which tuning is best/tuning in 34 eq

Once again, Finnamore's comments are very interesting, but to me,
the point is NOT which tuning resonates best with humanity (I am
paraphrasing his comments). Sure, that is an issue, but once we have a
tuning we like, can we COMPOSE something in it that is meaningful and
profound? For example, and I hope I do not insult anyone here, I have an
album by a pianist named Michael Harrison...he plays a piano tuned
purely, and has 24 notes to the octave. In the liner notes, he talks very
profoundly about the effects of pure tuning, and about his studies with
various people in the field of pure tunings, etc. Only problem for me is
this: on a musical, technical, compositional level, the album is
incredibly boring because of the lack of interesting compositions and
playing. The album seems to be composed of a few simple chordal motifs,
with song structures that sound, to me, like ideas a beginning guitarist
would come up with as he/she is discovering the harmonized major scale.
And again, I am only trying to be honest here...I do not want to insult a
fellow musician out of spite, or whatever...if I write something less
than inspiring, I would expect someone to say so as well.
OK...so the tuning is marvelous, in tune, and all that...now, write
some music that is challenging, profound, and interesting on deep levels.
I, at this stage of my career, am not impressed by basic chordal
structures that sound like a beginning musician. The craft of composition
is deep and challenging, and is a subject that many folks have not done a
whole lot with. Simplicity is fine, but simple music does not necessarily
mean cliched or unimaginative. Again, that is my main complaint about a
lot of "just" music...it sounds like the composer is more fascinated with
the purity of the tuning, rather than the final result of the
composition.
As far as tuning my 34 tone guitar...I approach this stuff fairly
intuitively, so here's what I do. I tune it like a regular 12 tone
instrument (as I do all of my guitars, 19 and 31 as well). This means the
following: the B string is in tune with the two E strings, and is the
5th of said strings. When I play a G chord, the open B string is one
increment sharp (comma) to the G, so I have to flat this B by one fret to
be in tune on the G chord. Because of my background in blues (32 years),
many of the things I like to do involve riffs/patterns that are based off
of the "standard" 12 tone tuning...I don't want to mess with changing
that phenomenon at this stage of my career, so I work within that
framework...on 34, this is really tricky because of said comma, but it is
a personal choice, and works well for me...others may have better luck
with alternative ways of tuning...and what DOES Catler do, by the
way, when he tunes his axe?...Hstick

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