another one-of-a-kind microtonal instrument

wow,wish you could all be here because I just got my 13TET tenor uke
and it's amazing...pictues soon,sounds someday

okey,should anyone be interested I've uploaded pictures of my two new
acoustic microtonal instruments to the photos files

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "daniel_anthony_stearns"
<daniel_anthony_stearns@y...> wrote:
> wow,wish you could all be here because I just got my 13TET tenor
uke
> and it's amazing...pictues soon,sounds someday

Dan,

{you wrote...}
>wow,wish you could all be here because I just got my 13TET tenor uke and >it's amazing...pictues soon,sounds someday

They look bee-yoo-tee-ful - love the uke being lifted to the heavens. I only wish I lived around the block so I could come and record you!

Cheers,
Jon

Very nice. Just one question -- how have you got the strings tuned --
approximating the tenor uke (like normal uke but the fourth string is
an octave lower) or the baritone (same as tenor guitar) or something
altogether different?

DJW

>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "daniel_anthony_stearns"
> <daniel_anthony_stearns@y...> wrote:
> > wow,wish you could all be here because I just got my 13TET tenor
> uke
> > and it's amazing...pictues soon,sounds someday

I haven't settled on any one tuning for the open strings yet,but
rather I've been tweeking them by ear and play,play,playing to see
what I like and what I want to use. But the string set I'm using is
an 024, 032, 034, 028 (B,F#,D,A)

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "danieljameswolf"
<djwolf1@a...> wrote:
> Very nice. Just one question -- how have you got the strings tuned -
-
> approximating the tenor uke (like normal uke but the fourth string
is
> an octave lower) or the baritone (same as tenor guitar) or something
> altogether different?
>
> DJW
>
>
> >
> > --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "daniel_anthony_stearns"
> > <daniel_anthony_stearns@y...> wrote:
> > > wow,wish you could all be here because I just got my 13TET
tenor
> > uke
> > > and it's amazing...pictues soon,sounds someday

I'd like to post a bit about my two new microtonal instruments.
They're both acoustic instruments; one is a tenor ukulele and the
other is a 6-string banjo, or a banjotar. Chris Shaffer did the work
on both of these instruments, and without his enthusiasm and
generosity they'd still exist only in my mind.

The tenor ukulele is fretted as a maximally even 8-out-of-13 in
thirteen-tone equal temperament. Thirteen-tone equal temperament is
almost exclusively mentioned in tuning theory with a negative
connotation, as a sort of pinnacle of atonality and discordance. But
sometimes things need a different perspective, and trying to compare
12TET and 13TET is really quite counterproductive. There are many
truly beautiful scales and subsets in 13TET, and this 8-out-of-13
contains a wonderful 7-tone scale:

0, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13

The banjotar retains the standard 12TET fretting but adds 5 just
intonated notes:

33/32, 7/6, 11/8, 14/9, 7/4

This gives a 17-tone octave, and this arrangement rather nicely
approximates a 3, 5, 7 and 11-limit grid and the banjo resonator
wonderfully accentuates the otherness of the new notes.