Major third tuning problem

[jazzbow]

This will explain in some way why you cannot properly tune your guitar..

Cool.

I used to work with piano tuners. They would count the beats to tune thirds. I can't remember the amount over what time frame but its all compromise!

Grab a coffee and enjoy.

P.S. love the double sided tape and remove able mini fret solution.

[deselby]

Cool. I now micro-fret and am able to play in tune in one key. Hurrah. It's not like the shortcomings of a tempered scale are unknown. Listen to the Tallis Scholars. The effect is amazing. But the reason for tempered tuning is clear.

A friend plays drop-D mostly and tunes accordingly. This works well if the relationships are diatonic but still runs into problems as you move up the neck because the fret relationships are layed out in tempered ratios.

If I sound intemperate it's because I'm a curmudgeon

[ptchristopher3]

It's is funny to think about how electric blues and rock "power chords" shaped popular music to some extent due to the "neither major nor minor" nature of blues combined with distortion and the comparatively hideous major third in the tempered scale in general and in some guitar chord voicings in particular.

[Jabberwocky]

That is my kind of mod: cheap, reversible, easy to do, and it actually does something!

Seems like I could use them up the fretboard for every G string I have trouble intonating.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Anyone have any experience with a Buzzy Feiten setup? I've heard this addresses some of this issue.

[oldane]

I'm not sure this is an issue at all - and even less a guitar specific issue. In the tempered tuning, the major third is in fact deliberately supposed to be a dissonant interval. If you tune down the major third to have it sound non dissonant, some chords in one key may sound great while others will sound terribly out of tune. Furthermore, other instruments are using the tempered tuning and if we guitarist don't, we will sound out of tune with the other instruments. The very idea of the tempered tuning is to allow for modulation in the same piece of music. "Das Wohltemperiertes Klavier" by J. S. Bach was written to show off the abilities of the by then new tempered tuning. In jazz we will also run into problems if using non tempered tuning because the key centers often change a number of times in tunes. Just think of Jerome Kern standard like "All the things you are" which modulates through a number of key centers before finally ending "at home" at Ab in bar 32.

[R Neil]

I was in band from 5th grade through college. 11th grade, as the #2 t-bone player, I also played in the orchestra which always took 2 t-bone so.

The string players on front of me immediately roared at me to play in tune. But I was ... I was dialed in on the tuning note of Bb and had all my positions on that slide nailed.

First rehearsal was rugged. The other t-bone player stopped me in the passage between rehearsal rooms on the way back to band and told me that flats, sharps, and thirds were NOT played exactly on standard position but that a flat was slightly lower than its enharmonic sharp, and thirds were about half the distance of a flat lowered from a tempered note.

I probably just stared at him.

It took me most of a month to get to the place where the string players didn't glare at the sight of me. And a couple more to get used to playing those altered notes.

By the time I got to college it was such a joy to play in a band where the vast majority of people did this automatically. A noob who didn't was Given Instructions by one or more of their section in How It's Done Here.

This has been something I always here with tempered instruments since ... the scale they play isn't exactly perfect in any key, but if tuned well the same distance off in every key.

And one just has to accept that. Yes, it's very clear to my ears his altered frets make those chords far more accurate (though not always perfect as his quick placements could be adjusted ...).

But it's really a theoretical discussion. I'm not going to take the time to add this in and adjust them constantly.

The E chord was particularly improved ... sigh.

Stumbling fingers still need love ...

[pingu]

Yeah the major thirds are sharp
Dom sevenths are a bit off flat? apparently too
(In fact all the notes other than tonic are slightly off their nearest
harmonics apparently in an equal tempered ie transposing instrument)

But they're good enough for jazz ...
Perfect stuff can get boring pretty quickly anyway

Aretha sings sharp sometimes on purpose , its cool

I wonder why there's 12 notes to the octave
In our music anyway ...
Maybe its arbitrary , music from other cultures
Have different numbers of notes in the octave
and at completely different pitches , sounds right to them

I think I'll stop now and 'just' play, this could be a rabbit hole ...

[pingu]

Pianos are stretch tuned ie sharper the higher
you go , flatter in the lower range apparently

Sometimes I feel lucky for not having a
micro-tonally accurate ear , it must be annoying

I heard Wes moaning about the Guitar on a video
once saying you can't get a Guitar totally in tune ever ....

Now I've discovered fat strings it honestly doesn't bother me anymore , which is great

[MaxTwang]

Would True Temperament Frets help?

True Temperament fretting system

[emoshurchak]

Would True Temperament Frets help?

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if anyone makes an archtop with TT frets? I guess you could have one custom made if you were so inclined.

[oldane]

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if anyone makes an archtop with TT frets? I guess you could have one custom made if you were so inclined.

It would help - with the chords always in the same formation on the same strings and in one inversion, say the root in buttom. I. e. moving the same chord grip up and down the fretboard. But it would then be off when you try to play the same chord in drop 2 or drop 3 inversion or play the same chord on another string set across the fretboard. I think we have to accept that our guitars are at best a reasonable approximation. That's the price we have to pay if we want to play in all keys and in all chord inversions. The tempered tuning is not about making the chords sound perfectly pretty. It's about making all chords sound equally bad so to speak so it sounds no different no matter what key you are in.

[jazzbow]

Would True Temperament Frets help?

True Temperament fretting system

Dang, my VU monitor is broken, or is this picture 8 bit?

Lol

[oldane]

Dang, my VU monitor is broken, or is this picture 8 bit?

Lol

..... or check what you have been smoking lately.

[jazzbow]

..... or check what you have been smoking lately.

Lemon oil!

[goldenwave77]

Pianos are stretch tuned ie sharper the higher
you go , flatter in the lower range apparently

Sometimes I feel lucky for not having a
micro-tonally accurate ear , it must be annoying

Try playing steel guitar some time. Even on non-pedal steel, some players are identifiably more accurate than others, e.g. Jerry Byrd, the "Master of Touch and Tone" vs. everyone else.

Then with pedal steel, it gets even more dicey....check out the steelguitarforum if you want to read endless debates about tuning practices, and protocols, and gear.

[Runepune]

It would help - with the chords always in the same formation on the same strings and in one inversion, say the root in buttom. I. e. moving the same chord grip up and down the fretboard. But it would then be off when you try to play the same chord in drop 2 or drop 3 inversion or play the same chord on another string set across the fretboard.

It's a correction to better temper the guitar, since straight frets disregards some physical aspects and thus can't temper correctly. It doesn't favour any string combination/interval. Should be perfect for jazz You can get frets for some exotic tunings, but that would be a speciality thing... And certainly not something you'd want in your jazz box!

[Greentone]

The fretboard is laid out for equal-tempered tuning, which has been accepted since the time of Bach. His "Well Tempered Klavier" is a cycle of tunes to celebrate the advent of equal-temper tuning, i.e., fudging the errors evenly between all intervals.

It seems to me that the guitarists I play with who have the most tuning problems fall into two camps: (1) the ones who tune to electronic tuners and are momentarily in equal-tempered tune, but don't know how to "set" the tuning gears so they will stay that way--for example: dropping a string to pitch is a recipe for almost instant out of tune playing; and (2) the ones who tune to harmonics over the fifth and seventh frets. The resulting tuning will _not_ be equal-tempered. Some keys will be favored over others.

I _was_ trained as a piano tuner. There is quite an art to tuning a piano to _play_ in tune, as opposed to _be_ in tune. And, yes, most pianos are stretch tuned...about 5 to 10-cents/octave below and above the "bearings" octave--i.e., the first one you tune that you adjust the rest of the piano to (usually around middle-C).

[MaxTwang]

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if anyone makes an archtop with TT frets? I guess you could have one custom made if you were so inclined.

True Temperament sells fingerboards for guitar builders.

Fingerboards | TrueTemperament Frets

[MaxTwang]

Has anyone spent time with Peterson's Sweetened Tunings? These are available on Peterson's Strobo Tuners, including software versions.

[oldane]

Lemon oil!

Bingo. That's why. Me, I prefer Ardbeg whisky (drinking not smoking). With that the frets stay straight (well, more or less).

[jazzbow]

Bingo. That's why. Me, I prefer Ardbeg whisky (drinking not smoking). With that the frets stay straight (well, more or less).

Where I used to live in Scotland there was a distillery 2 miles down the road. Bladnoch in SW Scotland, a lowland whisky.
Their 5 year single malt is divine. There is a 15 year single malt that is really rare and expensive!
Funny thing is between two and three measures everything is in tune, after that its all down hill.