Kite Guitar explanation for non-microtonalists: Difference between revisions
→The Kite Guitar: expanded the paragraph on ups and downs notation |
→The Kite Guitar: minor tweaks |
||
| Line 101: | Line 101: | ||
So the bad news is, you can't simply pick up a Kite guitar and start playing it. There's a learning curve. You have to learn new chord shapes. The good news is, there are fewer chord shapes to learn than you might expect. Here's why: in EADGBE, the G-B interval is different from the other intervals. As a result, the C, D, E, G and A major chords all have different shapes. But the Kite guitar is isomorphic, meaning same-shape, and there's only one shape to learn for all those chords. Because the intra-string interval is always the same. | So the bad news is, you can't simply pick up a Kite guitar and start playing it. There's a learning curve. You have to learn new chord shapes. The good news is, there are fewer chord shapes to learn than you might expect. Here's why: in EADGBE, the G-B interval is different from the other intervals. As a result, the C, D, E, G and A major chords all have different shapes. But the Kite guitar is isomorphic, meaning same-shape, and there's only one shape to learn for all those chords. Because the intra-string interval is always the same. | ||
There's a few other drawbacks. Obviously the closer fret spacing is somewhat | There's a few other drawbacks. Obviously the closer fret spacing is somewhat less playable (although no worse than a mandolin or ukelele). Omitting half the frets makes finding notes a little harder. Also the major-3rds tuning reduces the overall range of the guitar. Unless you're using an open tuning, or playing with another guitarist, 6 strings is somewhat limiting, and 7 or 8 is best. And of course, there's a learning curve in training your ears to hear all these new sounds. But that's the fun part! | ||
Finally, there's subtle pitch shifts of a half-fret sometimes. These are the inevitable result of getting everything more in tune. When you really study harmony, you find that there are more than 7 notes in a major scale. Weird, but true! The good news is that like watching a magician's trick, casual listeners are completely fooled and don't notice the pitch shifts. | Finally, there's subtle pitch shifts of a half-fret sometimes. These are the inevitable result of getting everything more in tune. When you really study harmony, you find that there are more than 7 notes in a major scale. Weird, but true! The good news is that like watching a magician's trick, casual listeners are completely fooled and don't notice the pitch shifts. | ||