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True temperament appears to be a marketing term for a fret system providing equal temperament. A "spherical cow" model of a guitar would be equal temperament,
by Tade0 4y ago
True temperament appears to be a marketing term for a fret system providing equal temperament.
A "spherical cow" model of a guitar would be equal temperament, but that ignores the messy reality of how strings behave - chiefly they need to be some distance above the fretboard and pressing them naturally bends the string ever so slightly.
- palimpsests 4y agoso slightly that it can be on the range of 0-5 cents, provided the instrument is sufficiently constructed and the player is sufficiently skilled. this is why a guitar using equal temperment can play consistently in-tune with itself as well as with other instruments tuned in the same system. it’s not about perfection according to some abstract mathematical model.
- Tade0 4y agoKinda is, considering that the frequencies for each note are a standard and used by all equal temperament instruments. Guitars are almost never perfectly in tune according to that standard, but like I said - people generally don't mind.
- palimpsests 4y agoyes, I am aware that conventional guitars have fundamental issues with intonation in equal temperament systems. this has not prevented it from being a versatile instrument that is quite capable of being played “enough” in tune with ensembles of other instruments, such that the vast majority of people hear zero problems. how is what we hear in music less relevant than whether or not a given instrument is not perfectly in tune, mathematically speaking, if that variation in tuning is imperceptible to human hearing?