Re: Bands

On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 09:42:49 -0500, Joe Kesselman 
   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Guitars exist with interchangable fretboards having 
> strangely split frets to deal with this. Not playing 
> anything with strings, I can't vouch for how well they work.

Messy to play, it sounds like.

> Which is why some keyboard instruments tuned to just 
> intonation had a few additional keys to provide alternate 
> versions of one or two critical notes.

I believe there are still some organs with 'extra' keys.  There's a lot
of difference between F# and Gb, for instance, if your temperament is
based on C.

> I'm told my concertina was probably set up that way when it was first
> manufactured; it's been retuned since then to equal temperment.

Grrr.  Why can't people leave thngs alone?

> During the period where equal temperment was first gaining 
> favor, there were folks deliberately writing pieces which 
> displayed the flaws of specific tunings... The main 
> advantage of equal temperment is that you can play in all 
> keys equally well (or poorly).

It's all equally bad <g>.  To be fair, some modern music does need fully
'equal' temperament (and there's a reason I don't like most of that
music <g>)...

> I've been waiting for someone to introduce a smart keyboard 
> which dynamically microtunes itself to try to give you the 
> best of both worlds. Problem is, nobody except another 
> hyper-instrument networked with it would be able to play in 
> tune with it.

It can't be done without knowledge of the key structure of the piece.
The tunings needed to get 'perfect' chords in C are different from those
in Am, and 'passing' notes and chords will really mess things up.  If
you've modulated to a different key, you'd need to tell the machine...

Chris C