Dear List, Regarding the raging conflagration over tuning a guitar in an alternative temperament, I again demonstrated the 1/6 ditonic comma WT for guitar figures I published on the List yesterday at a customer's home. Upon entering the room, I noticed a high quality guitar case in the corner. I asked if the customer also played guitar. The answer was yes. I proposed showing him how to also tune the guitar in a WT similar to what he enjoys so much on his piano. He was interested and said he did not know such a thing could be done. After my first rough pass on the piano, I sat him down and dialed up the notes and the figures on my SAT. I let him tune the guitar himself. When we were finished, I said, "Strum a nice G chord". He did so and his face expressed delight and surprise at the same time, his eyes opened widely. "Wow", he exclaimed, "Does that ever sound GOOD!" I said, "Now while I finish tuning your piano, would you go off somewhere out of earshot of my piano tuning and play the guitar for a while, anything and everything you know, try out all possibilities." When finished with the piano, I asked him how he liked it and the responses flowed for several minutes about the beautiful vibratos and the "warm" sound (as he described it) that the guitar had. He said it "even feels different". I said that is because of the Equal Beating vibrato that it now has. Since the harmony is so organized, the vibrating pulses from the guitar feel differently than the perhaps disorganized energy there was before. We also tried some of the unison and octave combinations that concerned Tim. I have to say here and now that I stick to my position that the impurity of these is rather trivial and completely normal sounding for guitar intonation. They are not pure in ET either and these very slight adjustments to guitar's tuning do not significantly change the ability to play these intervals with acceptable musicianship. Before looking at what is on a page and proclaiming "it wouldn't work", one should at least prove that it won't first before ridiculing the idea before the entire profession. One could dothe same looking at a tuning program and emphatically exclaim, "Why there is a 10¢ descrepency between the notes in your 6th and 7th octaves! IT WOULDN'T WORK!!!" Try it first, then make your assessment, please. This experience is very much like what many people have with their piano. The customer told me he couldn't wait until his roomate got home so that he could show this to him, since he was also a guitar player and played even more than my customer. I gave them my E-mail address and asked for the roommate to report his findings to me. As I walked out tomy car, I heard the strains of the 1st Prelude from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Music being played as I have yet to hear it in a commercially available recording: the proper way, the right way, and yes, my way, in a true Well-Tempered Tuning. As for Keith's assesment that the guitar sounded like the kind of vibrato he heard in a recording of pop music from the early 70's, these kinds of effects are sometimes very appealing to many people. Consider that Jimi Hendrix turned the volume all the way up on his little amplifier of the 1960's and liked that distorted sound he got. Thus the desire for that kind of sound was created and a whole new device, the "fuzz box" was invented. Back in those days, there wasn't a pop band that did not have one. I had one for my bass as well. Although Keith made it clear that it was his opinion, the very condescending tone that his remarks had were clearly intended, in my opinion, to ridcule the idea that the guitar could, or should, be tuned in any way other than what he already knew how do do and always has done. I have experienced the very same attitude regarding the tuning of pianos by many on and off the List. It is the customers and artist's reaction that always give me positive feedback, so the resistance of the tuning profession only makes me keep coming back with more, again and again. I'm off this morning to Louisiana to hear some Cajun Music with its unique language and Pythagorean intonation. I'll be back Tuesday. The guitar is easier to "fool around with" than a piano is. I'd like to hear more people's opinion of alternative tunings for it, specifically the two WT's that I identified. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin.
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