What temperament is a guitar tuned? (encore)

[Billbrpt@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/3/98 12:11:45 AM Central Daylight Time,
tkeenan@kermode.net writes:

<< To quote Boss Caine in "Cool Hand Luke", "what we have heah is a failyuh 
 to communicate." >>

One of my favorite films.  This comes, of course after the boss has knocked
Cool Hand Luke to the ground and is trying to get him to submit to his iron
handed will by intimidation and humiliation.

I'll try to answer both your and Keith's questions. Yes, I have a guitar and I
can play it but I am not very profficient, just a strummer.  The figures I
came up with were used on a high quality guitar that was owned by the on-stage
guitarist in a performance of The Man of La Mancha by a local Opera company.
The music director noticed that the guitar was never in tune with the
orchestra.  The guitarist had a lot of ensemble playing problems.  He was the
only one they could get.  He was used to playing by himself and tuning the
instrument however he did, which was not very well.  I told the music director
that I could help, as I had helped with many intonation problems in the past.
He trusted my judgment and these figures are what I came up with.

Now, I could certainly have tuned the guitar in ET but as most on this List
know, that is never my preference.  I had an idea of what to do based on
previous experience.  I had always tuned the guitar by ear before that but I
wanted the guitarist to be able to tune his instrument himself before he went
on stage, using my SAT.  I went with my basic idea for a 1/6 ditonic comma WT,
set A2 to the SAT and tuned the rest by ear. My figures were so close to the
rounded off figures I presented here that I went ahead and rounded them off.
This did not perceptively change the sound.

I reasoned that the rounded off figures might work well with other kinds of
ETD's.  Just as with a piano, using a program that fits one piano will produce
different results on another. Keith noted that the results were different
depending on which guitar he tuned. The "Victorian" version splits these
deviations in half and is intended for such a situation where the 1/6 ditonic
comma WT seems to go too far.

As for there being something wrong with Tim's conclusions,  he has made them
based solely upon what he has seen on paper and judged that "it wouldn't
work". That is precisely what happened when one of the Wright brothers showed
a drawing of their first airplane.  I don't know who said it but it is a well
known historical fact that the Wright's were told that it was impossible. If
you'll be taking a flight to Providence, think about that on the way there.

What Keith noticed is essentially what many people notice when they use a WT
on a piano.  The "vibrato" is noticeably and considerably altered.  This will
be an effect that pleases many people but inevitably will displease some.  I
might well expect that a piano technician who has always tuned in ET and who
has always tuned his guitars in ET would react negitively to hearing a tuning
he had never heard before and immediately want it ****BACK!!!!***** to
******EQUAL!!!!*****.   

I can assure you though that I have shown many people this tuning, I have
never heard a negative reaction to it but few were able to understand and
remember how it was done so they continued to tune there after the way they
always had before, which was not necessarily and probably not ET.  (How
curiously similar to the way people so often tune pianos!).

When it was used for the Man of La Mancha, the keys of A and G sounded as
sweet as could be.  The dark colors of Ab minor and Bb minor were greatly
enhanced by this approach.  As with any tuning system including ET, it may
work well in a wide variety of circumstances but it can be expected to not be
ideal in at least some.  It is one reason to consider that if one *insists*
upon ET as a universal temperament, it is the less than ideal choice in at
least some circumstances and therefore should not be thought of as the only
one which is acceptable.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison,Wisconsin