temperament

[Richard Brekne]

Charles Neuman wrote:

> What is the temperament of a guitar? As I understand it, the strings are
> tuned to each other in perfect intervals, so it can't be equal
> temperament. The frets determine the intervals on each string. Do they
> make an equal tempered scale on each string?
>

The temperament for guitars is ET. Nearly universally. The fretting (together
with the length of strings) determines the scaling and temperament of the
instrument. However that is not to say that you cant fudge this when tuning.
In fact you most likely do. Most guitar players tune first roughly by
comparing the 5th fret of a tuned note with the open note to be tuned (4th
fret in the case of that one exception), then start comparing harmonics by
half muting. But in the end when they start checking a few basic chords they
fudge the result to make all the chords work so that their particular ears
are happy with them. The resulting "tuning" is more then likely just a bit
off a theoretical perfect ET for guitar.

How far you can fudge and what you can accomplish by that with regards to
other temperaments I am not sure. There are a few on this list that have done
a bit of playing around with that idea,... but I am not sure really if you
could go so far as to tune a meantone temperament on an instrument fretted
for ET. I will let those fellows approach that question.


> Also, I assume violin players and other string players tune their strings
> to perfect intervals. Are string players concerned with temperament?

Welll... dont really know how to answer this... as the situation is
completely different. Non fretted instruments allows the freedom to alter the
intonation of any given non-open note... the individual players ear is going
to be a bigger factor in governing the pitch of any given note... If a
violinist is indeed concerned directly with temperament... then I would think
it would more or less have to be in relation to having to deal with other
instruments that have fixed pitches.


> Charles Neuman

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no