RE: How I Refretted My Guitar On My Summ

I've had two guitars that needed a nut adjustment. One was my first,
kit-form, and thus rather crude, guitar (a 10TET beastie), and the other was my
Ramirez. The Ramirez (it's a cheapie for a Ramirez) was designed to be played
very loudly, so the nut and bridge are MUCH taller than the frets. So, in
addition to the graduatedly increasing amount of tension as you work your way to
higher positions, all but the open string endure an additional amount of tension
from the height of the nut.

If you want to continue to really WANG the strings like they expected, then
the best solution is to get an experienced repair shop to remove the nut, file
the fingerboard a millimeter or two, and reset the nut. Most guitars use a weak
glue for setting the nut (and a few use none at all), so it's not usually hard
to adjust them. The biggest difficulty is that, in the process of filing into
the fingerboard, you'll accidentally file down into the neck. That's easy to do
because the wood for the neck is often softer than for the fingerboard. I
suspect, although I haven't heard of this being done, that you can do the same
(very carefully!) with a guitar maker's band saw.

But on my Ramirez, I took the other approach: I just filed down the height
of the nut so that it was not much taller than the frets, so it didn't require
any correction, and was easier to play.


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> A last quote (for Gary): "Its juss music man, juss music."

I like that one, because I've always been of the persuasion that theories are
very well worth exploring in that they can provide new playgrounds for musicians
to play in. But ultimately, when it comes to making music in that playground,
you just gotta feel it.


I can also relate to Doren's point about Partch taking time to get familiar
with. At first it sounded strange, but now it really doesn't sound all that
strange at all. In fact much of it is downright palatable. When I first heard
Partch, by the way, I was already familiar with other unusual tunings. The
strangest thing about it for me was what at first sounded like extreme overuse
of percussion timbres. But like I say, it doesn't sound extreme anymore.


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