Freaky Frets...

[dai h.]

http://www.truetemperament.com/main.php

any thoughts on this? Perhaps the nearest thing I've seen is the crown of the frets dressed with curves, but this goes even further.

[Brad1]

Guitar Player mag had a guitar with those weird-looking frets a while back. Would be perfect for a "jam-band"...all the stoners would think they were hallucinating when they see those necks!

It seems like it would be weird to play, but I haven't played one, so I don't know. They claim it doesn't affect bending, but I think it would be weird to grab a spot, and feel the fret getting closer or farther as you bend. Seems like it would affect the tension and pitch, if it was, say, moving closer to the fret toward the top of the bend.

Also, seems like it would take some getting used to, to find "the middle" between the frets, especially up high, since they are zigging and zagging across the fretboard.

No thanks...I'll just stick to the "imperfect" stuff. Jimi, Stevie, EC, or the Satch never had a problem with "imperfection"..... (Well...Jimi, live sometimes...but there were other factors involved.)

Brad1

[Dave Kerr]

So, do you figure that they have different formulations that account for variations in preference of relief, action, etc?

[dai h.]

I suppose you'd just adjust the intonation at the bridge?

did you see the other ones--the original idea:

http://www.truetemperament.com/main.php?go=6&lan=1

then, one that looks even wackier:

http://www.truetemperament.com/main.php?go=19&lan=1

No thanks...I'll just stick to the "imperfect" stuff. Jimi, Stevie, EC, or the Satch never had a problem with "imperfection"..... (Well...Jimi, live sometimes...but there were other factors involved.)

you can't really speak for the dead guys (since they are yes... dead ...) but as for say Satriani, I thought he used the Feiten system, so while none of them may (or may have) gone as far as using a guitar with these frets, I do think that they were at least somewhat receptive to possible improvements. I bet Jimi would've tried and used some of the things that came later like Floyd Rose tremolos, locking tuners, hum-cancelling single-coil type PUs, etc., maybe continously experimenting with things.

[David Schwab]

Those other fretboards were not to improve equal temperament tuning, that we all use, those are set up for Just Intonation, where every interval is perfectly in tune. They also have more than 12 tones in the octave.

With equal temperament, everything is slightly out of tune. If you get the 5ths perfectly in tune, the 3rds are out, and so on. This is why you can't tune your guitar to an open C chord for example, and have an open E sound in tune. The 3rd will be out on the E chord.

just intonation, also called rational intonation, is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by whole number ratios; that is, by positive rational numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval and the two notes are members of the same harmonic series.

Equal temperament arranges all notes at multiples of the same basic interval. This results in all intervals sounding equally (but mildly) out of tune in any key. The intervals themselves are detuned slightly.

The problem with Just Intonation is you can't change keys and have the music sound in tune! You can tune a piano to play in Just in the key of G, but it may sound very dissonant and unpleasant in A for example. Also octaves are not always in tune from one end of the instrument to the other.

I experimented with this back in the 70's by adding frets between frets on a cheap guitar I had. It's sounds a lot more interesting than it is, unless you plan on playing very non traditional (Western) music.

[Mark Ingram]

The problem with Just Intonation is you can't change keys and have the music sound in tune! You can tune a piano to play in Just in the key of G, but it may sound very dissonant and unpleasant in A for example. Also octaves are not always in tune from one end of the instrument to the other.

As I recall (from the Music History classes in the Music Degree I never finished) with a Just Intonation, intonation gets progressively worse the further you get from the tuned key. In otherwords, a piano Just-tuned in the key of G would sound perfect in G, slightly out in F# or Aflat, F and A slightly more out of tune, etc.

But this is all theory for me because I have never heard a Just-tuned instrument, so your mileage may vary.

[David Schwab]

As I recall (from the Music History classes in the Music Degree I never finished) with a Just Intonation, intonation gets progressively worse the further you get from the tuned key. In otherwords, a piano Just-tuned in the key of G would sound perfect in G, slightly out in F# or Aflat, F and A slightly more out of tune, etc.

Right, a piano tuned to play in G, will work in that key and maybe E flat, and that's about it! The guitars shown have a compromised tuning where they play more in tune with themselves, and you can still transpose.

You can get synths now that adjust the tuning as you change keys. This is about the only practical way of doing it I think.

[Mark Ingram]

Right, a piano tuned to play in G, will work in that key and maybe E flat, and that's about it! The guitars shown have a compromised tuning where they play more in tune with themselves, and you can still transpose.

You can get synths now that adjust the tuning as you change keys. This is about the only practical way of doing it I think.

Right. The way we were taught: standard Just-tempered tuning was the key of C. As you added more accidentals to the key signature, the C tuning became increasingly out of tune in those keys. Which is different from what I typed earlier. Now that the ancient, archival data to be retrieved and restored, I think I'll stick with this newer (older) story. Until someone comes up with a more convincing one...

[genereaux]

The guitar is perhaps the MOST imperfect instrument- a walking design flaw from inception. I think that's the root of it's appeal.
I remeber about 7 yrs or so ago, Wasburn (or Yamaha) did something similar for Frank Gambale with all these 'offset' frets.

Personally, I feel it is an attempt to make a shinier t#rd. And, as David Schwab alluded to, such antics result in a less 'versatile' guitar.

sg

[Mark Ingram]

The guitar is perhaps the MOST imperfect instrument- a walking design flaw from inception. I think that's the root of it's appeal.

Frets are really just a crutch for people (me included) who can't be bothered with disciplining themselves to place their fingers in the correct position, much less learning to hearthe correct pitches. OTOH, frets make it relatively easy for someone to make a tolerable sound without years of practice. Imagine how many of us would not have bothered to learn to play guitar if it took as much study and effort to play as, say, violin does. I probably would have stuck with kazoo.

I remeber about 7 yrs or so ago, Wasburn (or Yamaha) did something similar for Frank Gambale with all these 'offset' frets.

Personally, I feel it is an attempt to make a shinier t#rd. And, as David Schwab alluded to, such antics result in a less 'versatile' guitar.

sg

If no one ever tried to polish poop we'd all be banging rocks and logs together to make music. Even Thomas Edison sucessfully discovered thousands of wrong ways to make light bulbs. Of course, he never tried to market the ones that didn't work to status-hungry teens... I'm not gonna spend any money trying to overcome the nature of the beloved guitar. Besides, they aren't flaws, they're 'personality attributes'.

[David Schwab]

Frets are really just a crutch for people (me included) who can't be bothered with disciplining themselves to place their fingers in the correct position, much less learning to hearthe correct pitches.

I play bass, and for many years played fretless bass as my main instrument. You can learn to play the notes in tune without too much trouble... but playing more than double stops is VERY difficult because it's hard to get a bunch of fingers down on the same "fret" line. I've played guitars with the frets removed, and it's pretty impossible to play chords. Even one finger barred across all six strings wont be in tune.

The main problem with guitar is both that the even tempered scale is inherently out of tune with itself, even though we are used to hearing it, and also that the standard way to divide up the fingerboard into semitones is flawed somewhat. So a guitar wont even play in even tempered tuning quite in tune.

So without going to just temperament, we can improve the situation by adjusting the string length at the nut end (Earvanna and Feiten methods) or by tweaking the position of the frets.

[Mark Ingram]

I play bass, and for many years played fretless bass as my main instrument.

Ever since the first time I heard Jaco Pastorius I *love* fretless bass.

I have heard of fretless guitar but I have never heard or even seen a fretless guitar. I imagine precision finger placement would limit speed and I have a bit of trouble imagining there being any significant sustain. And I think stumming bar chords is completely out of the question. But it will be something interesting to dabble with once I've made my fortune.

I remember my total amazement in hearing a music history teacher assert that F-sharp and G-flat were not the same notes. And one of my vocalist friends confirmed to me that F-sharp is actually a bit higher than G-flat.

Music is a wonderful thing. A topic that you could never hope to exhaust in a lifetime of research...

[David Schwab]

Ever since the first time I heard Jaco Pastorius I *love* fretless bass.

Yeah, me too, but I went out of my way to not sound like Jaco... around that time everyone and his mother tried to cop that sound! That helped push him over the edge too. Eventually that's why I switched back to frets.

The neat thing about fretless is you are able to play intervals in tune, and play notes in-between notes... but that's not all that useful.

I have heard of fretless guitar but I have never heard or even seen a fretless guitar. I imagine precision finger placement would limit speed and I have a bit of trouble imagining there being any significant sustain. And I think stumming bar chords is completely out of the question. But it will be something interesting to dabble with once I've made my fortune.

well playing single note lines would be about the same as on any fretless instrument, bass, or even violin or cello, but it wont sound the same, and anything more than trying to play three notes at the same time would be really tricky. But speed isn't an issue.

I remember my total amazement in hearing a music history teacher assert that F-sharp and G-flat were not the same notes. And one of my vocalist friends confirmed to me that F-sharp is actually a bit higher than G-flat.

On a fretted instrument or piano they are the same note. And for anyone singing along with equal tempered tuning they are the same note. It's called an enharmonic. For example, B and C flat are EXACTLY the same note pitch wise... same is true of G flat and F sharp. The pitch is the same frequency wise.

I'm not sure what those people were smoking when they said that, and I don't want any of it!

Now if you go back far enough, they were different pitches, but not with our 12 tone system.

It is proper to notate sharps on ascending lines, and flats on descending lines, but they are still enharmonic, i.e., the same notes.

Music is a wonderful thing. A topic that you could never hope to exhaust in a lifetime of research...

It is! A whole lot can be said with 12 notes!

[ampcession]

Great discussion. There's one more reason for frets besides allowing mental midgets who are too lazy to learn a real instrument like a violin or a french horn to play. Frets allow a guitar or mandolin to sustain tones without a continuous energy source being applied to the strings. You bow a violin. Guitars are plucked. If there were no frets the flesh of your fingers would deaden the sound causing a loss of sustain and tone. It would sound like a rubber band stretched over a cigar box.

[mjmiller]

You have never heard David Fiuczynski play
Bend your ears into a new shape at www.torsos.com
double necked guitar, but instead of being cheesy, 1 has no freaking frets. listen to the roxy migraine mp3. He gets enough sustain for my ears
And not only is he freaking FAST but he can play complex chords and slide them into other chords.
Maybe he has smaller fingers than me - I'm with David, I can't cram enough fingers into a small enough space, but I have thick fingers
Oh, and I'm not a professor at the Berklee College of music, either
It's like listening to Jerry Donahue (the four armed pedal steeler who is REALLY just a guy with a telecaster and some simultaneous oblique and nut bend tricks) but he's more versatile
Very unlike rubber bands and a shoebox.

The first time I saw a freaky tuning system, it was Lucy tuning - check it out...
Pitch, Pi and other musical paradoxes is interesting reading...
plus you get a c flat on your guitar (and a B triple flat, if you extrapolate the system far enough. Doesn't take the string physics into account (wound vs unwound, etc...) but it does make things interesting... and, most importantly, you can do it yourself, easily - no silicon bronze frets to wear out (and 600 bucks?!? no thanks, I'll build 2 whole guitars myself for the price of one of their necks!)

Here's one for you:
Octave = 2:1
Maj 3rd = 5:4
Octave = 3 stacked major 3rds
5:4 * 5:4 * 5:4 = 125/64
Octave = 128/64
Hmm... what happened to the other 3/64?
Octave not equal to 3 major 3rds unless a major 3rd is 125/192
and it damn well is not 125/192
EVH tuned all wierd to get that Unchained sound
and I guarantee he couldn't play a vanilla nut position Emaj without cringing tuned like that
the 12 tone scale is out of tune, period, any way you slice it
Just temperment - perfect in C, good in F and G, actually not bad in D and Bb, but hideous in F# This is where the term "wolf tone" came from
Even temperment- the 12th root of 2 doesn't add up to ANY small whole number ratios except at the octave. Period. However...
The 56 fret guitar allows you to play phenomenally close to Just intonation in ANY key (you have to slightly adjust the tuning of the open strings to switch from one just tuning to another... but if you tune right, you can get away without changing it at all - modulate to any key... but you have to play a freaking 56 fret guitar to do it

But f* that - I'll take a fretless guitar anyday over that

Blargh
Michael Miller