On Monday 20 December 2004 01:26 am, Lee Revell wrote: > On Mon, 2004-12-20 at 00:52 -0500, Dave Robillard wrote: > > On Mon, 2004-20-12 at 01:16 +0100, Christoph Eckert wrote: > > > > I think this is called "well tempered tuning". > > > > > > I know what well tempered tuning is, where it comes from, why > > > we need it and that most popular instruments are tuned in > > > this way. > > > > > > But what I do not know: Do guitarists tune the six strings in > > > pure tuning, or do they add some aberration to make them > > > tempered? > > > > Well.. there really is no "pure tuning" - it's something of a trade-off. > > You can tune your guitar so certain things sounds right, and others not. > > If you tune the B string to be exactly in tune with the B on the second > > fret of the A string, then tune the high E to the B string, the high E > > will be quite a bit sharp of the low E string and things will sound like > > garbage. There just isn't a "perfect" tuning (which is kinda > > frustrating until you learn to deal with it) > > Good guitarists compensate for this subconsciously by digging in a > little harder to make certain notes sharper. You can play single note > lines in perfect tune anywhere on the neck this way, even with an out of > tune guitar. Same way you can keep playing if one of your strings goes > flat during a solo, you just bend each note a little. > > This does not work well for chords. This is why you don't hear a lot of > guitar players hitting major chords and letting them sustain for a long > time. It might works for open chords but then further up the neck it Ah. Now I know why I love open chords. > will sound weird. The few rock players that use major chords with lots > of distortion (think AC/DC) either don't let them ring out too long > and/or intonate the guitar so they all sound OK in one position. But I > guarantee you those same chords on the 5th fret will sound weird. > > Lee
