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[[File:The Kite Tuning smaller.jpg|thumb|Five Kite guitars]] | |||
Lots of people like guitars. Lots of people get into microtones. Inexplicably, some people are in both of those categories, and now we have microtonal guitars. The ease with which guitars can be microtonalized is definitely to blame. | |||
: | |||
: | == Approaches to microtonal guitar == | ||
: | === Fretless === | ||
Using a fretless guitar is the most direct way to get microtones, which leaves the most up to your ears. Tried by many, pursued with a dogged obsession with intonation by fewer. | |||
< | |||
==== Websites ==== | |||
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20200812180119/https://www.unfretted.com/ Unfretted – The Fretless Guitar Resource] (archived) | |||
=== Refretting === | |||
Refretting (or retrofretting) an existing guitar consists in adding new frets, moving existing frets and/or removing some of them completely. It is a good option for guitarists who prefer to keep the clean sound of a fretted guitar while keeping some freedom in the choice of pitches available to play. | |||
==== Articles (DIY) ==== | |||
* David Canright, [http://web.archive.org/web/20151003124231/http://home.comcast.net/~dcanright/guitar/ "A Justly-Tuned Guitar"] (archived) | |||
* Buzz Kimball, [http://www.nonoctave.com/heroes/buzz/retrofretting.html "Retrofretting for non-twelve scales"] | |||
* Dante Rosati, [http://danterosati.com/justguitar1.html "Adventures in Just Intonation Guitar"] | |||
* John Starrett, [http://web.archive.org/web/20120429121049/http://infohost.nmt.edu/~jstarret/guitar.html "Microtonal Guitar Conversion FAQ"] (archived) | |||
==== Videos (DIY) ==== | |||
* [[Levi McClain]], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaRtvBjAwiY "Microtonal Frets Change Everything!"] (2025) | |||
==== Tools (DIY) ==== | |||
* [https://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/ FretFind2D], a design tool for custom fretboards | |||
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20170302090038/http://windworld.com/features/tools-resources/ Experimental Musical Instruments – Tools & Resources] (archived) | |||
* [http://chrisvaisvil.com/diy-temporary-cable-tie-guitar-frets-version-2/ Cable Tie Frets] - instruction and examples on using cable ties as frets on a defretted guitar | |||
==== Services ==== | |||
* [http://www.metatonalmusic.com/conversionservice.html Metatonal Music - Micro-Conversion Services] (USA) - by [[Ron Sword]], for equal temperaments, just intonation and nonoctave tunings | |||
=== Custom guitars/necks/fretboards === | |||
Instead of refretting their own guitar, some people prefer to order custom-fretted guitars, guitar necks or guitar fretboards, depending on what they already have and what they need. | |||
==== Services ==== | |||
* [http://www.carruthersguitars.com/ Carruthers Guitars] (USA) - custom guitars and custom modifications | |||
* [http://www.truetemperament.com/ True Temperament] (Sweden) - by Paul Guy, curved frets in "true" 12-tET, Bach/Lehman well-temperament, and meantone | |||
* [http://www.brunner-guitars.com/ Brunner Guitars] (Switzerland) - produces a guitar with removable neck | |||
* [http://www.metatonalmusic.com/necks.html Metatonal Music - Necks] (USA) - strat and tele necks | |||
* [http://www.metatonalmusic.com/necks.html Metatonal Music - Guitars] (USA) - Stallion Ergonomic Guitar | |||
* [http://www.freenotemusic.com/site/store/guitars.html Freenote Music - Guitars] - by [[Jon Catler]], replacement necks for 19-EDO, 31-EDO, fretless, or twelve-tone-plus. | |||
* Mark Rankin ([/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#b6fbd7c4dd938486e4d7d8dddfd89384868f83838787f6cfd7ded9d998d5d9db Mark Rankin <span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="271e12121616675e464f48480944484a"><nowiki>[email protected]</nowiki></span>] – remove spaces) makes magnetic interchangeable fretboards. | |||
* [https://www.microtoneguitars.com/ MicroTone Guitars] (USA) - by Michael Kudirka, interchangeable fretboards | |||
* [https://www.etsy.com/ca-fr/listing/1154683769/microtonal-strat-tele-ou-jm-style-neck JLJInstruments] (USA) - by John C L Jansen, Microtonal Strat, Tele or JM Style Neck - JI and custom EDO up to 31; also makes [[daxophone]]s | |||
* [https://KiteGuitar.com Kite Guitars] (USA) - sells fretboards, converts guitars, sells converted guitars ([[Kite guitar|41edo skip-fretting]] only). | |||
=== Fretlets === | |||
Fretlets, or adjustable frets, are short movable frets that can be added to any fretboard. The shortest fretlets are wide enough for a single string, but there are also longer fretlets that cover a few consecutive strings. Due to their shorter length, fretlets can be used to access more pitches without cluttering the fretboard with too many full-length frets. | |||
Since they are easily movable, a guitar with fretlets is perhaps ideal for a musical environment in which the musical scale varies from piece to piece. John Schneider calls his a "Well-Tempered Guitar". Wim Hoogewerf has one too. | |||
==== Services ==== | |||
* [http://www.chouard.de/ Hervé Chouard] - produces guitars with adjustable frets | |||
* [[Tolgahan Çoğulu]] - [https://www.microtonalguitar.org/ Adjustable Microtonal Guitar] | |||
* [https://fretlet.com/ Fretlet] - produces fretlets of lengths 1 to 6 | |||
* [https://salamuzik.com/products/fretlet-microtonal-guitar-fret-flf-10 Sala Muzik] - procudes fretlets of length 1 | |||
=== Quick n Dirty === | |||
{{Main|Moving the bridge hack}} | |||
One tack: take a trashy guitar and move the bridge to a different spot. You'll get a (not necessarily close to equal) division of the octave with ~10-15 notes. [http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/tuning/message/24 Dan Stearns] has done this, and so has [http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/equal/13equal/13tet.htm David Finnamore], and more recently ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEUtfiwF6GM Jason Conklin]''! | |||
Chris Vaisvil's [http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=779 cheap, quick and dirty temporary guitar frets] - a great way to try new tunings. | |||
=== Even quicker (and maybe less dirty): open tunings === | |||
An even simpler idea, without a modification of the guitar being necessary, are open tunings. See [https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/makemicromusic/topicId_27693.html this thread on the Yahoo MakeMicroMusic list] and | |||
[https://yahootuninggroupsultimatebackup.github.io/makemicromusic/topicId_23225.html this article on the Yahoo tuning list] for some possibilities. This is especially suitable for supersets of 12edo. ''(original article is missing, so the original thread is linked)'' | |||
A concrete description of an open guitar tuning for 24edo can be found on [http://www.muzicforums.com/music-theory/53860-neutral-thirds-tuning-quartertones-conventionally-fretted-guitar.html muzicforums.com] (also reachable from the above thread). | |||
=== | === The Kite Guitar === | ||
Microtonal frettings with more than 20-something frets per octave can be difficult to play. Those with fewer are usually either not very close to JI, or else are limited in modulation and/or voicing. An exception to this is the [[Kite Guitar]] (see also [http://tallkite.com/misc_files/The%20Kite%20Tuning.pdf Kite Tuning]), a guitar fretting that uses every other step of 41-edo, i.e. 41-ED4 or "20½-edo". The interval between two adjacent open strings is always an odd number of 41-edosteps. Thus each string only covers half of 41-edo, but the full edo can be found on every pair of adjacent strings. Kite-fretting makes 41-edo about as playable as 19-edo or 22-edo, although there are certain trade-offs. | |||
=== | === The Tritare === | ||
The [http://www.tritare.com/ Tritare], developed by folks in New Brunswick, Canada, seems to be fretted to a normal 12, but because it features 3-string groups the sound is FM-like and inescapably xenharmonic. Or is it? See [http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060603/fob7.asp this Science News article]. | |||
=== | == List of microtonal guitarists == | ||
* Seth Austen (New England) - http://www.sethausten.com/ | |||
* [[David Beardsley]] (NYC) | |||
* [[Jon Catler]] (NYC) | |||
* [[Tolgahan Çoğulu]] (Turkey) | |||
* [[Paul Erlich]] (Boston) | |||
* [[Fabrizio Fulvio Fausto Fiale]] (Italy) - http://www.webalice.it/tetraf/ | |||
* David 'Fuze" Fiuczynski (Boston?) - http://www.torsos.com/ | |||
* John Gzowski (Canada) - http://www.johngzowski.com/home.html | |||
* [[Neil Haverstick]] (Denver) | |||
* Killick Hinds (Athens, GA) - http://www.killick.me | |||
* Wim Hoogewerf (France) - http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ehuygensf/english/hoogewerf.html | |||
* [[Sten Hostfalt]] (NYC) | |||
* [[Jurica Jelić]] (Croatia) | |||
* Marc Jones (NYC) | |||
* Buzz Kimball (New Hampshire) - http://home.comcast.net/%7Egregmcleod/novosonic.html | |||
* Damian Law (Northampton, UK) - [http://www.hardcoreguitar.com/ http://www.hardcoreguitar.com] | |||
* [[Charles Lucy]] (London) | |||
* Pete McRae (Philadelphia, PA) - [https://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=479788 http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=479788] | |||
* Chris Morda (Seattle) - http://www.stonecrazybluesband.com/pages/bios/chris.html | |||
* Chris Mosley (Portland) - http://www.chrismosley.com/ | |||
* [[Rod Poole]] (LA) (d.2007) | |||
* Nadaka (India) - http://www.nadaka.com/french/raga-guitar.html | |||
* Philippe Poisson (Montreal, Quebec) - [https://guitarerivesud.com Guitare Rive Sud website] | |||
* [[Jean-Pierre Poulin]] (France) | |||
* [[Dante Rosati]] (NYC) - http://www.danterosati.com/ | |||
* Paul Rubenstein (NYC) - http://www.ubertar.com/ | |||
* James Sanger (Barneville-Carteret, France) - http://www.myspace.com/jamessanger | |||
* John Schneider (Los Angeles) - http://www.piercecollege.edu/departments/music/facultyStaffFiles/schneider.html | |||
* Drew Skyfire??? | |||
* [[Ron Sword]] (USA) | |||
* Siemen Terpstra (Nederland) - http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/terpgit.html | |||
* Onoue Torigoya (Japan) - http://torigoya.main.jp/en_index.html | |||
* Anders Thidell (Sweden) - http://www.furious.com/perfect/truetemperament.html | |||
* [[Chris Vaisvil]] (Indianapolis) fretless, microtonal Roland GR-20 guitar synthesizer | |||
* [[Michael 'Atonal' Vick]] | |||
* Roberto de Vittorio (Argentina) - http://www.ciweb.com.ar/RDV/microtonal_guitar.php | |||
* [[Bostjan Zupancic]] (Vermont) mostly 19-EDO - https://sites.google.com/site/bostjanzupancickhereb/home/bostjan/microtones https://sites.google.com/site/bzmmtuning/ | |||
== | == Forums == | ||
* [http://www.microtonalguitarist.com/ www.microtonalguitarist.com] - A guitar forum specifically for microtonal guitar | |||
===[[ | == See also == | ||
* [[How to tune a 19edo guitar by ear]] | |||
== | == Additional Links of Interest == | ||
* picture gallery, Aaron Hunt - http://www.h-pi.com/eop-guitars.html | |||
* LucyTuning a guitar - http://www.lucytune.com/guitars_and_frets/frets.html | |||
* A Guitar in 10-EDO - http://albertorojo.com/DecaphonicGuitar/ | |||
* A Guitar in 16-EDO - http://www.armodue.com/schedatecnica.htm | |||
* A Guitar in 17-EDO (Charles Loli) - [http://microtonalismo.com/ http://microtonalismo.com] | |||
* A Guitar in 23-EDO (Tútim Dennsuul) - [[:purdal:Icositría|Ksenthings]] | |||
* Theorie de la musique (French Site) - [http://TheorieMusicale.com TheorieMusicale.com] | |||
* A recent microtonal guitar festival in Seattle - http://www.microtonalguitar.com/ | |||
* A fretless guitar festival in New York - http://www.fretlessguitarfestival.com/ | |||
* A webpage about improving guitar intonation, 12-edo oriented but lots of good info: https://www.portlandguitar.com/pages/guitar-intonation | |||
[[Category:Guitar| ]] <!-- main article --> | |||
[[ | |||
Latest revision as of 02:27, 15 February 2025
Lots of people like guitars. Lots of people get into microtones. Inexplicably, some people are in both of those categories, and now we have microtonal guitars. The ease with which guitars can be microtonalized is definitely to blame.
Approaches to microtonal guitar
Fretless
Using a fretless guitar is the most direct way to get microtones, which leaves the most up to your ears. Tried by many, pursued with a dogged obsession with intonation by fewer.
Websites
- Unfretted – The Fretless Guitar Resource (archived)
Refretting
Refretting (or retrofretting) an existing guitar consists in adding new frets, moving existing frets and/or removing some of them completely. It is a good option for guitarists who prefer to keep the clean sound of a fretted guitar while keeping some freedom in the choice of pitches available to play.
Articles (DIY)
- David Canright, "A Justly-Tuned Guitar" (archived)
- Buzz Kimball, "Retrofretting for non-twelve scales"
- Dante Rosati, "Adventures in Just Intonation Guitar"
- John Starrett, "Microtonal Guitar Conversion FAQ" (archived)
Videos (DIY)
Tools (DIY)
- FretFind2D, a design tool for custom fretboards
- Experimental Musical Instruments – Tools & Resources (archived)
- Cable Tie Frets - instruction and examples on using cable ties as frets on a defretted guitar
Services
- Metatonal Music - Micro-Conversion Services (USA) - by Ron Sword, for equal temperaments, just intonation and nonoctave tunings
Custom guitars/necks/fretboards
Instead of refretting their own guitar, some people prefer to order custom-fretted guitars, guitar necks or guitar fretboards, depending on what they already have and what they need.
Services
- Carruthers Guitars (USA) - custom guitars and custom modifications
- True Temperament (Sweden) - by Paul Guy, curved frets in "true" 12-tET, Bach/Lehman well-temperament, and meantone
- Brunner Guitars (Switzerland) - produces a guitar with removable neck
- Metatonal Music - Necks (USA) - strat and tele necks
- Metatonal Music - Guitars (USA) - Stallion Ergonomic Guitar
- Freenote Music - Guitars - by Jon Catler, replacement necks for 19-EDO, 31-EDO, fretless, or twelve-tone-plus.
- Mark Rankin ([/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#b6fbd7c4dd938486e4d7d8dddfd89384868f83838787f6cfd7ded9d998d5d9db Mark Rankin [email protected]] – remove spaces) makes magnetic interchangeable fretboards.
- MicroTone Guitars (USA) - by Michael Kudirka, interchangeable fretboards
- JLJInstruments (USA) - by John C L Jansen, Microtonal Strat, Tele or JM Style Neck - JI and custom EDO up to 31; also makes daxophones
- Kite Guitars (USA) - sells fretboards, converts guitars, sells converted guitars (41edo skip-fretting only).
Fretlets
Fretlets, or adjustable frets, are short movable frets that can be added to any fretboard. The shortest fretlets are wide enough for a single string, but there are also longer fretlets that cover a few consecutive strings. Due to their shorter length, fretlets can be used to access more pitches without cluttering the fretboard with too many full-length frets.
Since they are easily movable, a guitar with fretlets is perhaps ideal for a musical environment in which the musical scale varies from piece to piece. John Schneider calls his a "Well-Tempered Guitar". Wim Hoogewerf has one too.
Services
- Hervé Chouard - produces guitars with adjustable frets
- Tolgahan Çoğulu - Adjustable Microtonal Guitar
- Fretlet - produces fretlets of lengths 1 to 6
- Sala Muzik - procudes fretlets of length 1
Quick n Dirty
One tack: take a trashy guitar and move the bridge to a different spot. You'll get a (not necessarily close to equal) division of the octave with ~10-15 notes. Dan Stearns has done this, and so has David Finnamore, and more recently Jason Conklin!
Chris Vaisvil's cheap, quick and dirty temporary guitar frets - a great way to try new tunings.
Even quicker (and maybe less dirty): open tunings
An even simpler idea, without a modification of the guitar being necessary, are open tunings. See this thread on the Yahoo MakeMicroMusic list and
this article on the Yahoo tuning list for some possibilities. This is especially suitable for supersets of 12edo. (original article is missing, so the original thread is linked)
A concrete description of an open guitar tuning for 24edo can be found on muzicforums.com (also reachable from the above thread).
The Kite Guitar
Microtonal frettings with more than 20-something frets per octave can be difficult to play. Those with fewer are usually either not very close to JI, or else are limited in modulation and/or voicing. An exception to this is the Kite Guitar (see also Kite Tuning), a guitar fretting that uses every other step of 41-edo, i.e. 41-ED4 or "20½-edo". The interval between two adjacent open strings is always an odd number of 41-edosteps. Thus each string only covers half of 41-edo, but the full edo can be found on every pair of adjacent strings. Kite-fretting makes 41-edo about as playable as 19-edo or 22-edo, although there are certain trade-offs.
The Tritare
The Tritare, developed by folks in New Brunswick, Canada, seems to be fretted to a normal 12, but because it features 3-string groups the sound is FM-like and inescapably xenharmonic. Or is it? See this Science News article.
List of microtonal guitarists
- Seth Austen (New England) - http://www.sethausten.com/
- David Beardsley (NYC)
- Jon Catler (NYC)
- Tolgahan Çoğulu (Turkey)
- Paul Erlich (Boston)
- Fabrizio Fulvio Fausto Fiale (Italy) - http://www.webalice.it/tetraf/
- David 'Fuze" Fiuczynski (Boston?) - http://www.torsos.com/
- John Gzowski (Canada) - http://www.johngzowski.com/home.html
- Neil Haverstick (Denver)
- Killick Hinds (Athens, GA) - http://www.killick.me
- Wim Hoogewerf (France) - http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ehuygensf/english/hoogewerf.html
- Sten Hostfalt (NYC)
- Jurica Jelić (Croatia)
- Marc Jones (NYC)
- Buzz Kimball (New Hampshire) - http://home.comcast.net/%7Egregmcleod/novosonic.html
- Damian Law (Northampton, UK) - http://www.hardcoreguitar.com
- Charles Lucy (London)
- Pete McRae (Philadelphia, PA) - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?bandID=479788
- Chris Morda (Seattle) - http://www.stonecrazybluesband.com/pages/bios/chris.html
- Chris Mosley (Portland) - http://www.chrismosley.com/
- Rod Poole (LA) (d.2007)
- Nadaka (India) - http://www.nadaka.com/french/raga-guitar.html
- Philippe Poisson (Montreal, Quebec) - Guitare Rive Sud website
- Jean-Pierre Poulin (France)
- Dante Rosati (NYC) - http://www.danterosati.com/
- Paul Rubenstein (NYC) - http://www.ubertar.com/
- James Sanger (Barneville-Carteret, France) - http://www.myspace.com/jamessanger
- John Schneider (Los Angeles) - http://www.piercecollege.edu/departments/music/facultyStaffFiles/schneider.html
- Drew Skyfire???
- Ron Sword (USA)
- Siemen Terpstra (Nederland) - http://www.huygens-fokker.org/docs/terpgit.html
- Onoue Torigoya (Japan) - http://torigoya.main.jp/en_index.html
- Anders Thidell (Sweden) - http://www.furious.com/perfect/truetemperament.html
- Chris Vaisvil (Indianapolis) fretless, microtonal Roland GR-20 guitar synthesizer
- Michael 'Atonal' Vick
- Roberto de Vittorio (Argentina) - http://www.ciweb.com.ar/RDV/microtonal_guitar.php
- Bostjan Zupancic (Vermont) mostly 19-EDO - https://sites.google.com/site/bostjanzupancickhereb/home/bostjan/microtones https://sites.google.com/site/bzmmtuning/
Forums
- www.microtonalguitarist.com - A guitar forum specifically for microtonal guitar
See also
Additional Links of Interest
- picture gallery, Aaron Hunt - http://www.h-pi.com/eop-guitars.html
- LucyTuning a guitar - http://www.lucytune.com/guitars_and_frets/frets.html
- A Guitar in 10-EDO - http://albertorojo.com/DecaphonicGuitar/
- A Guitar in 16-EDO - http://www.armodue.com/schedatecnica.htm
- A Guitar in 17-EDO (Charles Loli) - http://microtonalismo.com
- A Guitar in 23-EDO (Tútim Dennsuul) - Ksenthings
- Theorie de la musique (French Site) - TheorieMusicale.com
- A recent microtonal guitar festival in Seattle - http://www.microtonalguitar.com/
- A fretless guitar festival in New York - http://www.fretlessguitarfestival.com/
- A webpage about improving guitar intonation, 12-edo oriented but lots of good info: https://www.portlandguitar.com/pages/guitar-intonation