Re : More on refretting guitars...

Dear Darin,

A new one on the list. This is my first contribution to microtonal music
sending
E-mails to a group of musicians I hardly know. (I'm familiar to some
recent protagonists though.) As a performer, classical guitarist, I'm
involved in microtonal music since many years. Perhaps my experience in this
field may be usefull to some of you. In 1985 I had my classical guitar
equipped with the fine-tuneable fretboard invented by Walter J. Vogt. This
system
contained small individual frets for every string and every position, each
fret moveable up and down around 25 cents. Later Vogt improved his system
and allowed the frets to slide in continuous rails incorporated in the
neck. I had a second guitar equipped with this new system. Since then every
imaginable division of the octave in twelve (or less) whatsoever steps has
become
possible. On the recent AFMM Festival I played works originally written for
vihuela by Milan, Narvaez and Mudarra in a setting adapted to 5-limit just
intonation. All the thirds were 5:4 or 6:5 and all the fifths were 3:2. Fret
setting of course was adapted to the single tonality of a set of
compositions.
Since the death of Vogt one of his former disciples, Herv� R. Chouard
continued
his work under the name Fret mobile. Adresse: Fellererstr.2, 85354 Freising,
Germany.(E-mail???) The system has been used with success on the electric
guitar as well. It is interesting to know that originally Walter Vogt was
searching for a way to realize equal temperament on a guitar avoiding all
the problems related to the wellknown poor quality of the classical guitar
string. He was perfectly right: six individual frets in the same position,
electronically accorded to 12ET hardly ever made a perfect straight line,
even if this in theory had to be expected. The possibility of playing in a
most precise way in just intonation or using historical temperaments was a
gift for the musicians that Vogt wasn't aware of in the beginning...
Musically I consider this invention to be of primary importance for the
classical guitar. I cannot tell however if a rock guitarist will have the
same satisfaction. The typical rock vocabulary uses many bends and vibratos,
which are in fact in contradiction with any system proposing fixed pitches
obtained by prepared settings of the frets.

From an harmonic point of view the 24 ET system offers some original
starting points. Alois Haba, during his lifetime, stated that every chord
had the right to follow any other chord, independend of it's traditional
harmonic affection. (That's what Nirvana does as well!) In his Suite Opus 63
(1947) he uses 24 ET as a 12 ET combined with it's own projection a
quartertone higher. Chords in itself are built up either from the original
12 ET or from it's transposition. The chord progression afterwards is
completely without rules, exploiting the entire 24 ET system and seems
improvised
without any thematical emphasis. I like this Opus 63 a lot and I first
started working on it in 1987 on a 24 ET fretted Vogt guitar. I performed it
again this year on the same AFMM Festival and partly on the MicroFest in Los
Angeles. I will perform it another time 13 September in Prague on a Haba
commemorial concert, using a Kohno with fixed frets in 24ET.

Dutch bass-player Jeroen Thesseling especially likes the 3/4 tone step (a
virtually perfect 12:11)and fretted his bass-guitar in 8ET. Open strings are
tuned at 9 quartertones from each other thus allowing the frets to be
unbroken , separated by a 3/4 tone for each position. This should work
easily when improvising against diminished chords. Is this an opinion?

Good luck, Wim (Paris, France)
----------
>De�: basila@txk.net
>� : tuning@onelist.com
>Objet�: [tuning] More on refretting guitars...
>Date�: Jeu 5 ao� 1999 17:22
>

> From: basila@txk.net
>
>
> I appreciate all the responses I've received
> concerning my message of yesterday. But, I've
> previously read everything that I was pointed to.
> It's good information, but it's not really
> what I was asking for.
>
> I guess what I'm really asking for is opinions.
> I would like a tuning that isn't just some
> "better Western tuning". I want something that
> sounds unusual, but nice and melodic. So far,
> I've only heard stuff in 19TET, Partch 43, 31TET,
> and some historical tunings. Hence, I don't have
> a lot of aural experience to work from. I'll be
> playing somewhat hard progressive rock.
>
> If you have refretted a guitar to some "strange"
> tuning, what was it, and why did you pick it
> over the myriad of other choices? If you're
> thinking about refretting a guitar, the same
> question applies.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Sincerely,
> Darin "Basil" Arrick
> basil@homestead.org
>
> Nonagon - A Progressive Rock Band
> http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Diner/2190/index.html
>
>
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>

Dan,

the price is at least a 1000 dollar. The guitar has to come to Germany.
Building in the FretMobile system will take a day or two. Please send a
quick note to Herv� so he can send you detailed information. The technical
realisation is at NASA level. Extremely trustworthy.

Wim

----------
>De�: "D.Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>� : <tuning@onelist.com>
>Objet�: Re: [tuning] More on refretting guitars...
>Date�: Ven 6 ao� 1999 6:22
>

> From: "D.Stearns" <stearns@capecod.net>
>
> [Wim Hoogewerf:]
>> Since the death of Vogt one of his former disciples, Herv� R.
> Chouard continued his work under the name Fret mobile. Adresse:
> Fellererstr.2, 85354 Freising, Germany.(E-mail???)
>
> Thanks for this information.
>
>
>>The system has been used with success on the electric guitar as well.
>
> Would you wouldn't happen to have any rough idea (estimate) of what
> this might cost?
>
> Dan
>
>
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