back to list

Microtonal guitar

🔗Manuel.Op.de.Coul@ezh.nl (Manuel Op de Coul)

3/1/1997 7:30:45 AM
From: PAULE

Thanks, Neil, for the pointer to the "Guitar Shop" article! I had already
skimmed the magazine in my quest for a new 12-tET guitar but didn't notice
that tidbit. It is interesting that Jon is labelled a "progressive jazz"
guitarist -- certainly "Crash Landing" may warrant the jazz label, while
"Jesus Got a Gun" is hard rock, "Cow People" is country pop, and the Forever
Bad Blues Band is none of the above (including "Bad" and "Blues"). What a
versatile guy!

I found it interesting that Jon was originally inspired by seeing Ivor
Darreg with a 22-tone guitar, but decided not to explore that tuning. I was
partially inspired by hearing Jon Catler to get my guitar refretted, but,
not knowing of the Darreg connection, I happened to chose 22-tET. Also, I
recently saw a whole bunch of 22-tET guitars in an old issue of Experimental
Musical Instruments, from which I was getting some tuning info for Manuel. I
guess there really is nothing new, but it would be a tragedy if these ideas
did not get explored afresh by each new generation.

I hope to be receiving my guitar neck shortly, and then I'll get to work
learning some of my 22-tET keyboard (those stretches have really been
hurting my hands) compositions on guitar. Also I plan on practicing lots of
exercises that will help me learn to improvise over a harmonic texture that
has 7-limit tetrads as basic units, which will include learning lots of
good-sounding voicings for these chords. I already have a well-developed
theory for a melodic structure from which this harmonic usage can be
derived, but I'm going to keep my ears open for any new possibilities that
strike me.

Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl
with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 16:33 +0100
Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01434; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 16:33:07 +0100
Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01433
Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI)
id HAA13493; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 07:30:05 -0800
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 07:30:05 -0800
Message-Id: <009B09E5A8D94E8A.582E@vbv40.ezh.nl>
Errors-To: madole@mills.edu
Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu
Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu