I've been thinking about correctly building a 'wrong' guitar.
This isn't to do with looks. Anything can hold a vibrating string, from the most beautiful crafted bit of wood to.. well, a bit of wood :)
It's about the fretboard.
It would be easy to just put all the frets in the wrong places randomly but how would you guys make something deliberately wrong so that the music produced from it is just slightly 'wrong' but in all the right ways?
I'm just making this up and freewheeling to see what you guys think. Eg.. 'Make the third, fifth and tenth fret flat with the fifth fret slanted so the bass string is correct but the high sting is sharp'
As builders we can create a whole new way of reaching a guitar 'sound' that is unique, and capable of being reproduced.
Does anyone get why I'm talking about?
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I lack the musical knowledge, certainly the ability to utilise the idea, but i'd have thought those that do, could adequately create those tones by bending at a lower fret with the same result without the specialising of the fretboard, having said that, i've cut slots to suit those frets before
I don't see how this can be done successfully, to be honest. It's just so much easier and more adaptable just to learn to play in the style of the older players. Part of the reason the notes stand out is because it tends to be random and interplays with the "good note" and its buddies. Basically its something that is used at certain points to accent. It's not an accent if its on all the time. Any instrument can be played with those notes no matter what the tuning, it's just a matter of how hard are the chord shapes.
. I think anything that strays from the key should be the players choice to do, not the instrument automatically does it, if that makes sense.
yep
If you YouTube and listen to a real tone guitar, musically it doesn't sound really wierd. Comparing it to a just intonation or other exotic instrument and those sound really off the wall. The real tone instrument sounds a little bit cleaner than a normal instrument. Most people can't tell the difference.
I'm not proposing the notes should shift wildly out of tune, just ever so slightly to give it that certain something you can't quite put your finger on (sorry about he pun).
We could come up with a system that gives a CBG fretted with this type of fretboard a certain feel to it. Sure, if you want a straight built CBG that's what you get, but.. We also have the choice to make it subtlety blue.
We modify, chop, chang, rebuild and experiment in CBG construction all the time, we use bolts bones badges plastics wood nails doorhandles kitchen utensils etc etc all the time. On a whim.
We change scale lengths, fret with cotter pins, nails, windscreen wiper blades and the list goes on and on.
Move the 4th fret back 2mm the 5th back 1mm and the 8th fret forward 1mm and suddenly it's wrong?
Yes, make the wrong change by the wrong amount and we build something that just sounds wrong.
I'm proposing though that we find that right small change to create a flavour in the instrument that can be reproduced.
Imagine "this one here (points to a CBG) is a standard CBG, this one here (points to another CBG) has the blue note fretting system that emulates the sound of pre-1930's blues guitar sound"
I might be missing something, but wouldn't a whammy bar give you that occasional 'bent out of tune' note?
It's not about hard wiring a bent note into the fretboard.
That would be too much of a change.
The idea started off with me thinking about the character of a stinky guitar with the fretboard just 'off' a little bit. Maybe it has a couple of wonky frets perhaps 1mm off because of a dodgy pencil line or a wobbly saw. It's still playable and has a character all of its own. It can sit right into a song and sounds unique. It's got its own tiny imperfections that add to its charm and appeal
Can we recreate this on purpose in a certain way that it becomes a certain type of tuning?
All the theory of microtuning works on a CBG because we are dealing with 2 notes played on 3 strings. We don't need wobbly frets to do this, we just need to figure out which frets to change so that the 2 outside strings (both the same notes) are actually micro tuned to be more perfectly harmonic on purpose because that micro tuning at that point actually produces a flat note in a desired place, just ever so flat enough that you don't really notice but it adds a unique 'character' to the instrument.
It can be something that is unique to 3 stringed instruments because a 4-5-6 stringed instrument can't achieve this effect without throwing all the other strings out of tune at that fret.
We can do it on purpose as a flavour to that build.
A whammy bar would give you microtones. But you would have to memorize their tuning to get it right. Just like a western scale a microtonal scale would have to be played in pitch. Slight variances would be out of tune. Just like in a western scale.
Violins are a middle eastern instrument. Their fretless design gives way to all the microtonal music from that region. As with any fretless instrument you would have to be completely familiar with the tuning to get it right.
You could double the frets on a standard western guitar. Have 24 frets in the same space as 12 by starting with the 12th fret as your measurements from the nut. Probably a bit hard to play above the 12th fret. Because your able to tune it like a standard guitar you could play along with everyone. Then toss in the microtones when you want.
That's OK.
I'm convinced. None of it makes any sense.
When it comes to microtuning a fretboard we lack the skill, we shouldn't bother anyway, it's not worth the effort, it's been done before, it shouldn't be done because the fretboard is right, we can bend the strings with either our fingers or a whammy bar and it makes no musical sense to look into it.
I will just be strange and experiment with it anyway.
Just because I like to bend rules.
No problem.
:)
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