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Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

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Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#21

Post by ageitgey »

mping wrote: post #15
nicetryguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

Check Jacob Collier if you haven't already. He is really pushing it, he has a song where he changes the temperament during the song (sorry if this imprecise/wrong). He is kinda like a musical prodigy. Not my cup of tea but I do recognize he is very refreshing.

Jacob Collier has tricks like using how many cents out of tune certain chords are in equal temperament from just intonation to find a sequence of chords that modulate to a half-sharp key without it ever sounding out of tune:

https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2019/jacob-colliers-four-magica...

That's just the beginning. He posts long breakdowns of his tracks on YouTube explaining everything he does in detail. He's not only a musical virtuoso, but he's incredibly adept at recording and Apple's Logic/tech in general, so he's able to blend those skills seamlessly.

With Jacob and others getting people interested in tunings and unusual harmony, there are now lots of people on YouTube creating music that exploits shifting tunings or alternate systems like 24TET, etc. So to the grandparent post, don't worry - there has never been a time when so many young people are playing with and exploiting tuning systems to create interesting music.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#22

Post by zozbot234 »

nicetryguy wrote: post #12
madhadron wrote: post #9

From the first post in the series: > We now use the so called equal temperament system... Unless I'm playing a piano, no, I don't. And since I have an electric piano, I have been known to set it to meantone, but I accept that I'm a freak. Even on a guitar you have a fair amount of variation in pitch based on pressure and position of the left hand fingers relative to the fret. Not as much as on old instruments with gu…

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

> I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation

This is not possible with purely technological means. To "retune" and "adjust" even a single piece of music in a way that approaches just intervals you'd need an in-depth analysis of all meaningful dissonances, consonances, modulations, perhaps repetitions/imitations etc. etc. in the actual piece; and these are often not even evident from the actual notes because all music uses ornamentation at a variety of levels, hence lots of judgment calls are involved in the process. Where instruments are easy to retune in a flexible way (not really true of guitars, due to the use of physical frets) and the actual music allows for it, performers do use alternatives to equal temperament, such as a variety of "meantone" temperaments.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#23

Post by zozbot234 »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #19
canjobear wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a learned cultural association. People who have not been exposed to Western music don’t even distinguish consonance from dissonance. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27409816/

This is incorrect. Consonance or dissonance is based on physical properties of the sounds. As the paper mentions, pleasantness of the consonance vs dissonance varies from culture to culture. The paper specifically mentions in the abstract that the other cultures were able to distinguish consonance from dissonance.

The physical property is generally called "roughness" (mostly to disambiguate wrt. the structural sense of 'dissonance' in composition) and is really more of a psychoacoustic property, since it relates to a feature of hearing known as critical bandwidth.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#24

Post by [deleted] »

zozbot234 wrote: post #22
nicetryguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

> I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation This is not possible with purely technological means. To "retune" and "adjust" even a single piece of music in a way that approaches just intervals you'd need an in-depth analysis of all meaningful dissonances, consonances, modulations, perhaps repetitions/imitations etc. etc. in the actual piece; and th…

[deleted]

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#25

Post by [deleted] »

nicetryguy wrote: post #12
madhadron wrote: post #9

From the first post in the series: > We now use the so called equal temperament system... Unless I'm playing a piano, no, I don't. And since I have an electric piano, I have been known to set it to meantone, but I accept that I'm a freak. Even on a guitar you have a fair amount of variation in pitch based on pressure and position of the left hand fingers relative to the fret. Not as much as on old instruments with gu…

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

[deleted]

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#26

Post by Stratoscope »

devin wrote: post #6
nicetryguy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to hear more on "some reason." Modern science has no idea! I've researched a fair bit. We don't know how the brain intreprets frequency combinations or why different ones sound good or bad together or evoke certain moods. Math can explain harmonics and the circle of fifths and how to assemble keys and modes, sure, but no one knows the Why or How of the internals between the ears. It is just cultural bias a…

I get a little annoyed at this notion of minor vs major. It's not binary. Subtle changes in tonality can shift back and forth between minor and major and diminished and augmented and so on. Most listeners will interpret a passage as "minor", but that doesn't mean it's so. Complex harmony can be reduced to minor or major but it robs it of all of its nuance.

One of my favorite examples of this is Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, but that may be because I've been practicing it on harmonica.

The song begins (with note names and relative major scale numbers):

    Now here you go again
    A   C    D   E  D C
    6   1    2   3  2 1
  (low)
But that's not how Stevie Nicks sings it. She starts the word "go" very flat, not quite all the way down to the Eb, but maybe 70 cents down from the E? And then she slides up to the E from there. Listen to her sing it and you will know what I'm talking about.

If you have an instrument where you can play either the straight notes or the notes with that slide, play it both ways and you will hear the difference.

This song is fun and easy to play on harmonica, including the pitch bends, if you get or make the right harp. You need a High C Melody Maker, which you can order from Seydel or you can take a Lee Oskar F Major and retune it into a C Melody Maker: raise the blow 3 from C to D, and raise the draw 5 and draw 9 from Bb to B.

How do you retune a harmonica? You file the reeds! Take off some weight near the free end of a reed and it will vibrate faster, giving it a higher pitch. More strangely, you can also lower the pitch a little by thinning the reed near the fixed end.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#27

Post by _0ffh »

progre wrote: post #18
nicetryguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

> It saddens me that no one is really trying to push the envelope of acoustic instruments or even new ways of producting digital sound. I don't know this to be true, I see people building weird musical instruments all the time. As for electronic sounds (it's not always digital) the modular community is absoultely teeming with expression. Here are some fun guys: https://youtu.be/AGN5N4vn5Bs https://youtu.be/DKSr8CE760…

Yes, also: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx74vAHCehhLOeQNwbJcGyQ

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#28

Post by Tade0 »

viraptor wrote: post #11
madhadron wrote: post #9

From the first post in the series: > We now use the so called equal temperament system... Unless I'm playing a piano, no, I don't. And since I have an electric piano, I have been known to set it to meantone, but I accept that I'm a freak. Even on a guitar you have a fair amount of variation in pitch based on pressure and position of the left hand fingers relative to the fret. Not as much as on old instruments with gu…

But given the frets are placed to divide the length of the string in a specific place, you're aiming to play equal temperament, right? You're using that system on a typical guitar, even if the sounds don't match exactly. Of course it's not going to be perfect, but it's still closer to 12TET-with-noise than some specific mediaeval tuning.

Yes and no. Those who play electric guitars with distortion prefer to approach Just Intonation(for a given key) as it doesn't have so much intermodulation.

There is an attempt to tune guitars close to equal temperament trademarked as True Temperament:

https://www.truetemperament.com/faq/

I for one am happy when my 12th and 24th frets are in tune. Solos sound off and weak if these two don't hold.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#29

Post by jonnypotty »

nicetryguy wrote: post #12
madhadron wrote: post #9

From the first post in the series: > We now use the so called equal temperament system... Unless I'm playing a piano, no, I don't. And since I have an electric piano, I have been known to set it to meantone, but I accept that I'm a freak. Even on a guitar you have a fair amount of variation in pitch based on pressure and position of the left hand fingers relative to the fret. Not as much as on old instruments with gu…

I still think its fair to say we use the equal temperment system. It is a widely accepted standard. You're right, fret pressure alone can absolutely raise the pitch 5/10 cents, my Gibson SG has some deep frets and can do double that. I am surprised with all of the technology and VSTs we have now no one really uses self adjusting Just intonation or challenges A 440. Musical / mathematical / technical ability are a rar…

You need to look into modern electronic instruments my friend. Micro tuning is a big thing. The way people play with timing and groove now is freer than ever due to the influence of hip hop on electronic music. The modern modular scene is way beyond just the old saw and square waves. Sure we keep some traditions like the 808 bass drum but there are a lot of interesting things out there.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#30

Post by skeletor_999 »

dehrmann wrote: post #2

> The first such transformation is to lower the third by one step to obtain a minor triad. For some reason, we perceive minor chords as sad or melancholy, sometimes a bit whiny. I'd love to hear more on "some reason." In a way, it's so arbitrary, and maybe it's a cultural bias, but so sad. And the minor iv chord, so sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQFtvAfHndE , right when he sings "when September ends," but ther…

I think that the language we use might be limiting our analysis of this topic. We often describe minor keys as sad, but I don't think that really describes the emotion. Dark is also used, but doesn't necessarily imply sadness. Dark has problems too, as it's more vague.

Even though many people would describe certain songs as sounding sad, I don't think that it usually makes them feel sad. Can a song be sad if it doesn't make you feel sad? Heavy metal wouldn't be popular if it actually made you unhappy. Personally, it can improve my mood if I feel sad. Conversely, a really "bubblegummy" pop song would get on my nerves, but I would still describe it as sounding happy.

I'm not even sure that we could come up with better labels using common words. The emotions caused by music are pretty unique (at least for me).

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