.. jeff lee has kindly posted a modern transliteration of dowland's fret spacing method and a mathematical formula for calculating same.
he prefers the dowland to the math method as it "... sounds extremely out of tune compared to dowland's spacing."
has anyone had comparable experience with these methods - in either the arabic or european musical traditions?
i'll be tying frets onto my oud ("lu-ud") when it returns from the luthier and would like them to be as precise as possible. i realize that for some,
placing frets on ouds is a no-no but there's precedent for doing so in the arabic tradition and for the european medieval music i play, it would be
ideal.
previously, elie very kindly posted spacing information here:
... it's a very easy fret placement calculator reflecting a variety of historical methods.adamgood - 4-6-2006 at 02:14 AM
Hey interesting this comes up.
I really didn't get into you post, or check out the links but i thought i would just contribute a spreadsheet that I have. It gives you fret locations
for Turkish music meaning, for 1 octave, it will give you 53 possibilities for fret location.
I'm still so dumb with this stuff...i guess this means it's Pythagorean based math.
anyway, it works! I used it to tune my tanbur frets. all you gotta do is plug in the string length (the "nut" to the bridge) in cm and voila, it gives
you the location of the fret in relation to the nut.
My friend Phaedon made this for me...he rules I am forever grateful.
One thing that made me very excited was that the numbers generated are EXACTLY the same as what Sadun Aksüt notates in his "Tanbur Metodu" book. So
'tis right on the money.
you could use this spreadsheet to tune lavta frets or, stick some fishing line frets on your ud.
BTW! this file is for Mac OS so i don't know if it will work on PC.
Hi there, adamgood!
I'm on the same junction now, trying to tune my Tanbur's frets. Is there any option to get the XLS file?
Hope you see this post after some 9 years jdowning - 3-1-2015 at 06:50 AM
This website by Rob MacKillop includes comment on the fretting of the great Turkish Tanbur so may be of interest?
It gives the required frequency ratios (i.e. Pythagorean system) for string division as well as fret placement measured from the bridge.adamgood - 3-1-2015 at 09:37 PM
Hi Yes I still have it after so many years. How about send me a U2U with your email and I'll send it over?
Hi there, adamgood!
I'm on the same junction now, trying to tune my Tanbur's frets. Is there any option to get the XLS file?
Hope you see this post after some 9 years
