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Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

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Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#31

Post by parenthesis »

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…

> Unless I'm playing a piano ...

Actually, the way a piano is tuned is pretty funky.

The rigidity of the strings means the higher 'harmonics' of a note get sharper and sharper. If you tune the fundamentals to exact equal temperament a piano sounds out of tune, because the upper partials of lower notes are pretty sharp versus the lower partials of higher notes.

Hence the frequences of the fundamentals are stretched out such as to get the inharmonic partials as in tune sounding as possible between different notes.

This is why you hire a piano tuner to tune your piano.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#32

Post by japanoise »

Tade0 wrote: post #28
viraptor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To use computing slang to talk about music: this is just ricing. At best you'll sound out of tune with the rest of the band, at worst you'll run into wolf intervals and other issues with just intonation.

This touches on the biggest reason we stick with 12-tone equal temparament in the West: social reasons. Having a standard means we can play together, in groups or at jams, without having to negotiate which tuning system we use (an argument most working musicians I've met see as utter wank and a waste of time).

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#33

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

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…

Microtonal music really isn't hard to find. It's just not very popular, because it's too niche for mainstream listeners.

And most popular VSTs - Serum, Pigments, Massive, Phaseplant - all use wavetables and not 'the same old square and saw waves.'

Modern pop really isn't any more generic than 30s/40s jazz, 50s rock and roll and bubblegum, and so on. That's why it's called popular music and not experimental music.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#34

Post by enriquto »

canjobear wrote: post #13
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…

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/

> People who have not been exposed to Western music don’t even distinguish consonance from dissonance.

This is false. Any person with a functioning auditory system can hear the beating when you play two very close notes. It is also trivial to model mathematically, using elementary trigonometry. And the beating of periodic waves of very close frequency is precisely the dissonance (especially when the partials of the two notes are close, but do not coincide exactly).

Whether this audible beating or dissonance is "good" or "bad", and what is its place in music, is an entirely cultural phenomenon. But the phenomenon itself is not a cultural construction, it is a physical thing. Western music uses dissonance as a tension before a final resolution, and this is of course an arbitrary choice for our musical language.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#35

Post by parenthesis »

nicetryguy wrote: post #7
devin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean if you move down 3 notes from any Major key you have your Minor key with the same exact notes, like C Major and A Minor. I usually compose with a Major or Minor key in mind, but it's kind of a reference and not a be all end all. I like sharp 4's which work great usually and don't fit in either key. A flat 7 sounds great in a major key too, usually. I agree with you mostly, and i am annoyed by people who are ad…

If you think in terms of modes, then using a sharp 4 in major you can think of as lydian (the 4th mode of major) or lydian dominant (has a flat 7 too, the 4th mode of melodic minor). In minor, there's lydian minor (the 4th mode of harmonic major).

Major but with a flat 7 is mixolydian (the fifth mode of major). It is everywhere in popular music.

My favourite thing at the moment is major 7 sharp 5 chords (or an augmented triad with also a major 7th). These chords arise in harmonic and melodic minor (in both cases chord 3), and in harmonic major (chord 6). But they also sound great as substitutions for what is 'supposed' to be a major 7 chord.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#36

Post by mping »

ageitgey wrote: post #21
mping wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nice article, thanks!

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#37

Post by sampo »

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.

There are guitars with weirdly shaped frets, if you really want to approach true temperament.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-659a2269b3cf8608d61d56...

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#38

Post by fredsanford »

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…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqrfPnGy1tM

Leave My Girl Alone by Stevie Ray Vaughan is pretty much a master class for a guitar player that wants to mess around with 3rds and 7ths. At 3:19 is the best example of slightly messing with the 3rd and resolving to the 1 that I can remember hearing. The solos center around bent 3rds, 4ths, b5ths and 7ths.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#39

Post by mikorym »

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 thought you were going to say you a violinist—that's the best example of perfect 4ths and 5ths that you can integrate with a band or orchestra that may include a normal 440 Hz A piano with equal temperament based on sqrt(2,12).

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#40

Post by titzer »

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…

Blues, not metal or rock, is absolutely full of microtonal wails and chirps and wiggles and vibrato, and fret pressure very much gives way to a whole new way to think about the strings; not something to press down like a button at exactly perpendicular force to delicately or firmly contact the frets, but strings are something to be grabbed, ripped, whipped, twisted behind the frets. Add to that a hard attack can whiplash a string out of tune by another 10 cents, and we are talking about making this thing a voice, not some synthesized keyboard doodad. It's a human soul wailing. That's the blues.
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