Re: angry reply :-) Buzz Feiten tuning system.

["T.W. Hartnett" <hartnett.t@apple.com>]

>3. "I correspond with 5 or more microtonal theorists , and they know the
>truth"
>They know the truth about microtonal theory. They don`t know the truth
>about guitars. I think its easy to forget that this wonderful instrument 
>is
>not something to
>be taken so lightly and say "hey , its just a guitar , its been around for
>ages".
>Well , its been out of tune for ages , its been bothering ppl for ages 
>that
>its impossible to tune consistently. The goal is not to get a stringed
>instrument that is perfectly in tune , but rather to get an instrument 
>that
>is not seriously FLAWED. 

Being perfectly in tune is overrated.  
When I see people stop hooking their thumb over the low E to mash down a 
bass note, I may direct some attention to the "serious flaws" of the 
guitar, but probably not before then.  Given the amount of distortion, 
vibrato, and pitch-shifting (harmonizers, chorus, flange, etc) in use 
today, I can't work up too much of a sweat over a few cents in the lower 
register.  

And I've also listened to some of the just intonation/microtonal guys 
(Harry Partch, for instance) and much as I love it, I'd have to say that 
as far as most of western humanity is concerned, they're WAY out of tune.

And (in a desperate attempt to make this of more interest to 
non-guitarists while still conceding a total lack of looping references), 
your average synthesizer isn't so in-tune either.  I remember Donald 
Fagen ranting on about how sickingly out-of-tune he found all 
synthesizers (perhaps he also heard some "serious flaws" in the design), 
how nigh-on unusable they were, etc, etc.  I know some synths can be 
reprogrammed to any tuning system you favor, but I don't think that it's 
all that important for most people.

Travis Hartnett