Newsgroups: rec.music.early
Subject: RE: Fretwork
From: GONTER@AWIWUW11.BITNET
Date: 17 Nov 1992 17:08:58 -0500 (EST)
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Comments: From: MVBURKE@ucs.indiana.edu

From: MVBURKE@ucs.indiana.edu
----------------------------- resent message ----------------------------
Subj:   Re: Fretwork
 
Ray Gebbie writes:
 
>They played here in Berkeley last night (Sunday).  It was a wonderful experi-
>ence!  Viol consort music can be somewhat monotonous (or very monotonous,
>depending on the group!), but that was not my experience last night.
 
>Some questions I had: they spent a great amount of time adjusting the tuning,
>for obvious reasons (the instruments are fretted, for those who are not
 familiar
>with them).  Is there any way to adjust the intonation while playing, they way
>a violinist would?  Also, How can a fret that is placed it the same position
>for all the strings be very accurate? In other words, it would seem to me that
>there might be slight differences in the exact placement that would be ideal
>for the same fret for each of the strings.  Has anyone every made an instrument
>with the fret placement adjusted for each string, instead of straight across?
 
Well, I'm delighted to hear these raves about the Fretters, I'll pass them on
to Wendy (Gillespie, treble player in the group), who teaches here at IU.  The
band was here in town for a week before they hit the road, and we viol majors
had the good fortune to have lessons and coachings with them--quite an eye-
opening experience for a student consort.
 
As to your questions on tuning and other fret-related phenomena: You can do a
certain amount of adjusting intonation on the fly, but there's a limit to how
much you can get away with.  The notes are fingered right behind the fret, with
a bit of your finger-flesh lapping over; you can adjust the intonation by
pushing or pulling from that position, but you can't move away from the fret
without the quality of the tone going to hell.
 
Whether or not the fret will be accurate is partly a function of the
temperament you're dealing with and partly a function of how true your strings
are.  If you're playing in more or less equal temperament, your standard fret
placement is usually pretty reliable--unless your strings are a bit quirky
for some reason (e.g. age).  To deal with the vagaries of different
temperaments, you can split the frets, which are double, so that, for example,
the b-flat is a bit flatter, but the f on the same fret is normal.  Then,
of course, you have the problem of remembering which half of the fret you're
supposed to be using, which can be pretty brain-frying.
 
>I also noticed that some of the players used vibrato-like motions in their
>left hands.  Can vibrato really be done on a fretted instrument? I am not a
>string player, but a wind player, so I don't have much experience with string
>techniques.
 
Vibrato is possible on a fretted instrument, you just have to work a little
harder to get it.  Personally, I have a hell of a time producing it, as this
is my only string instrument ever, and I don't have the basic knack of
vibrating left over from playing violin or something; so far the best thing
seems to be letting just a bit more of your finger lap over the fret.  One
of these days I may get the hang of it....
 
Cheers--MVB
"There is a fine line between genius and insanity.  I have erased this line."
                                                --Oscar Levant