Talk:Overtones tuning

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I nominated this article for WP:DYK:

• Did you know ... that, on Bad Company's "Can't Get Enough", the ringing guitar uses an open tuning constructed from C's overtones (pictured)?

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Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Warren Allen: Reliable source

The on-line encyclopedia of Warren Allen has been praised by an academic book on guitar learning, which establishes its being a reliable source.

• Allen, Warren (2011) [30 December 1997]. "WA's encyclopedia of guitar tunings". (Recommended by Marcus, Gary (2012). Guitar zero: The science of learning to be musical. Oneworld. p. 234. ISBN 9781851689323.). Retrieved 27 June 2012. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

(Usually, WP does not allow blogs to be reliable sources.)

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:01, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Better source

The references to just intonation could be improved from:

Ross W Duffin (2007). How equal temperament ruined harmony (and why you should care). New York: W W Norton. OCLC 70176904.

(In any case, it's an interesting read!) LeadSongDog come howl! 19:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi LeadSongDog,

You are right that that would be a good reference, as others have told me, but I don't have that book.(I think it's hilarious to cite a Schoenberg who is not the atonal fellow on a music theory article, particularly when the Schoenberg is the founder of spline theory and has some nice results on convex sets, which are more of my professional interests.) A polemic against ET may not be the best reference for this article, however; Warren Allen notes that outside of the padded room of open-string (or barred) diatonic-triads, justly tuned thirds disrupt other chords.

Schoenberg wrote about guitars. I suspect that a standard book on musical acoustics or the physics of musical instruments would be the most reliable. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:53, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I come to the subject as an a cappella singer, not a guitar player. Since voices (and violins) have no frets, they are free to retune (justly) in real time on each successive chord, without reference to obscure theoretical texts. With practice it becomes automatic: each singer learns where their voice falls in the chord and how to tune it to maximize the match of overtones just by ear. Jim Richards' The physics of barbershop sound OCLC 31355867 refers, as do many others. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:08, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I've been reading a bit about the emergence of polyphony form medieval Christian chanting, and the heuristics/norms about maintaining the identity of voices in 3-4 part harmony (even in guitar playing). Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:42, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

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