Tunings and intonation

[Charlie McDonald]

The link to Larry Bell's compromise tuning is inoperative; I'm guessing it's close to 6-comma meantone (ET is 12-comma).
Being a piano tuner, I'm accustomed to ET, a necessary thing for fixed0pitch polyphonic instruments.
(I like to exploit the beating in playing guitars).

Violin, voice, and trombone can adjust to the musical context; the soloist does the compromising.
With pedal steel, the fudge factor (location of the comma)is useful in tuning thirds; Lane has a useful approach.

With meantone, if you're on the fret line you have a better chance of being in tune;
with JI, you can't afford flat; with ET, you're at the limit of sharp.
Here's a link to meantone tuning, with a chart b0b uses.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... one+tuning

Mr. Emmons was no genius when it came to tuning; he's a practical man, and discovered that in tuning a triad, play it and tune thr third until it just eisappears.

[Ian Rae]

...most horns are all in ET...

I thought horns were closer to JI. Don't they play natural overtones of the harmonic series?

I think Lane is saying "horns" in the colloquial sense to include saxes, flutes and all. Brass instruments do produce overtones, but they're not quite in tune! This is to do with developing a practical (loud) instrument from a theoretical one (which has no bell). However brass players do play chords in JI by tuning out the beats (which are actually a very unpleasant sensation). The longer the note, the easier it is. A good trombone section can hit a chord dead on first time - definitely a team game: you need to know whether your note is the tonic, third, fifth or something else, as they're all in slightly different places on the slide.

[Dave Grafe]

To Ian's excellent note I will add that ALL woodwinds and brass instruments require the player to "bend" the notes into tune according to the needs of the moment. No musical instrument is inherently in perfect tune, no matter how it is designed,thus the player must learn to play it in tune, just like the steel guitar. Even the piano, which is nominally tuned to ET, has multiple strings tuned a few cents apart for each note in order to "bend" the overtones to the needs of the music.

[chris ivey]

charlie, i think you might still be in a comma.