Guitar Tuning and Temperament Primer (revised)

[LI_Slim]

The advice you seem to endorse is using harmonics, which many guitar players do use anyway. So what else can be done (other than the buzz thing discussed above)? Name me some pros and tell me what special measures they take to ensure pristine tuning. How about some A versus B comparisons of the same piece played by the same guitarist using different tuning techniques? I'd suggest that if a guitar is properly tuned using any technique noone can tell the difference. That's why I still maintain that this discussion is academic.

Besides, no matter what you do, strings go out of tune, and then you have to tune them again. (This is especially true for those "purists" who insist on new strings for every show, or even every set.) How much time do you want to spend between songs demonstrating your tuning technique?

One of the best guitarists around, imho, is Richard Thompson. He often changes tunings between songs. He just plucks a string and uses his ears, and then glances down at his tuner to check.

Often when chords don't sound "right" it's because the guitarist needs to learn how to voice chords.

[muttley600]

The advice you seem to endorse is using harmonics, which many guitar players do use anyway. So what else can be done (other than the buzz thing discussed above)? Name me some pros and tell me what special measures they take to ensure pristine tuning. How about some A versus B comparisons of the same piece played by the same guitarist using different tuning techniques? I'd suggest that if a guitar is properly tuned using any technique noone can tell the difference. That's why I still maintain that this discussion is academic.

No. The advice I give does not rely on tuning to harmonics it rely's on tuning to specific intervals acroos a given range of octave. You can use harmonics or you can use other other methods.. I suggest you haven't read and understood the initial post and the links contained with in it. The advice I advocate following an understanding of the underlying problems of a guitar and 12TET is to tune using the method in the Guild of American Luthiers article linked to above. I can assure you I can tell the difference between a well tempered tuning and a guitar that has just been tuned string to string compounding the inherent errors.

Besides, no matter what you do, strings go out of tune, and then you have to tune them again. (This is especially true for those "purists" who insist on new strings for every show, or even every set.)

The fact that guitar strings go out of tune is not a product of any temperament. They would go out of tune regardless of the temperament employed. It is totally irrelevant to any discussion on temperament.

How much time do you want to spend between songs demonstrating your tuning technique?

As long as it takes to get the intervals I want to sound true to be in tune. With practice about 15 - 20 seconds under normal circumstances once the guitar is roughly tuned, but I spend hours each week tuning guitars, often hundreds of times a day. It's my job..

One of the best guitarists around, imho, is Richard Thompson. He often changes tunings between songs. He just plucks a string and uses his ears, and then glances down at his tuner to check.

Yep Richard Thompson is very good at dropping from one tuning to another thats exactly what I do. Watch him tune carefully..

He has every guitar regularly setup so he can use his keen ears to temper his tunings and have the intervals he wants balanced and sound true. Ask me how I know this.

Whether you care to admit it or not many guitar players recognize and want to understand the limitations and possibilities of their instruments. They want to know why certain intervals and chords sound better than others, you may not thats fine. I really don't care.

As their ear develops they identify the problems that 12et presents. I do work for hundreds of them each year. You can ignore it. It may not matter to you but saying it is academic is just dumb.

Like I say the method you use may work perfectly well for you. Thats great, I have no issue with that.

Often when chords don't sound "right" it's because the guitarist needs to learn how to voice chords.

Rubbish. You can learn to "voice" chords anyway you like but physics is physics. The problems and challenges of temperaments and fretted instruments have been understood for hundreds of years. Check out the GAL link.

[muttley600]

....................Name me some pros and tell me what special measures they take to ensure pristine tuning..................................

There are thousands of them. Me for example.

http://www.stagepass.com/tuning.html

[LI_Slim]

Okay, back to this for a second. I mean no disrespect, but when I said name me some pros who use this system (meaning when they are on stage) I meant professional musicians, not luthiers or guitar-tuners.

I attended the Clearwater festival in Croton Point Park this weekend. It was hot and humid so there was plenty of retuning between songs.

Among others, I saw Steve Earle, Railroad Earth (referring to their lead guitarist), Keller Williams, David Bromberg, Jonatha Brooke, Lucy Kaplansky, and Shawn Colvin. Some pretty good acoustic guitar players. Not one of them used that system on stage.

By the way, I reread that article and it most certainly does rely on harmonics, albeit in a very specific and stepwise way.

Also, you misunderstood my comment about voicing chords. Plenty of hackers don't know how to do this, even simply, and they don't understand why the way they play the chords doesn't sound right compared to the artist whose song they are playing. What they need to do is learn a little theory rather than the coolest way to tune a guitar.

[muttley600]

Okay, back to this for a second. I mean no disrespect, but when I said name me some pros who use this system (meaning when they are on stage) I meant professional musicians, not luthiers or guitar-tuners.

I attended the Clearwater festival in Croton Point Park this weekend. It was hot and humid so there was plenty of retuning between songs.

Among others, I saw Steve Earle, Railroad Earth (referring to their lead guitarist), Keller Williams, David Bromberg, Jonatha Brooke, Lucy Kaplansky, and Shawn Colvin. Some pretty good acoustic guitar players. Not one of them used that system on stage.

By the way, I reread that article and it most certainly does rely on harmonics, albeit in a very specific and stepwise way.

Also, you misunderstood my comment about voicing chords. Plenty of hackers don't know how to do this, even simply, and they don't understand why the way they play the chords doesn't sound right compared to the artist whose song they are playing. What they need to do is learn a little theory rather than the coolest way to tune a guitar.

Bromberg for one knows exactly how and why this stuff is relevant. The guy is a working violin dealer and repairer. I've met the guy several times and discussed many many luthier related topics with him. I've been a huge fan of his for decades.

The tuning method described in the article does not RELY on harmonics it uses them to establish accurate intervals as far as that is possible. It's not the harmonic thats important it's the intervals across the octaves and across the strings. You can deny it all you like but you are just plain wrong. Take it how you like but what you need to do is accept that 12 note ET is what it is and accept that you can dramatically improve the way a guitar can be tuned by understanding it. Musicians and composers have been tempering intervals for hundreds of years, they still do. They always will.

It may not be important to you like I said I don't give a shit about that, but this thread and the articles linked in it are a direct response to people who have asked specific questions about the subject. The solution to the problem lies in understanding modern temperaments and a good setup.

Like I say it may not be important to you but it is to many others from Bach to Bromberg.

[Lt. Bob]

I play as much and as professionally as anyone and I never worry about it at all. I make sure I keep fresh strings on my gits so old strings aren't a factor. I do take a moment to check my tuning at various points on the neck but close enough is close enough except for recording. For recording I tend to tune my git on chords that I'm playing a lot for that particular track.
But live .... meh, it's far more about what I play than anything else.
As a piano tuner I certainly am aware of the tuning limitations of standard gits but it doesn't really bother me ..... it's just part of the instrument.
Just like sax ..... on sax virtually every note is out of tune unless you 'lip' it into tune. That's why so many sax players play out of tune. And it varies from sax to sax.
Just how it is *shrugs*

As for the well tempered frets ..... I don't see how they wouldn't affect bends.
If you're bending across a fret and you get to a spot where it has a radical bend ..... then you're suddenly gonna get a 'jump' in pitch. You could get used to it I suppose but, as I said, normal gits work well enough.

[LI_Slim]

Indeed, David Bromberg is, or at least was, as I understand it, the most prominent dealer of American-made violins in the world; he was the first serious dealer to take them seriously. Although recently he's been focusing on his performing (thank God for that; he's flat-picking real clean again). I've seen him perform more than a dozen times, starting in the late 70's (even though there was that large gap when he stopped performing publicly).

I'm certain he has forgotten more about guitar playing than I'll ever know. And not even HE uses that tuning technique when he is performing. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[muttley600]

Indeed, David Bromberg is, or at least was, as I understand it, the most prominent dealer of American-made violins in the world; he was the first serious dealer to take them seriously. Although recently he's been focusing on his performing (thank God for that; he's flat-picking real clean again). I've seen him perform more than a dozen times, starting in the late 70's (even though there was that large gap when he stopped performing publicly).

I'm certain he has forgotten more about guitar playing than I'll ever know. And not even HE uses that tuning technique when he is performing. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Bromberg like every other decent guitarist tempers his tuning because of the imperfections in 12tet. How he does that is kind of irrelevant. He does it, I've seen him do it on more than one occasion. The method described in the links above provide one method there are other ways.

You are completely missing the point. I'll spell it out again.

This thread is an attempt to provide some edification for those that understand or have just discovered/realised that the guitar can not provide pure intervals across all chords in any key.

This thread is for those that have realised they cannot get all intervals in tune across their guitar fretboard.

This thread provides a scientific explanation of why that is.

This thread provides some practical information on how you can experiment with dealing with the problems involved.

This thread is not intended for those that are happy as they are or cannot hear or understand that there IS an issue.

To save me wasting any more time can you point out which part of that are you struggling with?

[Lt. Bob]

Homrecording.com has NOT been as relaxing for muttley as he may have hoped for.

[LI_Slim]

Bromberg like every other decent guitarist tempers his tuning because of the imperfections in 12tet. How he does that is kind of irrelevant. He does it, I've seen him do it on more than one occasion. The method described in the links above provide one method there are other ways.

You are completely missing the point. I'll spell it out again.

This thread is an attempt to provide some edification for those that understand or have just discovered/realised that the guitar can not provide pure intervals across all chords in any key.

This thread is for those that have realised they cannot get all intervals in tune across their guitar fretboard.

This thread provides a scientific explanation of why that is.

This thread provides some practical information on how you can experiment with dealing with the problems involved.

This thread is not intended for those that are happy as they are or cannot hear or understand that there IS an issue.

To save me wasting any more time can you point out which part of that are you struggling with?

If you don't want to waste any more of your precious time then don't reply to me.

I never disputed that the guitar does not provide pure intervals across all chords in all keys. I adjust things myself sometimes.

What got me started with you was comments like: "....every other decent guitarist tempers his tuning." Arrogant bullshit. You have people out there reading stuff like that and thinking that they must be playing out of tune all the time or that there is some big mystery out there that they're too dumb to understand.