Quick and dirty

Back when I was working at MacDuff�s Music (around `93 - `95), I would often
borrow a variety of inexpensive habiliments to use overnight on recordings I
was working on...

One of my favorites was an old Kay jumbo acoustic with a moveable bridge.

By moving the bridge back to the tailpiece I was able to push the octave up
to the 15th fret.* By moving the bridge all the way up to the soundhole I
was able to pull the octave back to the very brink of the 10th fret.

While the first procedure would cause some �choking out�, and latter a
fairly unfriendly �action�� both these problems were relatively easy to work
around.

So in one very inexpensive guitar I was able to achieve a quick and dirty**
[10]<11<>12<>13<>14<>15<*** EDO**** acoustic microtonal instrument�

And though I�ve longed for a more reliable and more playable version of this
guitar ever since� no small part of the beauty here is that the Kay was
accessible to an utter financial nonentity such as myself!

Respectfully
D�Stearns

*This is entirely contingent on the guitar being a jumbo.

**While the setup and tuning time was certainly not instant; it was indeed
�quick�... And no matter what you did to this particular guitar (short of a
major overhaul), the intonation was going to be �dirty�.

***You could also stop the bridge incrementally between 11 - 15, a good ways
before 11, and a bit after 15.

****As far as acronyms go, {E}quidistant {D}ivision of the {O}ctave�s� EDO,
certainly seems (to me) a rather colorless creation (immanently indisposed
as it is to the oddly resonant charm of {T}one {E}qual {T}emperament�s�TET).
But I do believe it 'better says' what (I believe) 'needs saying'� and as
such I feel somewhat obligated to continue to pretend I like it (and
apologize for saying so).

Even on a perfect guitar, such a procedure would not produce 15-tET
(15-EDO) or an acceptable approximation thereof. If one makes the 15th
fret equal to the octave, this procedure would produce the following
cents values:

0 86 171 256 340 433 504 586 666 745 824 901 977 1053 1127 1200

instead of

0 80 160 240 320 400 480 560 640 720 800 880 960 1040 1120 1200

I suspect Dan knew this already; just wanted to clarify.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Debra Shea-Stearns [SMTP:stearns@capecod.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 1998 12:36 PM
> To: tuning@onelist.com
> Subject: [tuning] Quick and dirty
>
> From: "Debra Shea-Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>
> Back when I was working at MacDuff's Music (around `93 - `95), I would
> often
> borrow a variety of inexpensive habiliments to use overnight on
> recordings I
> was working on...
>
> One of my favorites was an old Kay jumbo acoustic with a moveable
> bridge.
>
> By moving the bridge back to the tailpiece I was able to push the
> octave up
> to the 15th fret.* By moving the bridge all the way up to the
> soundhole I
> was able to pull the octave back to the very brink of the 10th fret.
>
> While the first procedure would cause some 'choking out', and latter a
> fairly unfriendly 'action'... both these problems were relatively easy
> to work
> around.
>
> So in one very inexpensive guitar I was able to achieve a quick and
> dirty**
> [10]<11<>12<>13<>14<>15<*** EDO**** acoustic microtonal instrument...
>
> And though I've longed for a more reliable and more playable version
> of this
> guitar ever since... no small part of the beauty here is that the Kay
> was
> accessible to an utter financial nonentity such as myself!
>
> Respectfully
> D-Stearns
>
>
> *This is entirely contingent on the guitar being a jumbo.
>
> **While the setup and tuning time was certainly not instant; it was
> indeed
> 'quick'... And no matter what you did to this particular guitar (short
> of a
> major overhaul), the intonation was going to be 'dirty'.
>
> ***You could also stop the bridge incrementally between 11 - 15, a
> good ways
> before 11, and a bit after 15.
>
> ****As far as acronyms go, {E}quidistant {D}ivision of the {O}ctave's-
> EDO,
> certainly seems (to me) a rather colorless creation (immanently
> indisposed
> as it is to the oddly resonant charm of {T}one {E}qual
> {T}emperament's-TET).
> But I do believe it 'better says' what (I believe) 'needs saying'...
> and as
> such I feel somewhat obligated to continue to pretend I like it (and
> apologize for saying so).
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
> to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
> select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.