What temperament is a guitar tuned? (encore)

[Keith McGavern]

Parts of Bill Bremmer 's, RPT, post:
>...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...

Dear Bill,

While I don't doubt your story, it is very difficult for me to conceive of
a guitarist with the necessary abilities to perform with an opera company,
and then, at the same time, be unable to tune his/her own high quality
instrument to the point where a music director would have to say it was
never in tune with the orchestra.  I just don't have that kind of an
imagination.  There is something missing, what I don't know.

>...Keith noted that the results were different
>depending on which guitar he tuned...

Slight correction here, Bill: This is not what I said.
This is what I said, "Though I imagine the chords will sound different in
varying degrees on other guitars using these formulas due to the
information Tim Keenan has already posted."

I only used one guitar for this test.  No other guitars are necessary for
me to tune to know the eventual outcome.  Tim Keenan explained it quite
adequately in a previous post.

>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 negatively to hearing a tuning
>he had never heard before and immediately want it ****BACK!!!!***** to
>******EQUAL!!!!*****.

Personal observations:

This vibrato effect didn't cause a negative reaction to me in and of
itself, Bill.  I just didn't see that it was an improvement.  Oddly, the
guitar I used for this tuning experiment actually sounded better when I
took it out of the case, having been in the case for a month, then after I
started tweaking it to those numbers you posted.

While it could be easy for you to say I am just one of these people you
have described above, I would have to say that's not it at all.  The sound
that is produced by those numbers you posted just doesn't give me a gut
feeling of correctness.  (For the record: That's not to say it isn't
correct.)

Another way for me to express it, I just don't want to live in the "If"
zone that David Gates created with that vibrato effect.  It's a nice
seasoning every now and then, but otherwise I can do without it.  (Maybe it
has something to do with tuning unisons.)

But thank you anyway, Bill, and especially you, Tim, for your posts on this
guitar matter.  Brought back a lot memories in the trials and tribulations
of my guitar voyager days.

Keith A. McGavern
kam544@ionet.net
Registered Piano Technician
Oklahoma Chapter 731
Piano Technicians Guild
USA