it
is
| tuned in fourths, with one major third thrown in to be perverse.
|
| Assuming that the instrument is built accurately, so that a fret going
| straight across the neck will yield the same change in pitch on all
| strings, it is apparent that if one were to place the frets so that some
| strings would produce a noticeably non-equal temperament, each string
would
| produce this  temperament in a different key from the others, and the
| strings spaced a third apart would produce quite vivid differences in
| temperament, in the same register, at that.
|
| On the other hand, if one were to slant the fret, it would just mean that
| different strings would produce slightly inaccurate intervals, in a
fairly
| chaotic fashion.
|
| Hence, ET was probably not chosen for any theoretical devotion to ET, but
| as simply the only really practical alternative to a very messy anarchy
of
| keys. Of course, if the frets were PRETTY NEAR to ET, the results would
be
| just fine, as the AWFULLY CLOSE TO ET historical temperaments cause few
| adverse reactions from musicians. We all have considerable tolerance,
| though possibly the amount of tolerance varies from person to person;
| still, anything within our area of accommodation is acceptable enough
that
| other questions such as timbre, etc., matter far more to us.
|
| Actually, I think piano tuning moved toward ET for the same sort of
| accommodation: as music grew more chromatic, having all keys sort of all
| right became more valuable than having some really all right and others
| pretty awful.
|
| No need for fundamentalism in this issue, IMHO. In the end, most
practicing
| musicians are pragmatists.
|
| Susan Kline
|