The Steel Guitar Forum

Bill L., b0b has said how the old organs were tuned. I assume modern organs are tuned like pianos, i.e., stretch ET. With their sustain, they warble like crazy with all the beats. But we are used to that being the sound of an organ. Organs also incorporate tremolo, which by adding beats to everything help cover up the other beats. There are some orchestral pieces with organs. And of course big productions like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir use organs and strings together on a lot of their recordings. The vibrato of the strings and vocalists helps blend the ET and JI intonations, just as it does on steel.

When I listen to top pro steelers, I don't really notice which system of tuning they use, which indicates to me it can all be done well with either method. And since different top pros use different methods, appeals to authority don't resolve anything. Lesser steelers can have noticeable problems with either tuning method, but it's probably not the tuning method that is their (our) problem.

One key factor for myself is that I play a lot by myself at home. In that situation JI clearly sounds much better to me than ET. While I have to slant the bar for the A/F position, I have the feeling that if I used ET I would be slanting the bar in a lot more positions to get that sweet JI sound. I have never noticed a problem playing my JI tuning with fixed pitch instruments. Therefore, I prefer the simplicity of using the same tuning method whether playing by myself, or with others.

I guess I unconsciously do some kind of average harmonizing such as b0b described. It is certainly not something I have to think about and agonize over according to whether I am playing a third or not, the way Eric imagines. Since childhood I have also played ET tuned pianos and organs, and play a sax by ear (JI). And like everyone, I sing by ear (JI). I also play regular guitar (tuned to compromise between JI and ET). I certainly can hear the differences between JI and ET on these various instruments.

As mentioned above, the pedal steel is still in its infancy. So we are still debating the best way to tune it. I take my cues from what they do in orchestras and bands. Where variable pitch is possible, JI is used. With fixed pitch instruments, stretch ET is used. Since the pedal steel uses both fixed and variable pitches, some combination of JI and ET, or a tempering somewhere between them seems appropriate. Having a movable JI chord with the bar is a great advantage that completely fixed-pitch instruments do not have. It seems a shame to not use that.

In the end, the only way to find out which method is easier to use is to try both for yourself. I don't think you can get a usable answer by asking others.

<SMALL>I assume modern organs are tuned like pianos, i.e., stretch ET.</SMALL>

I've never heard of stretch tuning a pipe organ. Since the octaves are blended with the various stops, I think it would sound bad.

<SMALL>I have to slant the bar for the A/F position</SMALL>

I have never heard of this. Since the A/F pedal combo is extremely common, shouldn't you adjust your tuning in order to find a reasonable compromise?

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Jeff's Jazz

Jeff, someday I will add one or more compensators to help the A/F position problem. Until then I just use the lazy way. I slant the bar slightly. I have heard other people say they do the same thing. The trick is that you do a reverse slant on the top strings and a forward slant on the lower strings. I had much rather do this than to tune my open strings and my AB stops ET. Just sounds too sour for me.

I don't understand. Which string is out of tune with the F lever, that makes you need to slant the bar? I've tuned all sorts of ways, but I've never had to slant the bar to get A+F to sound right.

.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Garth Highsmith on 09 January 2006 at 08:36 PM.]</p></FONT>

b0b, I'm not sitting at my guitar. On paper it looks like it should all work out. But I know I can never get my F lever stops on strings 4 and 8 in tune both with the open strings 3 and 6, and the A pedal stops on strings 5 and 10. I'll try to figure it out when I get home and have my guitar in front of me. Who knows, maybe it is a cabinet drop problem.

Garth, just trust your ears. You've got great ones, so use em...

The only issues I have ever had with using JI and the E-F lever is that in the three frets up position, the F# strings are definitely sharp. But there are certainly ways to get around that. But the basic E maj chord on the 3rd fret is fine (beatless).

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www.tyack.com

"But I know I can never get my F lever stops on strings 4 and 8 in tune both with the open strings 3 and 6, and the A pedal stops on strings 5 and 10."

David,
Check what happens to your 6th string when you enguage the A+F levers.
My guess is that it is going flat.
I put a raise on my F lever that bumps that G# just a hair sharp so it is sweet with strings 4 and 5 in the A+F position.
(String 3 doesn't bug me, so I don't mess with it.).

After re-editing my post above involving b0b's premise of the "evening out" JI "dickwiths" to match ET instruments and their chords, it occurs to me that this whole JI vs ET question can and should be solved with sonic prints of each.

I'm not sure that my Cakewalk, Sonar, Quebase, etc programs have that capability, but surely some or the more advanced here in this meeting of great minds can do it.

It could be as simple as single notes of JI being mapped against an ET chord of an ET instrument. Then a JI chord against an ET chord.

The only way I could give credence to JI playing with an ET instrument, is if either it is given that it doesn't matter, peoples' ears aren't that sophisticated, and technique will make it hard to tell the difference, be it reverb, vibrato, or simply "balancing out" of changes, like the slanted uneven diminished chord people like myself have used for years.

Another way is to not play with ET instruments. ( Like Guitars, Pianos, and probably a hundred others,) Or not tune JI when playing with them.

If you ARE selling it to somebody, especially if you're making a lot of money with it, or getting famous(er), then BY ALL MEANS, DON'T STOP!

Just Intonation 6 string guitar?

Boy. I've heard everything now...

Done with palm compensators, or five hundred punds of servos and encephalitic cerebral cortex microvoltage sensors, I presume. Maybe using one string for the thirds, and milling frets to a predetermined curvature.

I want to see the sonic maps.

As I have time, I'll be scouring the world for them.

Don't laugh too hard. It's more than possible.

I know somebody's done it.

Without them it can only get funnier.



EJL

PS. The more I think about this the funnier it gets.

Here's a Humorous Anecdotal Biography of an Affably Tragic Fictional Figure.

Let's call him Homer the Hummer.

***** For entertainment purposes only*****

When I was five years old, my father, who tuned pianos,(as I found out later using a "Fischer Method") (I found his book in his kit posthumously).

I asked what he was doing. Mainly why he was hitting these two note chords. ( Fifths, I was later to learn.) He told me that he was counting the "Beats" so it would "work out right". It was a lot for a five year old to understand, but he was able to show me about the deadening wedges, and that he couldn't tune it so that it didn't have any 'beats' of it wouln't work out right. I didn't really ask why. I was only five.

On and on I went, not paying as much attention to it as I should have.

I started playing guitar, as kids will, and got a banjo in 63. I tuned it to the pitchpipe, and the frets, as per the Nat Wilson method of playing the next string at the proper fret.

Studying Classical Guitar in 68 with a gentleman that came from Cuba, I was told to tune it with a pitch pipe, and balance out any differences in the harmonics very carefully. My Gianinni Student guitar wasn't as in tune as my F Garcia was after the first year. If I found intervals that were out of tune, I tuned them up. I don't ever remember being out of tune with the pitchpipe I had on purpose. I played recitals, and sit down background music in local clubs until alcohol perfume, and gasoline derailed my musical studies.

Skip to 77. I lucked into a very good teacher, and part time bricklayer,in Oxon Hill MD, that was selling lessons dirt cheap. I bought an MSA Red Baron, and signed up. In the process I would tune to a chromatic tuner, tuning forks, or whatever I had at hand. It was mainly working on my technique and memory. I learned that "if you're not sounding right, then you're not doing it right". That was simple enough. I bought a ProIII

Skip to '79.

I arrived back in Portland with the Sho~Bud, found a car to live in, and ran a wrecking yard while I found a place to play. It was weekends at first, for the first year, and then five to 7 nights a week with a half dozen bands. As long as I tuned to the cheap electronic tuner I had, it seemed like it was always other people that were out of tune.

I got into the habit of tuning all my strings and changes to the little dot in the middle. I'd touch it up after warmth, etc, changed things. I went on fom then through the future doing this.

About 7 years of this, 5-7 nites a week, in three or four states, and I lied my way into a dump truck driving job. I still played 5-7 nites a week for another 7 years. Some of the bands were pretty good. Some of the guitar players were very good, and were very in tune. I learned a lot. I learned that Yammie Mini Grands didn't stay in tune, and Helpenstils were similar. About 84, they started coming out with some REALLY GOOD electonic keyboards. I didn't know how they tuned them. I just knew that I didn't have to sneak in and tune them myself like I did with a Yammie that I played against for a while.

Time passed again.

I played with trumpet players, sax players, a vibes once, three memorable guitar players, and more harmonicas and fiddles than I'd ever admit to.

Then things got slim, music wise, and I was getting older. I focused on my day job, and earning money to buy a house. I played solid weekends for a couple years, and just showed up, played, and got paid.

Time passed. Construction went downhill, and I had to join 4 or 5 bands to get my solid weekends, and 2 five niters a month besides, and working days from one to five days a week.

Then I realized I was 50 years old.

About that time I found a steady construction job again, and since the 7 note a week club that was the last one went down to only weekends. I found the best band I could join and work(ed) steady weekends.

In that period, I outlived 2 good dogs, 3 good relationships, 5 or 6 cars, played in more than a hundred bands, from poor to damn good, played by my count close to 3000 paid gigs, with the ones I got paid less than 50 bucks for countable on two fingers. I have damn near worn out a Sho~Bud Pro III, and have grooves in the changers deeper than thee strings.

I've been fired from two bands. "Attitude" they told me. Fancy that. Never have I been fired, or reprimanded for being out of tune, or playing out of tune, save a couple of those "frosty county fair mornings", or when I'd watch the frostline move up my aluminum neck of my long-ago-stripped-of-laquer ProIII with knife handles for knee levers.

Now we're close to the present.

I send in the old Professional I got from Rip Edwards in '84 to Duane Marrs and Jeff. Hopefully just in time.


All of a sudden, I have found out that the way I've been tuning my instruments for 40 years, is in error.

I'm willing to consider it, being open minded.

Sadly, with the pretty good mind I debatably haven't worn out yet, and with the ears that have done too much time in to many twin reverbs, I am hearing that there is a way to tune that leaves you with "no beats". In fact, if you have them, like the old ones that Dad used to let me listen to at 5 years old, then your not playing "in tune".

All the pitch pipes were wrong. All the violins that I played with that tuned to them were not playing the same notes I was. ( I knew a few that damn sure weren't)..

More importantly, all the electronic keyboards that I have and do now play with, if I'm going to play "right" are going to have to get used to my thirds being flat from what they're playing.

Now, when the guitar player asks me if "I'm in Tune", I'll just tell him, "yes, but my thirds are flattened, my fifths are raised, and it depends on what chord or position I'm playing". When he asks me for a "D". I'll ask him what chord he's playing it in. Then I'll look it up in my "Tuning Chart Book" and I'll remember which string I'll use. Maybe I'll give him my 9th string open, if after I find out how flat or sharp I should tune it, it is actually a D.

I'll tell him to ask the keyboard player. He'll say, " Well, so you't not in tune?. I'll say, "yes I am, but I'm using "Just Intonation". "Oh," he'll say, is that something new? "We'll it's kind of a long story." I'll shoot back... "Have you got the internet?"

Then, after my career's pretty much over, I"m tired and out of breath after I lug my amp to my weekend gigs, I'll be told that "Some of the Top Guys" tune differently too, and they sound in tune. ( Of course I'd heard about this years ago, and since I was always working gigs,I didn't take the time to mess with it.)

I'll find a few, that are just as, if not more "Top Guys" that tune just as I always have in my ignorance. "Whew". I think. But then I become uneasy. Maybe it's something "more than that".

Maybe, I think, people are afraid to tell them that they sound "out of tune". Maybe they are afraid to tell the first bunch that they do. I gotta admit, it scares me too.

Then, as a last ditch effort to regain my sanity, I ask some players like myself why they don't tune their guitars to the notes displayed on their tuners, or to tuning forks if their batteries run down.

I end up probably 5000 pages, 1500 websites, 150 GREAT internet dogfights, and have everything but my ignorance called into question for tuning the same way as the instruments I play with.

AFTER ALL THAT..

I'm hearing that Guitars tune their thirds flat too, but I don't see any way they could without using one or maybe two strings exclusively for thirds, sixths and other ones to.

Now, we're up to the present.

Since I was 5 years old, or 45 years, 300 some years in dog years, and during my whole sorry little saga, I've known that if there aren't "beats" in your chords, then whatever you're trying to play isn't going to "match up" with itself.

It means that these "Chords" can only have "no beats" if they are the only chords you are going to play with those notes.

I actually put this together when I was 12, and got an electric guitar, and tried to tune it so that the "beats" were gone when I put on the "fuzz tone" ( turned the ostrich papered silvertone "all the way up". I found you could't do it. It put you more than a note out from the bottom string to the top string.

I'm told now that there IS a way to do it with a 6 string guitar.

I'm to assume now that the reasons I've never tried to "tune the beats out" is because I'm not sophisticated enough to figure out how my 8 pedals, 26 changes, (I counted 'em) and 20 strings can and should be tuned so that ALL of their changes can and should be beatless.

Even a "Majority" of them.

We can well enough leave alone the intonation problems inherant to a fixed bridge parallel to a fixed nut system.

That puts it all down to just ONE of the 26 frets.

I'm still pretending that I'm "open to the method", whether mechanical or otherwise.I'll pretend I'm dumber than I am if I have to, and if I find this indeed possible to pull off.

In the meantime, Maybe somebody can tell me just how this is proposed to be done on a 6 string guitar with 22 frets.

I've wanted to know that since I was twelve.

Thanks.



Homer the Hummer.

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 29 November 2004 at 08:43 PM.]</p></FONT>

<font size=12>,<font size=1>

That there is one of them Pythagorean Commas. They're a great conversation piece.Everybody should have one.
<font size=3>
-John <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Steele on 29 November 2004 at 06:48 PM.]</p></FONT>

The sound of the string instrument without frets is what drew all of us to the steel guitar and together. A wonderful combination of psychomotor skill and creativity sends shivers to depths of our soul. The glissando and polytonal movement without harmonic perfection distinguishes our music from an electronic keyboard. (Even typing the word "keyboard" can be painful.) A machine, except for a recording device, cannot duplicate moving a few millimeters of the bar in any direction. Our most fabled brands of instruments rarely stay in tune from the beginning to the end of a set. I believe that both sides of this argument are ultimately correct because so much of our sound is by feel (hear) and muscle memory. To paraphrase our Supreme Court, I cannot define good intonation, but I know it when I hear it. Peace.

Jon.

It might sound simple, but:

I reallywish I'd said that.,



EJL

Okay, regarding my A/F position tuning problems, I tuned everything on my Zum very carefully and watched what was happening with my Boss chromatic tuner. My problem was a combination of cabinet drop and tuning some positions more ET and others more JI. I was trying to split the cabinet drop difference between my E and A chords. Also, I was tuning the open E chord very close to JI, because that thick plain 6th string really sounds bad as it moves sharp of JI. For some reason the 5th string (as the third in the A/B A chord) doesn't sound as bad to me closer to ET. Also, I was tuning my 3rd string (as the third of the open E chord) a little sharp of JI, because it is usually new and I expect it to stretch as I play.

Now here is what was happening with my cabinet drop. I tune my Es (strings 4 and straight up, then tune all the other open strings by ear to JI, meaning the thirds are between 436 and 437, and the fifths are pretty much straight up. Now when I press the A/B pedals, my open E strings drop about 2 hz, or about 10 cents. I tune my A chord to those Es, so my whole A chord is 10 cents flat at the nut, and I adjust that up by ear when using the bar (unconsciously). Now when I hit the A/F combination, both the open strings 3 and 6, and the pedaled strings 5 and 10 drop an additional 10 cents for a total of almost 20 cents flat. I tune my F lever stop (the third of the C# chord) JI to that. So this whole chord is 20 cents flat. This is all cabinet drop. I can tune all the above chords ET and the same thing happens.

Being vaguely aware of both the cabinet drop and the JI/ET problem, I was attempting to compromise everything by erring on the side of sharpness (from JI) on the thirds (some moreso than others), and trying to split the difference on the cabinet drop with the E and A chords. That all worked out so that I couldn't play a good A/F position chord without slanting the bar.

What I discovered last night is that if I accept all of the cabinet drop, and tune each position to the open strings, and tune the thirds in each position completely JI (or at least to the same degree sharp of JI), I get nice sounding chords in all three positions, without slanting the bar. Of course the bar has to be a hair sharp of the fret for the A/B position, and visually noticeably sharp of the fret for the A/F position. But that all happens pretty much automatically. Without the bar, at the nut, my A chord will be a little flat, and my C# chord will be very flat. For me that has been the best place to have this problem, because I never use the A/F combination at the nut, and rarely use the A/B combination at the nut.

I have heard that some pedal steels (the new Emmons and Franklins) have little or no cabinet drop. I would have to put a meter on them in all combinations to know for myself if that is true. The Zum drop is about the same as my Emmons push/pull, and that seems about typical of most modern pedal steels. My old Maverick was much worse. Until the manufacturers come up with a universal solution, this problem seems endemic to the instrument. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 30 November 2004 at 06:48 PM.]</p></FONT>

I'm going to have to go out to hear Eric play ET with the piano (with mini-disk recorder in hand) and see what I can learn.
I've heard both Bob H. and Eric W. play live with bands recently, and they both sounded fine to me.
When I tune everything straight up, it just sounds horrific, heinously out of tune, etc.
At conventions, I've never seen anyone tune more on stage than the Big E, but he always sounds fine to me too.
FWIW, I have a tuning course written by BE, and it doesn't say anything about tuning everything straight up (it's more of a cruel and unusual chinese chime torture ).
All my favorite steel recordings were done by guys who were of the "Give me an E" generation, and they sound in tune, too.
When I play my own gig recordings they sound fine to me too, (except for the out of tune segments)!?!
For me, consistantly recording myself playing live, and listening to and learning from the playback, is the best way to improve intonation (with regard to blending sweetly with the other instruments on stage) as well as learn what fits, what doesn't, where to play or not to play, etc.
Fun stuff!
S12U Roolz!

Glad you figured it out, David. I had a suspicion that cabinet drop figured into your problem somehow.

Eric, it must be hell to be cursed with an ear like yours. The Hermode tuning site includes some waveform charts that show the difference between JI and ET chords. The Hermode software does pretty much the same thing as what a JI steel player does instinctively to play against ET instruments.

Consider this: the steel player is centering his chord on the ET chord. The biggest difference is the 3rd, which is about 10 cents flat of ET. The beats between that note and the ET third are slower than the beats between the ET third and the ET root (14.6 cents). How can it not sound "in tune"?

Bad intonation is when the beating between harmony or unison notes reaches the point where it is unacceptable to the listener. "Out of tune" means that there are way too many beats in the combination of two waveforms.

Now, do you really believe that a listener is counting beats to hear what's in tune and what's not? I don't. People hear the harmonies from the steel as one sound, and that sound has to be centered with the tuning of the band as a whole. It doesn't make any difference to the listener if you're tuned to JI or ET - they won't hear a difference.

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<font size="1"><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/Hotb0b.gif" width="96 height="96">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover, Sierra S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6)</font>

Eric, you really have a sort of contrary history with the JI/ET problem compared with the older steelers. Here's my take on a recap of the history of this problem.

European classical musicians became acutely aware of the JI/ET clash when they developed more sophisticated fixed-pitch instruments like the harpisichord and clavichord, and when they began to play music in all 12 keys. They developed various tempered scales, one of which is the equal-tempered (ET) scale. All of these scales are intentionally set out-of-tune with JI to varying degrees. This was all worked out without tuning meters, by counting beats. While this causes all chords to be slightly out-of- tune, they are at least all equally out-of-tune. This is a compromise which allows fixed-pitch instruments to be as in-tune as possible, both for all chords within a key, and also in all keys.

However, variable-pitched instruments, such as the fretless strings, horns, and the human voice, naturally and automatically play in-tune to JI. It would take a tremendous amount of ear training to play these instruments completely ET. You would have to train the musicians to intentionally play out-of-tune. These are by far the dominant instruments in symphony orchestras (and early jazz bands). The clash with the fixed-pitch ET instruments was minimized by dropping them from most orchestral arrangements (keyboards), and keeping only percussion fixed-pitch instruments with little sustain (harps, glockenspiels, triangles).

Nevertheless, strings and horns do sometimes play with pianos (even organs), e.g. piano concertos, piano trios, etc. They somehow muddle through well enough to satisfy the average listener (although some conductors and string players have complained bitterly over the years). Strings have also been used successfully with ET tuned guitars in popular music for decades. This issue has been more or less settled for generations in classical music, so they don't discuss it much these days.

Although classical guitar players long ago developed methods to tune the six strings ET without a meter, very few guitarists in popular music (who mostly came from the folk tradition, not the classical tradition) tuned strictly ET. They took their E or A from a piano or tuner, and tuned the other stings by ear. This gave them some mixture of JI and ET. Typically this works reasonably well for a few of the main chords in the key they tune to. Many guitarists adapt this by retuning slightly when they know the next song will be in a different key. You will see them hit the tonic chord for the next song and tweak a few strings by ear. This works passably well, maybe even better than strict ET, for simple songs with simple progressions. More sophisticated guitarists who play more complicated music and/or get formal training usually learn that they need to stay with strict ET, which is relatively easy with or without a meter. As cheap electronic tuners have become available, even untrained guitarists have begun to tune to the ET of the tuners, many without knowing about the JI/ET problem. Still, you will see many of them tune all six strings ET to the tuner, then hit the tonic chord for the next song, and begin to tweak some strings toward JI by ear. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are reverting back to the old mixed JI/ET method. So, no, you can't really tune a guitar completely JI, but that doesn't keep lots of guys from trying, some fairly successfully for their purposes.

Older steelers mostly started as guitar players, and originally used the same tuning method. You get your E or A from a piano, tuning fork, harmonica, whatever, then tune everything by ear to that. You will invariably get something close to JI that way, because that is the way our ears hear. For a simple open tuning this works quite well. Unlike keyboards, a steel can take the JI open chord at the nut, and move it anywhere on the neck. So even though your strings are fixed-pitch, you can get a good JI chord anywhere. The instrument always sounds in-tune with itself, which may be more important than playing in perfect tune with accompanying ET instruments. As additional strings were added, some problems arose with the new inversions they allow. However, these strings tended to be 6ths, 7ths, 9ths, 13ths, etc., which produce dissonant chords in which the JI/ET problem is less noticeable. Then came pedal and lever stops, and problems arose. About this time cheap electronic chromatic tuners became widely available. Steelers discovered the JI/ET problem.

Most older steelers stuck with the old ways, and just used the tuners to get a single pitch, and tuned everything else by ear. To heck with ET and the new-fangled meters, the old JI just sounded better to them. Some of the younger guys, like Buddy Emmons, who loaded their pedal steels up with extra strings, pedals and levers, and who played careful studio music with keyboards, decided JI was no longer tenable for them, and they moved to more or less straight up ET. These days the top pros lean more toward JI, or more toward ET, or split the difference in their own personal way. It seems like few or none of them use strictly JI or strictly ET. So the top pros have solved the problem for each of themselves personally, but have not solved it in a general way for the rest of us - hence this interminably recurring thread.

From his personal history above, Eric seems to have taken a path similar to many younger steelers who took up the instrument after the widespread adoption of ET chromatic tuners. Their first tendency is to grab a tuner and tune everything straight up ET, and being unaware of the long history of the JI/ET problem in European music, they believe this is "in-tune." Others (like Eric), with a little more knowledge and sophistication, understand something of the distinction, but for simplicity, and to match keyboards, they choose to go along with strict ET. There is nothing wrong with this, whether you are a beginner, a seasoned semi-pro like Eric, or a master like Buddy Emmons. The only thing wrong is to preach that this is the only way to tune the instrument for everyone and all occassions.

The pedal steel is unique in having fixed-pitch strings and stops, like pianos and guitars, but also having a variable pitch bar that allows hitting single JI notes in any key, and that allows movable JI chords. It is perfectly okay for those who prefer it to keep some of this JI characteristic in their tuning. This will work very well for simple tunes with simple chord progressions. And as symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras, studio string musicians, and jazz bands have always done, it is possible to use this approach when playing with ET tuned keyboards and guitars. There will of course be some compromises. In ET everything is a compromise. Take your pick. One way works better in some situations, the other works better in others. And both can be used as a general approach. Unless some consensus miraculously emerges, this will remain a matter of personal taste and preference - the same way that copedent variations are a matter of personal preference. Maybe that's why such diverse musicians love the instrument. It is highly adaptable.

Well that's my take. It is a complicated problem - always has been, always will be. The only thing we can do is learn what we can about the problem, keep an open mind, experiment a little, and temporarily adopt whatever tuning method works best for us at the moment - the same as we do with our copedents.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 30 November 2004 at 06:50 PM.]</p></FONT>

Ok here's my question...

Which tuning method can you play ANY pedal/KL combination in any key, any chord, from open position to all the way up the neck without slanting, adjusting, or having to use too much vibrato?

I'm taking up the drums.

None. But then, all instruments have their own intonation problems.

BTW, drums can be tuned, you know. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 30 November 2004 at 12:16 PM.]</p></FONT>

Eric, here is how i do it on 6-string guitar. I use light strings with an un-wound 3rd string. When i'm playing major chords such as bar chords or any other triads up the neck, i push the string that is playing the third (interval) towards the bridge. This makes it go slightly flat. It takes a little practice to only push the single string. I'm not bending it, but just pushing it.

The interval of the third is usually on the B string or the G string. Since these strings are relatively light, it's not too hard to do. This doesn't always work. For instance in a fast tempo it's harder to do. But in ballads and slow songs it helps.

In recording sessions, i will often retune the guitar for specific chords to sound more in tune.

I also have two guitars with the Feiten tuning system, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.

<SMALL>Which tuning method can you play ANY pedal/KL combination in any key, any chord, from open position to all the way up the neck without slanting, adjusting, or having to use too much vibrato?</SMALL>

The only real problems in JI are the F# strings, and most people solve that with compensator pulls. Oh, and open strings. Don't play open strings - they sound bad anyway.

You guys are making me paranoid.Joe

Well kids, this isn't going to take all night.

DD. You're right about individual guitars.

Mine is sorely in need of it's successor, my Marrs Rebuild. The grooves have gotten deeper than the strings, and the remedy has been to lightly file the rollers, and I'm sure they're all not as perfect as they once were.

Add to that my A and B brass swivels are egg shaped, and I need to oil them once a week or so. My changers need a good blowing out, but I'm hoping to do it all when the Marrs gets here.

Pete. Always glad to see people at my gigs. Some are easy to entertain, some not so. I"m probably one of the easiest.

I know it's always better for me without guitars of keyboards, but I do what I can. I've been blessed with three in tune straight up tuning guitar players in a row, Steve Sarber, Monty Moss, and Art Bechtel. Kevin Neal was the best I remember in a while besides Buster Newberry, but he does duos and makes more money. Bad ones can ruin your spirit that's for sure.

Better a tape recorder than an ozone generator. I hate those things.

Monty and Renegade recorded all their gigs, and I would usually not be asked to listen to them. I did at first, but after a while I knew what they'd sound like, and listrening to them just pissed me off. I told them that if I had to listen to it twice, then I wanted to get paid for it twice. I feel the same way about monitors.

Also it was enlightening to play a duo lead section with Doug Jones a while back. We tune miles apart, and it didn't sound bad to either of us. It is indeed in the playing.

I've tried to tune "JI" quite a few times, but it made me laugh too much.

1st b0b. I listened to the examples, had my wife push the buttons at random, and was only wrong once in prefering ET. Especially the chordal example. It had a flat sound in it I'd pick a mile away.

If somebody showed up and hooked one to a keyboard they were playing against me with, I'd buy it a Long Island Ice Tea.

b0b, I don't have "perfect pitch", but the years of steady 5-7 nites found me after a seven night gig starting another one of five or six or more in a row with my ears WAY too sensitive to the smallest stuff. I considered it a curse myself. Since I'm pared down to steady weekends, I'm much easier to live with. I can play through a whole "musicians monday" set without wanting to smash my coffee cup aginst the wall, two or three in a rwo is pushing itmight be pushing it.

b0b, you're getting real good at cracking the false premise ever so slightly then pulling it over one's head while pushing them into a mudpuddle at slightest aquiescence and declaring victory.

You're no Bill Hankey though. He actually threw me for a couple loops on his "Birdseye view of a Fishtailing Bar" Theorum. ( I miss my Friend Bill.)

Don't give up buddy.

D Dogget#2.

You are more sohisticated than my friend b0b. More subtly condescending than my friend Pete. All, I consider in the most gently and friendly ways.

I love even having "a history". It does take a tremendous amount of "ear training" to learn to play in ET. How's three thousand musical brawls with musical instruments that usually aren't in tune with themselves, nary a beer of temporary refuge in twentyfive years of 'em, and not losing a tuning "conflict" with any of them in more than a full dog's life?

Coming out if it all not the slightest bit confused as to "what is in tune" and "what is not". I'll tell you two things that have saved me from it.

One, is being blessed with being able to play with three guitar players, that tuned straight up, had GOOD telecasters, and when they "bent strings", only did so to go up to a note, AND only played vibrato, as I was taught by my classical guitar teacher Mr Antunez, in a motion going 'down' as much as going 'up'.

Then, on a couple of good runs in the latter part, I've gotten to play with a couple good keyboard players playing the NEW ET electronic keyboards.

At the apex or at least at this stage, I'm totally grateful that I didn't deviate from the way that Mr Antunez taught me to tune and play the classical guitar. As far as his knowledge went, he was the director of the Cuban National Symphony who defected in Miami in '63, and I was lucky to study with him the time I did. He not once in three years mentioned changing my tuning in any way from true pitch. His english had gotten good enough to do so had he wanted. It was the Carcassi method, with a bunch of Fernando SOr and Sophocles Papas, with my insistance on learning "flamenco" which he kind of looked down his nose at, That got me off to a good start, though I today never play a 6 string guitar as I find it ruins my intonation for PSG. That's just me though. I was soon to scrap it all for cars girls and the worst drug of all "beer".

(There. I've given you enough word volume to float another couple whatever-you-call-its and launch a few condescensions.)

Now, your last statement says it all to me. I could well have skipped the whole well composed and affable menagerie of Monty Pythonesque mental quicksand by addressing the two points in it:

<SMALL> It is a complicated problem - always has been, always will be.</SMALL>

No. According to your own as well as other historical accconts, it was identified and addressed in the most simple of terms in the era of Bach. Doubtlessly long before. (Even East Indians knew that their sophisticated scales only worked on single note combinations, probably thousands of years earlier.)

<SMALL>The only thing we can do is learn what we can about the problem, keep an open mind, experiment a little, and temporarily adopt whatever tuning method works best for us at the moment - the same as we do with our copedents.</SMALL>

I won't go into it, but it seems to me kind of like "opening our minds to nuanced mathematics". Or "Outcome Based Education".

Two and Two is whatever it is depending on who says it is, and how important they are, or who they've added with.

"Temporarily adopt whatever tuning method works best for us at the moment."

That's PRICELESS! !

I've played against guitar players that did that. One of them suggested that I just "tune up to him" when he pushed his strings down too hard. Now he's somebody elses problem. I refused.

In fact, DLD, if you don't mind, I'd like to use that when I have to play with another one of these schitzointonation guys. I'll just tell him (or her I guess..)

"Let's just Temporarily adopt whatever tuning method works best for us at the moment."

Thanks for that Mr D.

I took no offense to any of your light sarcasm. I don't have it in me.

Mr S.

I figgered you were talking about intonation. "Tempering individual chords" might indeed suit the recordings. Especially in laying down tracks against other JI or changed tunings including vocals.

I'm aware of 6 string intonation problems, from the bridge end, the nut end, string size/metalurgical and tensile differences between the strings, and the delicate balancing of having 22+ fixed frets. Also the impossibility of a JI tuning system that works on other than very limited setting. The closest thing is a true ET tuning with intonation set to accommodate it the most closely given the mechanical limitations.

Oh and the last post?

b0b, you're KILLING ME. I about had an aneurism. Yeah those F#;s!! boy they're KILLERS!!@#$%. Open Strings? You mean people PLAY THEM???? Compensators? I guess I'll have to borrow some of Harley,s Larry's, Pete's, Doug's, Dave's, Paul's or Dales extra ones, since they've probably got more than they need.

All in all, I'd say that as far as "Rat Packings" go, this one was more like getting beaten with a dozen wilted daffodils.

Nice try my good friends.

<SMALL> Hit me with a flower. Do it every hour. -Lou Reed-</SMALL>

.

I'll be back tomorrow. I had a long day hauling concrete debris.

Your favorite pin cushion.

Eric West.

Maybe next round I can get a history of East Indian music, Sonic Subfusion, Reverse Intimidation, and a Herpefier System Program Dealership offer.

I'm thinking that implanting magnets under the hears clubs and spades might just straighten things out.

Maybe a tin foil insert for my Stetson..

Tune straight up, and learn to hear music that way. Or try some of the other methods. People have become famous playing either way.

It's also just as easy to give up on either system.

Just because something's "Simple" doesn't mean that it's "Easy".

I think Mr Llewellyn is probably getting a good understanding.

Again, I'll answer. It depends on who you ask.

Especially around the sophisticated.

The simplest, and clearest answers I have found, are often the most accurate. I don't know why.




<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 30 November 2004 at 07:46 PM.]</p></FONT>

Eric, I am indeed getting an education. About ET, JI, everything in between, and about steelers themselves and their preferences. And their reasons for their preferences. This thread has expanded beyond my expectations.

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<font size=1>Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?</font>

Do you guys realize while you all were trying to figure out the supreme tuning method you just missed another great episode of southpark!!!!!!!

Just for the record I have a degree in music not sub-harmonic oscilation or whatever the heck it is. TUNE IT!!!! PLAY IT!!!

Now back to southpark....What??? they killed kenny....must have been out of tune!!!!!!!

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Steelin' away in the ozarks and life,
Scott
www.scottyhenderson.com