for about the past year, i've been searching for the magical something that is 'just intonation.' frustrated by almost everything about its practices (like i really hate harry partch), i've been taking matters into my own hands. so i've heard/heard of guys playing just intonation on fretless bass. so im starting a thread about it. and seeing if anyone has a clue. i would really like to believe that music educators aren't ignorant or more importantly aren't lying about just intonation.

anyone know what just intonation is?

anyone apply it?

anyone play just intonated fretless bass?

if no one really responds (and i dont expect much), maybe i'll fill you all in on just wat it is.

Are you familiar with La Monte Young, Ben Johnston, or Kyle Gann? What do you mean by "lying about just intonation"?

yes, im not a fan of any of them, but i know most of the major just intonation composers.

here's what i mean by lying: i took piano lessons for 7 years, trombone lessons for 3, and upright bass for 1, and never did i hear my teachers say the words "just intonation." with trombone and bass, i got a good idea of overtones and harmonics, but i didn't comprehend their tuning differences with 12ET. well after hearing 'portrait of tracy' and doing some research, i discovered the truth.

so in all this, the music educators who were supposed to be teaching me "theory" never explained what the "theory" is. to my understanding, it comes down to 2 things:

1) my teachers didnt fully understand the theory (which is an outrage in my opinion and the fault of my teacher's teachers)
2) my teachers did not wish me to know, given the chance that i might go on some crazy just intonation tangent.

which i did.

I think it's a combination of ignorance and the understanding that most students don't yet need, and probably don't want to know, about it.

Brass players are the only ones who really need to worry (due to the way we work directly with the harmonic series), but even then, I don't think it's something a student of 3 years needs to worry about. At that stage, there are many more pertinent things to work on. The last thing a teacher wants is to to distract their students from the most direct route to musical progress and send them spiraling into some bizarre tuning binge where they may learn many interesting things, but few that will actually make them a better musician.

On top of that, many musicians and teachers aren't familiar with just intonation beyond having perhaps heard it mentioned. Even if they are interested in it themselves, they may not feel sure enough about to include it in regular lessons. Since teaching some people theory is like pulling teeth anyway, it may be best to stick to what's proven itself useful for hundreds of years.

To answer your first three questions, yes, I know what it is (did you guess :p )? If anyone else is wondering what it is, it's the practice of using intervals which are rationally related to one another, in the literal and mathematical sense. If you compare the frequencies, in Hertz, of two pitches, you get a numerical ratio. For instance, two notes a major third apart in just intonation gives you a ratio of 5:4. In equal temperament (our usual tuning system) it's more like 1.2599211, with many more digits following. The latter is as hard on the ear as it is on the eye. Just intonation uses simple integer ratios, rather than relationships based on the twelfth root of two.

I've played a little on my bass, but there's not a whole lot of point unless you've got something else going on harmonically. And if you want to play with others (guitarists, perhaps) they need to have JI capable instruments as well. In the end, I've found that composing in 12EDO is not a big problem. You just have to pretty much ignore the concept of harmony. I still harbor a great interest in JI, but actually composing will have to wait until I obtain (probably build) a JI instrument.

If it hasn't caught on since the 16th Century it probably still doesn't have a chance. :D Most just want to be loud and Intonation is just something they try to remember to do after changing strings.

On person I knew that talked about it was a Physics teacher who also played trombone. I think that combo sums up the lively conversions he would strike up.

All I know is Harry Partch ROCKS!!!! :hyper:

You know... just intonation is pretty much the norm with fretless (or instruments that don't have predefined pitches) instruments, at least in classical playing. Problem for fretted instruments or instruments with predefined pitches is that it's not transposable, of course. But yes, just intonation is in wide use.

Whether they know it or not, for example, a singer will probably tend to sing in just intonation, naturally gravitating towards those pitches.

Even pianos are not tuned exactly to equal temperment, they're a mix of just intonation and equal temperment, at least when tuned by better piano tuners.

So, how does this relate to my intonation being just terrible?

So, how does this relate to my intonation being just terrible?
Don't say that! You're just an inadvertent microtonalist. :hyper:

Problem for fretted instruments or instruments with predefined pitches is that it's not transposable, of course. But yes, just intonation is in wide use.
When I first heard of just intonation I thought the fact that you can't transpose and get the same intervals was a problem, but now I'm inclined to call it more of a benefit. Why would you want to go to all the trouble of modulating just to end up in the same place? :confused:

I don't really think it's correct to say that just intonation is in wide use. The barest glimmerings of it are common, but merely tuning chords a little is like buying a pickup truck just to cart the kids around. Consciously using just intonation opens up a world of harmonic possibilities that remains entirely closed when you limit yourself to a twelve note scale.

String players in orchestras tend to use Just Intonation, perhaps not totally in the sense that it would be described in physics (see Lemurs #4 post), but in the sense that the Perfect intervals do sound better in just intonation. Anyone who has played a fixed pitch instrument (like wind instruments) in a orchestra will attest to this. Music teachers don't spend a great deal of time talking about Just Intonation but they will spend a great deal of time talking about playing in tune. When dealing with a string section, or choir that is really good you'll notice that notes will be in 'different places' depending on the chord. An F# in a D chord is a slightly (very slightly) different intonation that if it is in a B chord. All you need to do is listen and adjust the pitch.

The problems with Just Intonation (an perhaps a reason that the OP has a problem with Harry Partch) is that when Just Intonation is applied to a fixed pitch instrument, like a piano or organ, then the different keys will have different intonations. If a piano is tuned in "C" Just Intonation, then music in the key of C sounds pretty darn good. "A" is suspect and F# will send you home early.

And so if you play in a band with a piano, then you are just wasting your time! :p

well guys, thanks for your posts.

when i was talking about playing just intonation on fretless, i wasn't talking about just putting 12ET in tune. im all into exotic scales. right now i'm refretting a guitar to play in 40-tone 5-limit just intonation (kinda like jon catler's guitars). what im curious about though is if there is a way to tune a fretless bass so that it yields straight "frets," such as on a sitar. hmm well of course u could tune a bass like a sitar and play it like that. but thats not so much wat im talking about. yea, i know how to use tone rows and things, but it doesnt make the solution much easier to find.

as when i mentioned music educators, i think more so than not they dont want you to get involved in just intonation. its a very powerful thing. and for many people, a hopeless pursuit. i guess its how much the problem of tuning bothers you personally. for me, i feel its well worth the struggle.

and another thing, i would agree that just intonation is NOT in wide use.

yes, u can argue about classical instrumentalists and singers...but the fact is, they're still playing in the general system of 12ET.

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.

im sure many would agree with me that modern just intonation music has little legacy. most of it is so microtonal that its hard to believe its 'in tune.' instead of using rich chords and consonant melodies, modern composers opt for the abstract, minimalism, and impressionism. for just intonation to make any growth, what we need is simple music that the general public can easily relate to and say "well that sounds nice."

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.
Those are JI? I thought Middle Eastern music just added quarter tones, and Indian music was based on subsets of 22-equal scale.

This thread peaked my interest so I Googled and found a website with a few examples each playing in ET12 and JI. Now don't light your flame thrower just giving my opinion, I thought the JI versions sounded cold. The ET12 examples had an warmth and shimmer in the overtones.

So just my opinion from a handfull of examples. Thinking about it I don't think average listener would hear the difference in the normal faire of music. Then some of the JI pieces I heard on another site held some interest for me, I can't see the public going for it especailly in the U.S.. Other cultures they do get raised on music with semitones, polyrhythms, and more improvisation, but here people get raised on pentatonics because they are easy to sing. I think getting JI into the U.S. mainstream would take decades to get the masses acustom to JI, if at all.

lemur- supposedly, this is the indian scale

Sa 1
Ri 1 - 32/31
Ri 2 - 16/15 (minor second)
Ri 3 - 10/9
Ri 4 - 9/8 (major second)
Ga 1 - 32/27
Ga 2 - 6/5 (minor third)
Ga 3 - 5/4 (major third)
Ga 4 - 81/64
Ma 1 - 4/3 (fourth)
Ma 2 - 27/20
Ma 3 - 45/32 (tritone)
Ma 4 - 64/45
Pa - 3/2 (fifth)
Dha 1 - - 128/81
Dha 2 - 8/5 (minor sixth)
Dha 3 - 5/3 (major sixth)
Dha 4 - 27/16
Ni 1 - - 16/9 (minor seventh)
Ni 2 - 9/5
Ni 3 - 15/8 (major seventh)
Ni 4 - 31/16

in case anyones wondering wat the note names mean, this is it: in each indian 'mode,' there are seven notes. SA is always the root. then following, one of the RI's, one of the GA's, etc...for middle eastern music, i believe the overall scale is similar, but the rules for scale building are much different.

and as for JI music sounding 'flat'...well it is. 12ET has more dissonant and therefore more excited intervals. but know that with JI, it is possible to make intervals so dissonant that they're nauseating. literally. and then u always have perfectly consonant intervals, which act as a sort of home base. the main issue with 12 ET is that it has no real resting place. every interval u play wants to resolve itself into another interval. therefore in 12ET, the ending of a song is never resolved (except perhaps in a classical group) because there is never a complete release of tension.

honestly, there's some really ugly JI music out there. i wish people wouldn't, but they do. when listening to JI, its absolutely important not to make comparisons to 12ET. it will sound horribly out of tune. all it takes is an open ear and an open mind.

This thread peaked my interest so I Googled and found a website with a few examples each playing in ET12 and JI. Now don't light your flame thrower just giving my opinion, I thought the JI versions sounded cold. The ET12 examples had an warmth and shimmer in the overtones.
Well, there are a few things to keep in mind here. You probably heard computer-generated samples (there are a lot of those around), in which case they probably were pretty lifeless to begin with, and needed all the help they could get. The next thing is that those were pieces written for ET12, with ET12 sounds in mind, and not using any JI intervals more complex than what you might approximate with the 12-tone scale. Music in JI can incorporate more harmonic complexity (i.e. intervals other than thirds and fifths) without turning to mush, and your average JI composer (if there is such a thing) takes advantage of that. So while justly tuning a piece of music built with normal Western harmony comes out as flat as organum, that's not the sum of JI.

To me just intonation means that the entrancing tonalities you can usually only find in things like train whistles and bells become available to the composer, and putty in his hands.

You might give these a listen for examples of real JI music:
Harry Partch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPOibcWWzs
Kyle Gann:
http://www.kylegann.com/TheDayRevisited.mp3 from http://www.kylegann.com/Gannaudio.html .

Am I correct in thinking that just intonation involves equal space(is that the same as using certain ratios consistently?)

In any case, it's my impression that music that employs just intonation sounds "out of tune" frequently. Based on what I know about African and Indian systems, I'm pretty sure that this is a cultural thing, but obviously still it's impossible to overlook.

I am studying trombone currently, and my teacher has written a good bit material on intonation - probably most directed at orchestral musicians such as himself. I should get out some of his papers, because he was very scientific in his explanation of why certain phenomena happen in the western system of music(Why 3rds need to be tuned differently, etc.)

As far as orchestral bassists, brass players and everyone else using just intonation in ensembles, I think that's a misunderstanding of the term. I think that what they're really doing is adapting the intonation of a "fixed" pitch to different situations based on imperfections in the western tonal system. The basic example is with 3rds - for example if you play an A 440 in tune, but then play a properly tuned F below it, it will sound out of tune. The A has to be lowered to sound "right" to us.

I use quotations because listening is very subjective and others are able to hear past what culture has taught them and recognize just intonation as different, not wrong.

and another thing, i would agree that just intonation is NOT in wide use.

yes, u can argue about classical instrumentalists and singers...but the fact is, they're still playing in the general system of 12ET.

i think most of the worthwile just intonation music in the world is the classical music of the middle east, india, asia, and the medieval music of europe.

im sure many would agree with me that modern just intonation music has little legacy. most of it is so microtonal that its hard to believe its 'in tune.' instead of using rich chords and consonant melodies, modern composers opt for the abstract, minimalism, and impressionism. for just intonation to make any growth, what we need is simple music that the general public can easily relate to and say "well that sounds nice."


There was a UK TV documentary about this - as part of a series made by the composer/conductor Howard Goodall.

So he explained with examples how Japanese classical music is made with just intonation scales and instruments and it sounds very weird to our Western ears - it was popular in Japan before WWII - but since Japanese people have been exposed to so much western music more recently - it has fallen out of favour completely!

http://www.howardgoodall.co.uk/presenting/bigtext.htm

Am I correct in thinking that just intonation involves equal space(is that the same as using certain ratios consistently?)
What do you mean by this?
In any case, it's my impression that music that employs just intonation sounds "out of tune" frequently.
I think it's more that composers writing in just intonation intentionally use intervals that sound "out of tune" to listeners who are used to something else. A simple justly tuned scale that simply used flatter thirds and sixths than equal temperament sounds more "in tune" than 12ET does.

wolfman - its quite the opposite of what you said. 12ET is based on logarithms and is equally spaced. JI, in terms of the overtone series, can be considered exponential, but most practical scales in JI are completely non-linear and have no pattern.

and as i said before, the topic of western classical players is subject to argument. the players never in fact 'leave' the 12ET system; the music they're playing still follows the rules of 12ET theory. however, once players compensate to make an interval perfectly in tune, mathematically it is JI. basically, the shifts needed to make 12ET sound in tune do not change anything about the music itself. harmony still functions the same.

and as to just intonation sounding out of tune...well you sortof contradicted that. you mentioned lowering the major 3rd to make it sound in tune...and therefore make it sound better...and therefore put it in a system of JI. the 'out of tune' JI you might have heard may have had very unfamiliar intervals that were not really consonant at all. personally, however, i hear the traditional music of india and other cultures as truly in tune. whatever discomfort you may have from listening to JI might very well be your subconscious trying to make comparisons to wat it believes is right.

Well, there are a few things to keep in mind here. You probably heard computer-generated samples (there are a lot of those around), in which case they probably were pretty lifeless to begin with, and needed all the help they could get. The next thing is that those were pieces written for ET12, with ET12 sounds in mind, and not using any JI intervals more complex than what you might approximate with the 12-tone scale. Music in JI can incorporate more harmonic complexity (i.e. intervals other than thirds and fifths) without turning to mush, and your average JI composer (if there is such a thing) takes advantage of that. So while justly tuning a piece of music built with normal Western harmony comes out as flat as organum, that's not the sum of JI.

To me just intonation means that the entrancing tonalities you can usually only find in things like train whistles and bells become available to the composer, and putty in his hands.

You might give these a listen for examples of real JI music:
Harry Partch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPOibcWWzs
Kyle Gann:
http://www.kylegann.com/TheDayRevisited.mp3 from http://www.kylegann.com/Gannaudio.html .

The examples with both 12ET and JI were done on syntheiser, but I thought they did a good job. I JI tunes I heard were on some strange string instrument. I think part my dislike on that was it was IMO just bad music.

I used to have Harry Partch box Delusions of Fury on vinyl. I really dug the music and the booklet talking about all the instruments. When I was a recording engineer (in dark ages of tape) I work some sessions with precussionist that played in Harry's group. I remember they had some pretty funny stories about Harry gig's. I remember one about a gig Harry having them wear miner hats with the lights of an outdoor concert at night. Well the wind came up and started blowing the music away. So the band just started improvising to keep the show going. Audience loved it Harry was going nuts and once again downing bottles of Pepto Bizmo.

I like that Kyle Gann piece a lot, thanks for the link.

Google Harry Partch.

I used to have Harry Partch box Delusions of Fury on vinyl. I really dug the music and the booklet talking about all the instruments.
Hey, I've got it on vinyl too! :hyper: I've never heard it since I don't have a record player. One day....

Harry Partch is something else. I still can't get over his love for pitched percussion and qlunqy noises.

well for me i never really understood wat partch was trying to do...his scale isnt very pleasant (11-limit i think?) and hard to hear because almost everything is percussion.

well i supposed i shouldnt say anything bad about the guy...he was quite a visionary. im just not into stuff that majorly abstract. and i cant stand the sound of pitched percussion :rolleyes:

what im trying to say is that as someone discovering JI, i was very put off by his music. go get some ravi shankar! :D

well for me i never really understood wat partch was trying to do...his scale isnt very pleasant (11-limit i think?) and hard to hear because almost everything is percussion.

well i supposed i shouldnt say anything bad about the guy...he was quite a visionary. im just not into stuff that majorly abstract. and i cant stand the sound of pitched percussion :rolleyes:

what im trying to say is that as someone discovering JI, i was very put off by his music. go get some ravi shankar! :D

Okay here's where I am lost. I listen to Ravi Shakar and I wouldn't think JI. I love Indian music but I hear lots of bent notes and note droning from sympathetic vibration. Seems like they rarely fret a note and leave it alone they are always bending. It that JI?

in sitar music, the open strings are tuned justly, and the frets are placed justly. the notes that they bend to are supposed (if its an experienced player) to be JI pitches in their scale. of course with all that bending and added expressions, its not always in perfectly in tune, but then it would lose its character.

the droning sound of the sitar is the most JI thing about it. the drones consist of a justly tuned fifth, C to G (or D to A, it depends on the player). sitar would not have the same continuous, sustained sound (sometimes called harmonic enertia) if it was not in JI. if a sitar was tuned to an ET system, the sympathetic vibrations would rub and the notes would die out very quickly. since indian music doesnt modulate, there would be no reason why it wouldnt be in JI.

also on a sitar, because of its construction (especially in the bridges), natural harmonics speak on their own. these would not speak in ET. JI is wat gives sitar its rich harmonic content. almost as if there's as much overtone as there is fundamental.

for comparison, think of bagpipe music. if its the real traditional stuff, its played in JI, with the drone pipes chanting a fifth. and also similar to indian music, is the ornaments and 'squeaks' that bagpipers do to add color. no, its not in tune, but ornaments dont need to be.

when i want to give someone an impression of JI, i tell them to listen to sitar music. it can move you very deeply if you listen closely, and it can give you relaxation that you could not grasp before.

in sitar music, the open strings are tuned justly, and the frets are placed justly. the notes that they bend to are supposed (if its an experienced player) to be JI pitches in their scale. of course with all that bending and added expressions, its not always in perfectly in tune, but then it would lose its character.

the droning sound of the sitar is the most JI thing about it. the drones consist of a justly tuned fifth, C to G (or D to A, it depends on the player). sitar would not have the same continuous, sustained sound (sometimes called harmonic enertia) if it was not in JI. if a sitar was tuned to an ET system, the sympathetic vibrations would rub and the notes would die out very quickly. since indian music doesnt modulate, there would be no reason why it wouldnt be in JI.

also on a sitar, because of its construction (especially in the bridges), natural harmonics speak on their own. these would not speak in ET. JI is wat gives sitar its rich harmonic content. almost as if there's as much overtone as there is fundamental.

for comparison, think of bagpipe music. if its the real traditional stuff, its played in JI, with the drone pipes chanting a fifth. and also similar to indian music, is the ornaments and 'squeaks' that bagpipers do to add color. no, its not in tune, but ornaments dont need to be.

when i want to give someone an impression of JI, i tell them to listen to sitar music. it can move you very deeply if you listen closely, and it can give you relaxation that you could not grasp before.

thanks for the explanation now I understand.

As for bagpipes you keep them, that has to be one of the loudest things I have ever heard. Most people only know bagpipes from hearing them on recordings or TV, but go hear them in person you find yourself backing up. :D

well for me i never really understood wat partch was trying to do...his scale isnt very pleasant (11-limit i think?) and hard to hear because almost everything is percussion.

well i supposed i shouldnt say anything bad about the guy...he was quite a visionary. im just not into stuff that majorly abstract. and i cant stand the sound of pitched percussion :rolleyes:
I think he was trying to evoke the feel of an ancient ritual, in part. His music has shades of so many other things but largely a character all of its own, and it can be challenging to accept it on its own terms. Unless you have some conception of what to listen for, gleaned either through lots of experience with his music or some reading, it will likely leave you cold.

One thing is that Harry Partch's music was intended to be anything but abstract! What he called "corporeality" was very important to him. At the very least, the musicians had to be like dancers, and much of his music was set to dance and a story. Listening to Partch on CD is much the same as listening to opera on CD: you've got to imagine the action happening since it's not really there. But at least he wrote in English!

Another is that, probably due to the nature of his instruments, his music is arranged differently than anything else. It takes some time to learn to synthesize in your mind the sound of wood blocks and plucked strings and whatever other strange things into a coherent whole.

And there's much more. What else do you expect when a man creates his own musical tradition out of his own mind and takes his lyrical approach from the speech of hobos and his own unusual rhythm?

Partch is kind of a Jaco figure. Not everyone can get into him, but his importance to a certain set of composers is the same as that of Jaco to bassists.

and i never understood why bagpipers insist on playing in groups. you're all playing the same thing anyways. and you're certainly not lacking for volume!

as for harry partch, i understand somewat wat your trying to say. but if i could pick three kinds of music that annoy me the most, it would be
1)steel drum/islander
2)jungle
3)ritualistic/tribal.
that being said, im not a fan of the guys music. the thing that gets me the most is that fact that he composed specifically for multimedia performance. when i say mulitmedia i dont mean musicals, operas, or videos (which i all enjoy). i mean flashing lights, weird sounds, and iterpretive dance.

i find his music lacks any recognizable form or structure, at least to the casual listener. is there melody? harmony? a bass part and a treble part? rythmic repetition? logic? his JI scale is completely arbitrary and unusually dissonant.

my biggest beef is the instruments. obviously he was a creative guy and stuff, and put a lot of effort into his vision...but i cannot agree with his instruments. i'd think that in a JI system, the one thing you wouldnt want to do is use harsh, short sounds. how can you possibly get a musical message across with no real melodic instrument? it doesnt matter wat the piece is, i cant help smirking when i hear a mallet feature. its like it doesnt fit in any context (except jungle music).

his music, if i could label it anything, would be impressionistic. i wouldnt even mention JI. its not a good or bad thing, thats just wat it is. and some people realize his ideas and others dont. i dont think partch is bad in any real sense, but i dont think he went about JI in the right way at all.

is there melody? harmony? a bass part and a treble part? rythmic repetition? logic? his JI scale is completely arbitrary and unusually dissonant.

i'd think that in a JI system, the one thing you wouldnt want to do is use harsh, short sounds. how can you possibly get a musical message across with no real melodic instrument?
Why, yes, his music has all those things. It's kind of a trick to make them out at first though. You've got to learn an entirely new musical vocabulary, and that can take a few weeks of study. As for his scale, when you have 43 tones to the octave and you use them all, you're going to sound "dissonant" (although I don't really believe in dissonant). I don't think his scale was any more or less arbitrary than others (12ET for an arbitrary scale founded in wishful thinking, anyone?).

For Harry Partch, I don't think JI was the goal. He didn't set out to be a JI composer, he set out to write his music, and JI was the only sane choice for him. There's no rule that a person who is capable of sustaining interesting chords (by virtue of the scale they use) has to, and he never imagined there was. So while some JI composers might feel the need to "show off" what their scale can do, Partch skipped all that, and just wrote his music. I wouldn't say that he "went about JI" in the wrong way -- in fact, I wouldn't say he went about it at all. He went about music, and only did it in JI because it was the right way to do it.

One thing he knew is that in JI every chord is a new timbre as well. You can play any group of notes together and they will have their own distinct sound (contrast this to ET in which going beyond four pitch classes approaches an unresolvable mess). This is one way that he exploited JI. Arpeggios, chords, and glissandi blur and until you untangle them it's very hard to make sense of his music. Glissandi are not unimportant bits between notes: it's the other way around.

EDIT: And he certainly had melodic instruments. The voice, obviously, as well as the viola and guitar. He mostly used the organ for harmony rather than melody. Other instruments may carry it as well, but mostly it is these. Rhythm is shared between all the instruments, rather than carried by a percussion section.

Quick question: The harmonic series on any instrument (wind/bass instrument overtones, or open harmonics on a stringed instrument) IS just intonation, correct? So if you were to put frets exactly where each harmonic node is located, you would have certain intervals of a JI scale. Am I understanding that right?

Cool stuff :)

Quick question: The harmonic series on any instrument (wind/bass instrument overtones, or open harmonics on a stringed instrument) IS just intonation, correct? So if you were to put frets exactly where each harmonic node is located, you would have certain intervals of a JI scale. Am I understanding that right?

Cool stuff :)
Yes. Since harmonics fall at exact integer divisions of the string (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, and so on) placing frets there will yield a justly tuned scale. And if every note you play is justly tuned in relation to the root, they will all be justly tuned in relation to one another. Both of these are because you can't multiply integer ratios together and get anything other than an integer ratio.

If you tune your strings to an open just chord after placing the frets there, you'll get a more extensive JI scale. To have every note of the scale available in each octave and position I believe you would need a few more partial frets or a fretless instrument, but it's a good way to get into JI. Tune your fretless whatever to whatever just chord you like (justly tuned Root 5th Octave 10th 12th is nice, if droney), and just play notes that fall a fifth, third, syntonic comma, or other justly tuned interval above the open string. It's a little at odds with the way that most JI composers carefully design a scale, but if you just want to play with it that's the way to go.

lokire - the harmonic series, in terms of JI, works on the following terms: in the frequency ratio, the denominator is a product of 1 or 2. so 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc are fair game. the numerator counts up by 1's, starting at 1. so in order, the harmonic series would go

(1) (2/1) (3/2) (4/2) (5/4) (6/4) (7/4) (8/4) (9/8) (10/8) (11/8)

notice that an interval like (6/4) is really (3/2) repeated. also, the octaves of the fundamental are repeated many times. if you graphed the harmonic series, it would rise quickly in the beginning and then level off as the spaces between tones shortens.

as for using a harmonic series scale on a string instrument, it has been done, but it may be different than from how you envisioned. every single place you touch, say on a bass string, contains a harmonic node, but because of the restrictions of the physics of hearing and of the string, it cannot sound. so in order to play a "chromatic" scale of any sort, there would be more frets than you probably imagine. also, note that on an instrument like bass guitar, if you used regular frets (being ones that span the width of the fingerboard), each string would have its own harmonic series. now, this yields a lot of notes to choose from, but it only lets you play the note you want on the the string that corresponds to the fundamental (i hope that makes sense). otherwise, you can just stick with one fundamental, and use partial frets. go to http://www.microtones.com to get an idea of what that means. if you have any interest in modding an instrument to JI, just ask. its a pain to figure it out on your own.



whew. well lemur, i use the term "arbitrary" to describe partch's scale because of the way he himself described it. apart from being 11-limit, it had no real restrictions. even then, his scale is hardly based on any sort of number limit. nor is based on the harmonic series. he said that he took tones out of 11-limit, then found the difference inbetween tones to fill in gaps. "filling in gaps" doesnt sound like JI idea at all. lastly, 43 is an odd number, and while his scale has symmetry side to side, it has none top to bottom.

of course when i mention "dissonant," i mean that subjectively. there is no mathematical break between consonance and dissonance. sure, each little increment of his scale has a different "feel" to it. but why would i ever want 4 or 5 different kinds of major 3rds? the true and most consonant major 3rd, (5/4), is the only one i would ever need.

style wise, i dont like how partch is rhythm driven. at least from my experience, and as a bass player, i think rhythm takes a back seat to harmony and voice leading.

of course when i mention "dissonant," i mean that subjectively. there is no mathematical break between consonance and dissonance. sure, each little increment of his scale has a different "feel" to it. but why would i ever want 4 or 5 different kinds of major 3rds? the true and most consonant major 3rd, (5/4), is the only one i would ever need.
Why wouldn't you want four or five (or three, as in Partch's scale) different major thirds? Especially if you want to notate speech with natural contours, as he did, or transpose to a new key.

Visual aid:

Warwick Just Intonation Bass:

http://microtones.com/images/jibass.jpg

basshole - thanks for the pic. hansford rowe's bass? im doing something similar with an acoustic guitar.

lemur - partch, in the instance of major 3rds, has mulitiple choices to choose from, but anything other than a (5/4) ceases to function as a major 3rd in harmony. in this case, i'd like to think of that the tones on either side of the true major 3rd are for passing or effect. which again, i dont know why partch puts emphasis on things like this. the human mind cant comprehend the mathematical differences between pitches that close.

for my guitar, which is 5-limit, i have 40 tones. of course i have 3 or 4 notes that kinda sound like the true major 3rd, but they're not there for that purpose. they are there because they represent more common intervals when the bass isn't on the root fundamental. basically, its a symmetrical JI system that has a limited ability to modulate effectively. so i would never need/have to use that-note-right-above-or-below-the-major-3rd.

the ear is naturally drawn to the major 3rd as a center of consonance. theres a reason why the western (and indian AND pentatonic) natural major scales contain the notes they do. so in the case of the major 3rd, any interval that isn't quite recognizably in tune sounds dissonant. the ear wants the interval to correct itself and settle on a consonant pitch. so apart from creating tension, creating dissonance, and for passing, those notes that suround the common pitches aren't musically practicle. so YES, personally i do have the ability to be squirmingly microtonal, but NO, i would never compose JI music in this fashion.

Seems like a pedal steel guitar would be a great JI instrument. With the pedals and the steel you could get all your JI tones.

Seems like a pedal steel guitar would be a great JI instrument. With the pedals and the steel you could get all your JI tones.
I think so too.

yea i dont particularly like the sound of slide guitar, but with the right open string tuning it can work great for JI. on the lap steel the strings would be tuned so that the "frets" lay straight across the board. most ET lap steel players tune their open strings to JI anyways. like the harmonica, in this instrument its more important to sound in-tune with yourself than with others.

as some proof:

[URL="http://www.debashishbhattacharya.com/"]http://www.debashishbhattacharya.com/

like the violin, indian musicians have adopted the western slide guitar and made it their own. they add a bunch of sitar-like sympathetic strings to custom archtops and dobros.

also look into fretless guitarists. some chose fretless for the same reason of playing JI on slide.

this thread died a quick death, unfortunately. not much activity going on. thanks to anyone who responded, its great answering questions and arguing is always fun. so let me leave off with a few ending remarks-

just intonation is the foundation of harmony. i hope there isnt any doubt about that. and i sincerely hope that people are told the truth, instead of being indoctrinated into some rigid system. it heartens me to see muscician's master their craft, and love their work; but it is despairing to know that they have devoted their lives to a sort of falsified harmony. i am in a difficult position. of course i am guilty of playing in ET (how, in this culture, could i not have), but now i can start making choices. obviously, JI is the harder choice. there is almost insurmountable oppostion to JI. think of every western musician you've ever met, heard, or heard about. every one is a potential enemy to any advocator of JI. and how do you convince someone, who put in so much time and effort and practice and money, that they were wrong even before the started? thus in my eyes, musicians, the music industry, and music itself, is all my enemy. it sickens me to see things this way, as i still love music so much, but it is my conviction for what i know is right that keeps me going. i cannot give up. it is either JI, or no music at all. anyone else who pushes for JI, i applaude your courage. its a seriously lonely occupation. and with that, i end the thread.