Kite Guitar explanation for non-microtonalists: Difference between revisions

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 So there are disadvantages, but the advantages are enormous. Chords are only a few cents away from JI, and sound great! And there are so many harmonic options. There are four main kinds of 3rds: large major, small major, large minor and small minor. There are likewise four 6ths and four 7ths. There's more of everything: two major chords, two minor chords, two dim7 chords, three augmented chords, four dom7 chords, etc.
-The Kite guitar also gives you lots of melodic options. Going up one fret takes you up about 60¢. This is the perfect size -- barely large enough to feel like a small minor 2nd and not a quartertone. In other words, in the right context, two notes a fret apart can feel like two distinct notes of a scale, and not two microtonal versions of the same note. But 60¢ is also small enough that two frets still feels like a minor 2nd, although a large one. Three frets is a small major 2nd and four frets is a large one. Many melodic pathways from note A to note B. And there's more! The next string up has other 2nds in between these. There's a mid-sized minor 2nd of 1.5 frets and a mid-sized major 2nd of 3.5 frets. Right between them is the middle-eastern-sounding 11-limit neutral 2nd of 2.5 frets. All these 2nds are available for heptatonic scales. Or you can use the large major 2nd and the small minor 3rd to make an African-sounding near-equipentatonic scale. Or you can play exotic octotonic, nonotonic and decatonic scales.
+The Kite guitar also gives you lots of melodic options. Going up one fret takes you up about 60¢. This is the perfect size -- barely large enough to feel like a small minor 2nd and not a quartertone. In other words, in the right context, two notes a fret apart can feel like two distinct notes of a scale, and not two microtonal versions of the same note. But 60¢ is also small enough that two frets (120¢) still feels like a minor 2nd, although a large one. Three frets is a small major 2nd and four frets is a large one. Many melodic pathways from note A to note B. And there's more! The next string up has other 2nds in between these. There's a mid-sized minor 2nd of 1.5 frets and a mid-sized major 2nd of 3.5 frets. Right between them is the middle-eastern-sounding 11-limit neutral 2nd of 2.5 frets. All these 2nds are available for heptatonic scales. Or you can use the large major 2nd and the small minor 3rd to make an African-sounding near-equipentatonic scale. Or you can play exotic octotonic, nonotonic and decatonic scales.
 Naming all 41 notes in all 41 keys, and all the intervals, scales and chords they make, is no small feat. Kite's [[Ups and Downs Notation|ups and downs]] notation manages it by adding only two symbols to the standard notation. Notes are named ^C and vD (up-C and down-D), chords are named E^m  and vF#v7 (E upminor and down-F# down-7), and so forth.