Italiano
After reading the informative book “How equal temperament ruined Harmony” by Ross W. Duffin, I still have the same question. Is the true temperament useful?
Theoretically, Equal Temperament was devised in music to share errors among the notes and to have all keys sounding almost at perfect pitch in the same way. The problem is the mathematical fraction of the intervals approximations. There is an incredible number of theories and systems in each music era and different composers and performers had different views on this subject.
But the true fact is that the mathematical relationship between notes changes, affected by the key.
In the book, after analysis of the various systems, the author offers a condensed suggestion for (orchestra) string players “One of the best ways to accomplish this while playing a melodic line is raise the flatted notes slightly(!) and lower the sharped notes slightly (!) .. so that the thirds will move their acoustically pure ratios… The next tip is playing the whole tone a little smaller than in ET and to differentiate the semitone by a comma.”
So this depends on the key. Anything you fix in one key will cause more errors in another. So, on the true temperament, I have doubts, theoretically.
Then when you play together a piano or an instrument with a rigid tuning there will be some mismatch, and if is so small that you should not notice as the say in the faq of TT, what is the advantage of true temperament? Or maybe the advantages are mostly on first positions classic chord forms?
True temperament offers a correction and an idea on a possible solution.
But…
I consider the guitar an imprecise instrument and that is it’s beauty as mean “touch control”. Strings are pushed with a “certain force”, sideway, on a fret that can be not well rounded, so everything is not precise. The frets can be high or guitar could be improperly setup, giving more headroom to imprecision. Also, the force of the player can stress the string causing it to play slightly sharp. But these are all factors that a good player control in real time, while playing.
I am not against new things and improvements, if they offer clear advantages. I will not dissuade someone of the True Temperament fret design, but after recent check on a guitar with this system installed, I wish to warn about some unintended issues and problems that increase my doubts:
· The fret material is soft, so it will wear faster than usual.
· On the guitar I checked, the frets were not exactly level, especially on the borders and some also in the center, so it needed higher action to play without buzzing. So job was not made perfectly. But this could be an occasional problem on this specific job done.
· After leveling the frets, is very difficoult to re-round them and the work is really a time consuming, they suggest to ship them the guitar for a good price job. Probably a pratical way to re shape them is with a pleck (if there is a program for it). So it means is probably very expensive. If you do not reshape them after leveling, the frets will have different shapes, some more narrow some more flat and wide, with an uneven sounds (and tuning).
-The system cannot be installed on our resin fretboads, loosing all the advantages that our neck system offers.
