[Mark Barnes]

Simple Simon: "As previously discussed in other threads, tuning a guitar is almost always a matter of compromise, as there is no single "perfect" tuning (unless one considers equal tempering to represent perfection - I don't)."

I am interested (as someone experimenting with a varierty of different intonations and temperaments) as to whether there are other intonations you prefer. I have tried playing pythagorean intonation, 5 limit just intonation and quarter and sixth comma meantone on stage.

I have also tried equal temperaments with other numbers of notes in an octave than 12. I have played 7,9,10 and 14 note equal temperaments on stage.

I am also interested in finding more instruments that I can change the pitches of. I have an electric guitar and an electric bass guitar that I play with different fingerboards with frets in different places, but I don't have any other instruments with this flexibility yet, except violin and slide whistle, which I find difficult. Do you know how to assign pitches to midi notes in order to allow different intonations on midi keyboards or sequencers? Do you know how to modify other intstruments? Ideally, I want instruments that force me to play in chosen intonations (like the frets of a guitar do) rather than instruments that allow any pitch (like slide trombone and violin). At the moment, I think pan pipes are promising, but I haven't made any yet.

[Mark Barnes]

Obvious ideas are harps, mechanical keyboard instruments, santoors, zithers, autoharps and hammered dulcimers, but the problems with these from my point of view are the space they take up and how long they take to retune from one intonation to another.

[surfer]

create the pitches desired and load them to a sampler? then play back with a midi keyboard? should be able to accomplish whatever you want.

[NigeQ]

I have a baglama which came from Turkey. It has 17 intervals in an octave. At present I only play stuff in western scales but maybe I should experiment more with the 5 rogue notes

[Mark Barnes]

I have a baglama which came from Turkey. It has 17 intervals in an octave. At present I only play stuff in western scales but maybe I should experiment more with the 5 rogue notes

I am very interested. Is it 12 notes exactly like 12 note equal temperament and 5 that are exactly half way between some of those notes, or is it done differently?

I have been considering experimenting with arabic scales and I have made a guitar fretboard for 24 note equal temperament, which gives you all the notes from 12 note equal temperament and all the quarter tones between them, but I haven't made much use of it yet. The frets are very close together.

Do you have recordings and pictures of the baglama?

[Mark Barnes]

create the pitches desired and load them to a sampler? then play back with a midi keyboard? should be able to accomplish whatever you want.

Thank you. I might try that at some point, though it sounds time consuming and I don't at the moment have a sampler. I have been using Power Tracks Pro Audio 12 and it has occurred to me that I might be able to use one of the midi edit functions to change the pitch of individual notes using pitch wheel settings after recording a midi track using a keyboard.

A related problem is that a standard keyboard only has 12 keys in a repeating pattern, which makes it seem to me unsuited to intonations with more than 12 notes in an octave.

[Salley Gardens]

Alternate fingerings and embouchures (mouth formations) can be used on flutes, clarinets, and such, to play microtones, adding a lot more pitches in between the 12. Penny whistles and non-keyed flutes work, too, by sliding the finger off the hole to different degrees.

[Salley Gardens]

Also, check out some Mid-East instruments, and those from India, some of their music goes outside the 12 tone system.

[surfer]

John McLaughlin of Mahavishnu Ochestra, a 70's jazz fusion band, was known for his quartertone guitar work. I think he did it with standard fretboards and tall frets. He apparently trained himself to control the quarter tones by how much pressure he used to press down on the strings. Way beyond my meager skills.

you might be interested in this
http://www.eigenlabs.com/alpha/
apparently it adds a bunch of midi controlers to the stringed instrumen and has micro sensitivity.

[Bruce N]

Hi Mark and welcome to the Muse, not sure if this would answer your question, but there are a number of manufactured 8, 9, 10, string guitars available both in acoustic and electric.


Ten string classical guitar__________________________Harp guitar__________________________________10 string Chapman Stick

Harp guitars are usually tuned as C-D-E-F-G-A-d-g-b-e'

Ten string electrics will sometimes have, Low A, D, G, C, F, Bb, Eb, G#, C, High F

Not sure if that will get you the 17 note octave, with half and quarter notes, but it might be possible with string selection and experimenting with tunings.

I've also experimented with my DAW, as it allows me to bump up or down the recorded tracks in semi-tones or pitch, or I can stretch or shrink the track length, varying the pitch, but then that's after fact and not live.

Bruce

[NigeQ]

Do you have recordings and pictures of the baglama?

No recordings as yet, although it has made some public appearances

Here is a pic.

I’m not sure how well you can see but here goes: It has 3 pairs of strings. There are various tunings you can opt for but I went for A D E. It has 17 frets covering a western octave. The octave mark is the dark shaded area on the neck. The workmanship may look a little primitive but it stays in tune brilliantly.

Here is how the 12 step octave maps onto the fretboard. The red-fret notes are no man’s land in western music

[Mark Barnes]

Thank you very much for that, NigeQ. I've printed the picture out so that I can attempt to investigate it mathematically using a ruler. I guess the frets that aren't straight are deliberately askew to give the correct tunings on the various strings, though this would depend on the string tuning used.

[Salley Gardens]

Ohhh! Ohhh! A baglama!! I want one *so* bad.....

She's purdy; where did you get it?

[Mark Barnes]

After a large amount of mathematical experimentation, I managed to construct theoretical values for the pitches of almost all the notes that seem close to the positions of the frets in the picture and are constructed with repeated use of the 2nd, 3rd and 5th harmonics. However, I never found a value I thought satisfying for the 8th fret (augmented 4th) within this framework. I may have to introduce higher harmonics (the 17th would do it nicely) or irrational intervals (such as the square root of 2).

Also, I haven't yet made a fretboard for the pitches I have arrived at. I am tempted to construct an electric lyre-baglama with removable fingerboard.