Re: [linux-audio-user] in tune - stupid thread [WAS: Tuning Program or wav files?]

mchristoph.eckert(a)t-online.de (Christoph Eckert) writes: depends in what key you are in :) I have been playing a guitar for over 20 years and I never heard of Feiten tuning system, although all the names that poped out in the linked article sound very familiar. But I'm probaly way behind because I jumped from blues stright to classical guitar and then stright to computer music... I guess I've got some gaps to fill. In any case, there is a touch of misinformation and/or misinterpretation of history in that article that someone provided earlier (http://www.buzzfeiten.com/Articles/Guitar_Shop/guitar_shop.html). First of all pythagoras did not get his math wrong. He was right on. And he could not have miscalculated the fret distances because fretted instruments were invented a couple centuries after his death, if not later. In the occident at least. There are perhaps older instruments in the oriental cultures but have nothing to do with Pythagoras. Also, I fail to see how a 12TET system can sound perfectly in tune. I mean, the whole idea of equal temperament is to make concessions in intonation as a tradeoff for having all, or most, intervals sound the same in all keys. As it's been pointed out, the 12TET tuning system is incompatible with overtone series of a vibrating string so even the Feiten tuning must be out of tune. Probably differently and perhaps the differences are actually appealing to some players but still out of tune. I hope that some day the digital technology will bring us a just intonation guitar that will retune itself depending on which key you're playing in :) But by then, I will probably go back to acoustic

instruments (providing I'm still alive). For now, I have modified one of my instruments to do just intonation and it's alot of fun. And I don't play tonal music so modulations to different keys are of no consequence to me :) cheers, ./MiS