probably because I don't have a guitar
Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
161–170 of 184 posts
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#162"You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tune a fish." -tunefs(8), 4.2BSD and later
unless you run it on an OpenBSD system, in which case you can
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
TT necks are an absolute waste of money. At least if you went with the Earvana nut you only wasted $5 and the time to replace the thing. I've known a lot of musicians that have used the necks but mainly only while sponsored and none of them prefer them. Big names in the guitar world. You're better off spending that money on a better-constructed guitar. And lessons. So many people mistakenly think that gimmicks will m…
This feels like a really puritanical take on things. Fanned frets and multiscale absolutely help with the playability of an instrument. It’s physics, there’s nothing mystical or gimmicky about it. Maybe YOU don’t want it, but it prevents strings from going flabby without needing much heavier gauges. Which does help with a wide range of playing styles and genres. Unless you also believe that all guitars should have a…
Building multiscale means more work to build which means higher prices and more complex repairs. A reasonable jump in work/cost for marginally better playability. Also more things for the builder to fuck up and get wrong. That's kinda normal though, there's a lot of terribly-built instruments on the market and a lot of customers who can't even tell (e.g., people still buying Gibson despite decades of everyone saying their instruments don't QC).
I have all kinds of wild/bizarre/insane instruments for different purposes -- there's nothing puritanical here (I spend most of my time at NAMM in Hall E). I'm just saying that for 99.9% of players though these features aren't doing a damn bit of difference and most people are buying them out of gear-worship.
I think it's wild that we're talking about the "physics" of neck construction/playability and tension when at least 80% of guitar players can't even properly set up their own instrument and their tone sucks. It's in the fingers, man.
If any of you think that cargo-culting among software developers is bad, guitar players are that 10x over. If not 100x.
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you actually tried this? What songs work? To me this sounds totally impractical and useless, like it’s a logical technicality for the purposes of this discussion and not something a real musician would ever do. You’re making tuning a pain, breaking the E-E octaves (all barre chords), breaking octaves with 2 strings between, breaking the next-string octaves, breaking a lot of scales and jazz chords, and to top it…
1. Yes; I've been tuning along those lines for nearly four decades. What songs work: anything with power chords that benefit from sounding sharp, free of flutter. 2. The error between the equal temperament perfect fifth and the pure one (3/2) is just less than 2 cents. So the difference I'm talking about is at the same level of accuracy as that of pretty excellent guitar intonation. The corrections are not simply for…
What you’ve described would make all powerchords rooted on the A string audibly worse than standard tuning, with more flutter. Are you avoiding all A string chords?
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> but you can't see harmonics happening to the string. But you absolutely can if you rest a finger on a node and pick it, producing primarily the harmonic. You can even see the lesser vibration at the nodes with your eyes.
If you stretch a rope or chain several meters long, you can simultaneously see the fundamental and first harmonic standing wave.
It is fun to kick a guywire and watch the single pulse travel along the wire, be reflected and come back.
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#166Absurd. A guitar within tolerance is in tune. It's a fundamental feature of the instrument. Not a flaw. Music doesn't live in an abstract realm of perfections, it is an expression however formed. The fact that we can measure it is one thing. But the music or instruments do not need conform to discrete measurements to satisfy. I know engineers hate this, but ask any musician. It's like arguing that a sitar and its sca…
This article is just an introduction to the math behind 12-TET, why it exists, the tradeoffs, etc. The only thing that is absurd here is your bizarre strawman that discussing equal temperament is somehow non-musical and that engineers can’t understand what music is because they want to measure things.
The title is quite literally "Why can't you tune your guitar".
I didn't insert the strawman.
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#167Absurd. A guitar within tolerance is in tune. It's a fundamental feature of the instrument. Not a flaw. Music doesn't live in an abstract realm of perfections, it is an expression however formed. The fact that we can measure it is one thing. But the music or instruments do not need conform to discrete measurements to satisfy. I know engineers hate this, but ask any musician. It's like arguing that a sitar and its sca…
Many musicians can readily confirm that the difference between temperaments can be felt and heard by trained ears. A guitar tuned to equal temperament has major thirds that warble audibly. It feels different when you use just intonation, which isn’t generally possible on a guitar.
Indeed. But this is the guitar's design! Fixed temperament. There are many variations and other instruments that explicitly make that aspect of the instrument variable. There are even branches off of Spanish guitar design that use movable frets for that reason.
But fixed temperament and that warble/etc IS guitar.
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The "in tune" notes are as much a function of culture as physics. Huh? Pitch ratios are not a social construct, it's just arithmetic.
And the choice of which ratios "sound good" is cultural, to some extent.
No it isn't. You can hear integer pitch ratios in the same way you can see, e.g., the difference between a square and a rectangle or between a circle and an oval.
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you stretch a rope or chain several meters long, you can simultaneously see the fundamental and first harmonic standing wave.
It is fun to kick a guywire and watch the single pulse travel along the wire, be reflected and come back.
> It is fun to kick a guywire
Way braver than me!
Re: Why can't you tune your guitar? (2019)
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the choice of which ratios "sound good" is cultural, to some extent.
No it isn't. You can hear integer pitch ratios in the same way you can see, e.g., the difference between a square and a rectangle or between a circle and an oval.
But more than 90% of all the written-composed music from western Europe and North America (at minimum) over the last several centuries does not use integer pitch ratios.