Re: Eberhard's intonation...

[Paolo Valladolid <paolovalladolid@yahoo.com>]

My fretless guitar came out of the Fernandes factory with lines.  The fretless bass I used to own was originally fretted, so there are lines from the fillings of the fret slots. 

 

I did find these lines to be a disadvantage when working with microtonal musicians.  The violinist used a grease marker to indicate where the desired pitches of his just-tuned scale were - he could erase lines and draw new ones at will as he changed his mind on what notes (or "ratios" in just intonation terms) he wanted in his scale.

 

I think he wanted the lines there on his violin fingerboard for the same reason some fretless bassists want lines - to be able to hit a note at the desired pitch right on cue, at the start point of a composition or after an extended break.  This was very important to him, because if he was off the desired pitch, he would no longer be playing the 17-limit JI scale around which the piece was built.

 

Paolo

Jair-Rohm <gtc@chello.se> wrote:

--- Jair-Rohm <gtc@chello.se> wrote:

Good question, Tim. Looking at lines (like frets) causes people to perceive  the fingerboard as a finite matrix consisting of a finite number of 'pitches' which are/should be located in the same place all of the time. Playing between the lines is not the same thing as "using intonation" as a compositional/improvisational device. On the other hand, if the player isn't looking at the fingerboard/lines, what's the point in having them? Note that i said that it's the 'looking' that causes the damage. Also, this concept only really applies to music that isn't locked into 12 pitches to the octave equal temperament.

Hope this clears things up a little.

JPW

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