Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Keith on April 22, 2016 at 7:34am

starting at the nut the next fret is #1 when you hit #12 that is the fret.

Permalink Reply by QGolden on April 22, 2016 at 8:10am

Keith and Wayfinder are right. It can be confusing, but the space where you place your fingers when playing is not the measured fret. It is the fret wire itself. Starting at the nut (sometimes called 0 fret) and counting down, the first fret wire is 1 the second 2 and so on, that is what you measure, from 0 to the12th fret wire..

Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on April 22, 2016 at 9:37am

Learn to play a harmonic by touching the string and pluckng it.

The natural playable harmonics are on he 12th 7th and 5th frets. Very usfull for tuning but better still for understanding the relationship between a string vibrating at 1/2 intervals 1/3 intervals and 1/4 intervals, to the notes and scales/chords in western music.

These nodes are why we have 12 notes in music.

Permalink Reply by QGolden on April 22, 2016 at 4:57pm

Having no background in music theory causes me to ask the question: I thought there were 8 notes in music?

Permalink Reply by John Dill on April 23, 2016 at 3:13am

Thanks. Sometimes by using the tuner it puts it a little past the #12 fret. Could that be due to a thick nut and bridge, say using bolts where there isn't a sharp break point?

Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on April 23, 2016 at 6:00pm

You can think about it like this.. 

When a string vibrates, that frequency is its note. The middle of that string is its natural harmonic (you cam hear it by lightly touching the middle of a string and then plucking it) which is twice it's frequency. If we have two strings tuned the same and we play one open and the second at its natural harmonic they both are naturally tuned to each other. 

The fun starts with physics. The string also has harmonics at 1/3 of its length and 1/4 of its length (it has more but they arnt easily playable). Now if we get two strings tuned the same and play these together at random harmonics they will play notes that are all pleasing to hear together because they are all very similar in frequencies. The frequencies all "pulse" together.

Now if we start to tune one of these strings to the same frequency as the 1/4 or 1/3 harmonics of the second string and play these harmonics together we find different notes and harmonies between the strings. 

Take a whole bunch of strings together tuned to these natural 1/4 and 1/3 string lengths and we find that there are 12 different frequencies between the open frequency and the first harmonic of our original string that we started with. 

This is our musical scale.

I know the explanation I have given is very wishy washy.. But it will do.