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0 points52-6F-6217d ago0 comments

Indeed. But this is the guitar's design! Fixed temperament. There are many variations and other instruments that explicitly make that aspect of the instrument variable. There are even branches off of Spanish guitar design that use movable frets for that reason.

But fixed temperament and that warble/etc IS guitar.

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dahart17d ago

Mmm no, that’s getting history and the causal relationships a bit backward. The early guitars, like their predecessors (lutes), all had moveable frets, and their designers were trying to figure out how to fret various other tuning systems before 12-TET became the standard:

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iuswrrest/api/core/bitstreams/5c...

Some lute players were arguing in favor of equal temperament, and others were arguing against. It took a long time, but equal temperament eventually won, and the guitar we have today is the result of European music settling on equal temperament in general, not just for lutes, but for keyboards and ensembles. The guitar is fixed and fretted for 12-TET for the same reason the piano is tuned for 12-TET, because that’s the best compromise for all musicians. Guitar wasn’t designed to add warble, it evolved along with other instruments to support enharmonic modulation, which requires allowing a little warble. If we could have guitars without the warble, we would.

52-6F-62OP13d ago

Lutes? Alright, Grokipedia. I understand the evolution of stringed instruments. But I said Spanish Guitar.

Get off it.

dahart12d ago

Do you understand the evolution of stringed instruments? That response totally convinces me otherwise.

Please feel free to elaborate. What about the Spanish Guitar? It came from the vihuela which came from the lute. The Spanish guitar is equal tempered because the lute went equal tempered before it. Nothing about the Spanish guitar is unique in terms of temperament.

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