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Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

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Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#51

Post by thanatropism »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #33
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…

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.

There's a def "greatest hits" effect with jazz. I mean, how awesome is "Minnie the Moocher", etc.

There's also a "trailblazer" effect which is kind of weird because it doesn't happen in classical music. Namely that we listen a lot more to Miles Davis and Coltrane than the random swing band of their age. Heck, Miles gets more props than the sublime big band swing of Duke Ellington.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#52

Post by Tade0 »

sk0g wrote: post #44
japanoise wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sys…

Is ricing a computer term? Thought it was a (funny|racist) reference to JDM cars and how engrossing a hobby tweaking those cars can be.

I only ever heard this as a car culture term.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#53

Post by DerDangDerDang »

titzer wrote: post #40
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…

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 whip…

Not metal?

Go listen to some of Dimebag Darrell’s solos. They sound ridiculously bad if played in whole semitones. Fair enough, he’s fairly bluesy. But other genres of metal give the distinction you give the left hand to the right too - variations in pick attack wildly change the sound.

I’m guessing it’s fair to suggest that similar things exist in all genres of music, and on all instruments.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#54

Post by hashkb »

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…

> same old Square and Saw waves

You should explore more electronic music. This is either an intentional attack or an ignorant statement.

Edit:

> musicianship has all but died in Gen Z

See South Park S15E07 "You're Getting Old"

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#55

Post by hashkb »

jonnypotty wrote: post #29
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…

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.

> keep some traditions like the 808 bass drum

Yes, but almost nobody is dropping raw 808 kick samples onto their tracks. Even though it's a "traditional sound", usually artists do quite a bit of work to transform it. Kind of like what, you know, "real" composers do with "real" musical traditions.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#56

Post by hashkb »

titzer wrote: post #40
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…

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 whip…

Not rock? I guess we'd have to know your definition of "rock"... but if you allow "classic" or "progressive" rock into your view, then a lot of those players utilize every aspect of expression on the guitar.

And how about the whammy bar? Maybe guitarists aren't consciously using it to untemper their intervals, but to say "rock guitar" is locked to tempered tuning is incorrect.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#57

Post by motohagiography »

mikorym wrote: post #42

I was expecting a bit more category theory. But I was glad to see that he alludes to the duality of minor chords and major chords. A simple way to look at it is like this: Pick two notes, i.e., an interval. Then pick a note in the middle of the two notes. The dual chord is the one where you swap the up and down chromatic distances. Then if you happened to pick a 5th interval, and you happened to pick the major 3rd as…

I too was thinking there would be a category theory angle on this, but of course it makes sense to have diverse interests.

The question of whether musical notation is Turing complete, and what it might mean if it were, would have been an interesting one for a category theorist to examine.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#58

Post by fenwick67 »

mikorym wrote: post #42

I was expecting a bit more category theory. But I was glad to see that he alludes to the duality of minor chords and major chords. A simple way to look at it is like this: Pick two notes, i.e., an interval. Then pick a note in the middle of the two notes. The dual chord is the one where you swap the up and down chromatic distances. Then if you happened to pick a 5th interval, and you happened to pick the major 3rd as…

This is why I like the guitar/bass over the piano, because these relationships show themselves when you play. On a piano, if you go from C to E# the hand shape is totally different than A to C, even though the intervals are the same, so this relationship isn't intuitive.

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#59

Post by acomjean »

parenthesis wrote: post #31
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 ou…

Pianos are weird.

The lowest notes, generally have one string that makes the note. The middle, have two strings (persumably to make it louder).

the high notes have 3 strings per note.

So sometimes playing one key is actually playing three tones.

Pictures from a violin/piano maintenance building school make it a little clearer: https://www.nbss.edu/full-time-programs/piano-technology/cur...

Re: Guitar Decomposed: 5. Mutating the Third

#60

Post by byproxy »

sk0g wrote: post #44
japanoise wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sys…

Is ricing a computer term? Thought it was a (funny|racist) reference to JDM cars and how engrossing a hobby tweaking those cars can be.

Yea, it definitely has racist undertones related to import tuners. "Rice" implying "asian." I find it a bit uncomfortable to read people posting their customized Linux desktops, for example, and calling them "riced out."
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