conroystoptime
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Microtonal Elec Guitar
Has anyone on the forum ever known of a fretted electric guitar with microtonal fret spacings?
Listening to Omar Khorshid, the wonderful guitarist of Oum Kulthoum and Abdl Halim, it makes me wonder what it might sound like to hear the half-flats
that enable closer alignment with a wide variety of maqamat.
Are there any existing examples out there?
While electric guitar would need to be very restrained in traditional music, Khorshid was terrific at it, and it would be a fun project to switch the
neck out of an existing 6- or 12-string to experiment with this musical texture.
Thanks...looking forward to any thoughts...
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Jody Stecher
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Several of my friends have experimented with fretless electric guitars with stainless steel fingerboards. Optimum string gauges have not yet been
determined. Moveable frets might be good.
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Aymara
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Never heard of a microtonal fretted guitar.
I think a fretless guitar is the way to go. Conversion is an easy process for a guitar luthier and isn't very expensive. If you e.g. have a Fender
with a screwed neck just buy a spare neck and let it get unfretted. This way you have a chance to switch back.
unfretted.com will give you tons of information ... also about steel fingerboards.
The Godin Glissentar is also a nice alternative with nylon strings, which can be played acoustic and electric. It's similar stringed to an oud with a single
bass string and the rest being double courses, but in guitar tuning.
PS: Microtonal fretted guitars do exist ... look HERE. But I bet these babies are custom build. Nevertheless I believe the fretless to be the better choice ... I as a former guitarist now playing
oud and fretless bass would choose a fretless guitar or the Glissentar depending on the desired sound.
Greetings from Germany
Chris
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Giorgioud
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There are various examples of microtonal/quartertonal guitars around. Ibanez is producing one http://youtu.be/cbTqZp4KFDE and there's this ingenious system created by a Turkish guitarist http://youtu.be/MYK_PF9WTRE and of course, there are the homemade versions which are just as effective, like this guy's http://youtu.be/TOSg56z1s2M
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Brian Prunka
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If you are going to use frets, I would suggest making the instrument fretless and adding tied frets (like a buzuq/saz etc).
Getting the exact positioning of the frets correct is nearly impossible--equal temperament doesn't work for this music. Tied frets allow fine
adjustments and allow you to add more frets when necessary.
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mavrothis
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Hi,
I recommend just having the guitar be fretless. I just got my Fenger Jaguar refitted with a great fretless neck (Drew Bradshaw again), and it works
well b/c this guitar has a smaller scale to begin with compared to most other electric guitars.
I use the medium D'Addario flatwound string set (.13-.56) in a typical Turkish tuning, and they work great. I doubt that you would need heavier for
Arabic tuning either, should work fine. Don't want to over-stress the neck!
It's fun!!!
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fernandraynaud
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I'd agree that a fretless neck is a better solution, and tying on frets is always possible. Tied-on frets are routinely used on many instruments,
including Saz, Lute and Viola da Gamba. Nothing "second-rate" about tied frets. Very versatile. See how this player has staggered the frets for
"quarter tones".
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conroystoptime
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Thanks, guys, I appreciate your input. This is all very helpful and informative.
Mavrothi, I didn't know you owned a Jaguar! I hope to hear you play it some time. 
Josh
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Giorgioud
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Mmmmmhhh.....interesting points about the supposedly "useleness" of equal temperament frets for tones smaller than a semitone. Do you mean to tell me
that these master musicians http://youtu.be/3aEgm1poBOA and http://youtu.be/YesfoGM06cs and http://youtu.be/3Gc4muIgHvk and Ait Menguellet, Kamel Aziz, Abdurahman El-Kobi, etc., have been doing it all wrong for thirty, forty, fifty years?
Well I never! Someone should alert them so they can correct their mistakes.......
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Brian Prunka
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Just like in Western music, you can "make" Equal Temperament "work", but you are changing the music to do so. The music you posted wasn't what I was
thinking of when I said "this music", though . . . I was thinking of classic Arabic and Ottoman music.
Yes, accordion players and keyboard players may also use 24TET but it is not an ideal situation, why do you think qanun players have so many levers,
or saz/buzuq/tar players have so many more frets?
Are they the ones doing it wrong, adding all those extra pitches for no reason?
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Giorgioud
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Of course, the point is, at the end of the day, that there is really not a "right" way to subdivide the concept of quarter-microtones, simply because
it all has to do with the tradition we're dealing with.
Ottoman tradition has, in a Western semitone, two, three, four microtones, and of course in the Arabic tradition the bb (double bemolle) sometimes
veers forward or backward to the pitch of the key it finds itself in, depending on the maqam.
So, on those lines all the points enunciated here make perfect sense. But with my intervention I also wanted to include the Chaabi, Algerian and
Tunisian tradition which makes ample use of equal temperament quarter-tones.
I think, and it's only a supposition so I stand to be corrected and I preclude I might be jumping to the wrong conclusion, so forgive me in advance
for that, that the original post of the quarter-tonal guitar was a enquiry which, if implemented, could lead to a better understanding of the whole
conception of tones smaller than a semitone.
In fact, for a musical mind accustomed to Western understanding, the quarter/microtonal system takes a bit to get used to, and I feel that subdividing
it simply in its basic essence of equal temperament quarter tones makes it easier to grasp.
In my experience, taking it in its "proper" way (microtones, Ebb slipping towards the Eb or the E, etc.) may lead to some confusion, at least at the
beginning.
For those of us who haven't got access to a capable teacher, or the means to pay for one, or not blessed with a startling talent, there are some
obstacles to overcome:
the grasping of the use of double bemolles; how to understand and feel their sound; their employment in the maqam system; the use of certain maqams
particularly alien to a Western ear (I am thinking of Yekah, Huzam or Sekah, or even at a push the good old Rast, Bayati & Husseini).
So I just wanted to relate that, by fitting my Arab-Andalus mandole with quarter tone frets on the second and four frets (where one might
simplistically say that the majority of double bemolle happen), I found it an enourmous help in letting me delve deeply into this most fascinating
system.
Of course, it has its limitation, I am the first to admit it, and I am also aware that if one wants to undertake an in-depth study of Arabic or
Ottoman system, the quarter tones won't quite work.
But I seem to gather that a significant number of oudists on this here forum have carried out the transition from the guitar. And I have, rightly or
wrongly, assumed, more out of a wishful thinking than anything, that the enquiry could deal with the use of equal temperament quarter tones as a
stepping stone for the lifelong journey into Arabic, Turkish, Moroccan, Chaabi, Iraqi, Sephardi, but also Hindustani, Kletzmer and Roma music.
It would be interesting to know what former/current guitarists who are playing the oud, and are forced by circumstance to undertake this journey all
on their own, think about their experience related to the understanding of a non-Western musical system and the employment of
quarter/microtones........
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soraya
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I guess this might be interesting, however using regular fretted guitar for performing microtones. It is called: "Performing Persian Music Microtones
on Electric Guitar"
http://salimworld.com/lesson/performing-microtones.htm
And its video: http://youtu.be/zpfkzha29JM
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