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0 pointskazinator18d ago0 comments

Frets are already on equal temperament on the vast majority of mainstream guitars; you're not getting away from equal temperament unless all you play is open strings, like a koto/harp.

If octaves are perfect with one string in between, the in between string can be slightly detuned from equal temperament to provide a clean fifth, free of beats. Then it also provides a clean fourth up to the octave. That's a useful thing that will make certain chords sound good.

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dahart18d ago

That’s not very helpful. You can only do that one string, and it breaks the perfect octave starting on the detuned string. As soon as you also try to detune the next string up, you break the octave you started from. This is a house of cards idea that falls apart immediately.

kazinatorOP18d ago

The detuned string in between likewise has a perfect octave relationship to strings that are two removed.

The E, D and B strings are turned such that they yield clean octaves (and other equal-temperament intervals).

Then so are the A, G and E.

But these two groups are slightly detuned, so that the fifths are clean from the E to A string, D to G, and B to E.

dahart18d ago

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 off it would still only work for certain keys and not others. I’ll pass.

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0 pointskazinator18d ago0 comments

Frets are already on equal temperament on the vast majority of mainstream guitars; you're not getting away from equal temperament unless all you play is open strings, like a koto/harp.

0 comments

dahart18d ago

kazinatorOP18d ago

The detuned string in between likewise has a perfect octave relationship to strings that are two removed.

The E, D and B strings are turned such that they yield clean octaves (and other equal-temperament intervals).

Then so are the A, G and E.

But these two groups are slightly detuned, so that the fifths are clean from the E to A string, D to G, and B to E.

dahart18d ago

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