Fretboards and harmonic context.

Following the current threads in the tuning list, I am pleased to see
that at least a few
contributors are at last questioning the "Must be integer ratios"
reasoning,
in favour of "harmonic context".

A few years ago we put on an exhibition of LucyTuned guitars and synths
at the South Bank in London.
The music academics scratched their heads and became defensive.
We had left a few guitars lying around for visitors to play. Suddenly we
heard this amazing blues pattern coming from one of the amps.
"Hey man, this is a great guitar".
The player was obviously drunk, had picked up one of the guitars and
without realising that it had 25 frets per octave, had just played it
guided by the dots on the edge of the fretboard, and
his very experienced ears.

I have found that by leaving harmonic landmarks, in the form of dots;
(i.e. at bIII, IV, V, VI and Octave positions), novices can immediately
navigate, the fretboard.
With LucyTuned fretboards, the complication of sharp and flat keys is
easily solved for the "double" frets.
If you want to play the sharps, play "on the pair"; for flats play
"below the pair".

I hope these observations help the fretboard designers and demonstrators
to make
microtonal fretboards more accessible to newbies.

--
~===============================================================~
Charles Lucy - lucy@ilhawaii.net (LucyScaleDevelopments)
------------ Promoting global harmony through LucyTuning -------
by setting tuning and harmonic standards for the next 1000 years (and
beyond),
and having fun with them.

for information on LucyTuning
See http://www.ilhawaii.net/~lucy
or http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/

Charles Lucy wrote:

> I have found that by leaving harmonic landmarks, in the form of dots;
> (i.e. at bIII, IV, V, VI and Octave positions), novices can immediately
> navigate, the fretboard.
> With LucyTuned fretboards, the complication of sharp and flat keys is
> easily solved for the "double" frets.
> If you want to play the sharps, play "on the pair"; for flats play
> "below the pair".
>
> I hope these observations help the fretboard designers and demonstrators
> to make microtonal fretboards more accessible to newbies.

Naturally the FreeNote G&Ls are like that. Even though
I've found that dots on the side of the fretless fingerboard
are enough, requests for fret markers are a common request.

At NAMM, I stopped by and checked out the French Viger company.
They have a fretless with a metal alloy fingerboard that costs
and weighs about twice as much as our G&L fretless. Of course
a metal fingerboard sounds different than the wood/epoxy fingerboard.
Lots of fun to play, they not only have dots on the side of the
fingerboard,
but markers for 12tet frets (also n the side of the fingerboard).
A bit pricey ($2400!) though.

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* xouoxno@virtulink.com
*
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor
*
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm