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Intonation optional?


Downunderwonder

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4 minutes ago, upside downer said:

'Abdulcanbaz' was probably not the best song to show off the microtones but I just really like that tune! The band play a combination of traditional Turkish folk music mixed with electronica and other influences from around the world. The saz has 17 notes to the octave (the microtones come after the sharps) and they now have an oud player from Greece with them too which gives them quite a unique frontline. Maybe the microtones are more 'subtle' as it's just another piece of their musical jigsaw?

Mmm... I don't know but I am finding this topic an interesting diversion.

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Aye @upside downer - what I mean is I'm liking a lot of what I'm hearing here but not sure if a. it will be useful to me or b. why they are doing it. (Not that that matters)

Also still not sure what logic there is (if any) to all of it. For example, both the chap playing the headless instrument with Babazula and every guitarist in the King Gizzard band have intermediate frets only between certain frets on the fingerboard. This then implies a different microtonal "Key" for every string tuned differently and so also for each note of a fretted chord so can they play in any key or are they confined to one key? Or is the point just to be far enough out of tune to challenge our western even temperament ears?

Likewise @Woodwind, that christmas microtonal hip hop thing was interesting too but he was playing alternate tunings one after the other rather than mixing them together. And anyway, his choice of chord sustitutions would have driven most "average listeners" away even if they were all played using even temperament!

Every day's a schoolday! 

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It's all about the Arabic maqam, the method used in much of the music of the region. Not a chordal structure, it's more an improvisational melodic approach based on 24 tone equal temperament. Or 17 equal temperament. There's others, too. It gets very confusing.

The headless instrument is a saz, aka bağlama, great fun to play. If you fancy something different I'd recommend getting one. Such a wonderfully versatile instrument.

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I play fretted bass with a covers band and fretless with an originals band. One week I took my fretted bass to the original's band practice by mistake and the intonation sounded dreadful. The guitarist uses lots of different alternative tunings, and I hadn't realised how much I compensated with the fretless - playing some songs sharp and others flat.

 

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1 hour ago, MrDaveTheBass said:

I play fretted bass with a covers band and fretless with an originals band. One week I took my fretted bass to the original's band practice by mistake and the intonation sounded dreadful. The guitarist uses lots of different alternative tunings, and I hadn't realised how much I compensated with the fretless - playing some songs sharp and others flat.

 

Those sorts of terrible is what my OP was about.

One time I went to a fools on stools after work and the guitar player was retuning his standard tuning for every song. W T H!

He would chang chang on the new root chord and it would be ''out of tune'' so he would 'retune' sorta, to sorta suit the new chords. My poor ears.

Of course his saddles were all over the place. At the break I made him borrow a screwdriver from the barman and we fixed it. He was very grateful!

Side note, every used bass I have gotten has needed intonating. I deduce far less bass players than ideal are aware.

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On 02/03/2021 at 21:48, Downunderwonder said:

Those sorts of terrible is what my OP was about.

I once played with a guitarist whose tuning was driving me nuts. I made him stop and tune up using his electronic tuner. "Look!" He said, "All the lights are green." He still sounded dreadful, really clashing with my bass and the other guitar. I took his tuner from him and put my bass through it. It was then that I realised that he'd accidentally set the tuner to A = 445Hz!

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