I did another experiment today where I plugged my fretless bass into a tuner, made sure the string when played open was in tune, and then checked the tuning of each note, meaning each half step up to the octave. Surprisingly each note was perfectly in tune. At the same place, where the end of my finger meets the beginning of the fret line, both my ears and the tuner confirmed that the note was in tune.

You want a tuning system that allows you to play the ‘correct’, or perfectly tuned note, while giving you freedom to play any of the 12 notes and any combinations thereof.

When we started this conversation you said something like, “Everyone who is worth listening to does it, and people who don’t do it aren’t worth listening to.” I believe referring to the ‘tuning on the fly’ thing, getting around the deficiencies of equal temperament. I have been thinking a lot about this… maybe because I am not yet fully aboard the ‘anti equal temperament ship’ as you are, but I do think that is a really large statement. In saying that, I think you discount a lot of great musicians who may accept the equal temperament system for whatever reason, but still have something valuable to say. This is something we can talk more about, because I think you need to explain in greater detail what you meant by your original statement.

Again, I think this is a complicated issue that will not be understood without due study.

Maybe equal temperament has caught on despite its flaws because it has proven itself useful and user friendly, almost like an automobile or a computer.

By the way… I am a grad student in a recording arts program. If you are ever in need of free studio time, please hit me up.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but after a while of not really thinking about it,the intonation thing just popped back in my head. I am thinking about the equal subdivisions of the octave, and how that would compare to a tuning system where all the notes are ‘as in tune as they can be’.

Are we simply contrasting equal temperment with just intonation, or is there a system other than just intonation where you think there is an ‘accurate’ or ‘ideal’ tuning.

I have been thinking about the contrast between fretless and fretted… When I play fretless bass, I can hear the ‘correct note, and it is usually right on the line. If I try to ignore the lines, and say starting with a tonic of D and going up the major scale, just trying the play the next interval of the scale the sounds the most ‘correct’, I will end up playing on the lines. And when I play fretted bass, the whole tuning just sounds that much sharper. So I am confused. Even when I listen to you play your guitar, as you do so well, when you play the fretless jazzmaster type thingy, I can hear what I would call ‘tuning anomalies’ that are not present when you are playing the strat or any of your fretted instruments.

I understand that these perceptions may be just that, due to years of my ears being conditioned on a musical system built around equal temperment. Never the less, I am unable to put this issue to rest.

We need your words of wisdom, Kimock. Lol. Hope all is well.

-Andrew

On electric for the rock and roll stuff, FCFACF, like E 1/2 step, same as a lot of the David Lindley live electric steel playing. I like that sound!

For the funk/blues sounds I’m partial to E7, BDEG#BE, but I’ve been working on E9 as well, DEF#G#BE.
Mike Neer hipped me to that, he likes it better than E7 and I’m starting to see why.
E9 is a more versatile tuning in a lot of ways, the E7 is a pretty blunt instrument in comparison but I’m a lot more familiar with E7 and it is a good fit for my slightly raw interpretation of the blues and funk trip.
I’ll need a couple of years with E9 before I can really say, I haven’t even taken it onstage yet, but it’s a very cool and logical tuning with lots of great single note and slant possibilities.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the tuning itself isn’t as important as how you connect the notes, so whatever floats your boat that you’re willing to spend some time with should work as well as anything else.
I get the impression that that conventional wisdom doesn’t apply so much to the straight triad bottleneck guitar tunings as it does to the more steel guitar specific tunings tho. . .
You just have to try a couple of different tunings and see what grabs your attention.