Dear Stewart, I don't know what Andrew's reply will be but from my own experience of making orpharions (I've made three so far) it's really difficult to work out the exact approximation to any fixed meantone calculations, whether it's a 1/4th, 1/6th etc.
Frets have to be placed in some sort of "compromised" positions which work best for the chosen repertoire. And this relates not only to those frets where the sums of chromatic and diatonic semitones are not equal but for the other frets too (like the second for example), plus taking into account pitch distortions when strings are fingered. I also found (as I believe many other makers did) that direct copying of fret distances from surviving instruments never works. In one of the recent exchanges on this list Martyn has repeatedly tried to point out on the controversy surrounding the idea of direct references to meantone fret arrangements; so far without luck ... Alexander ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute Net" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 1:44 PM Subject: [LUTE] Palmer orpharion images > Dear Andrew, > > I see from one of the pictures that the space between the 1st and 2nd > frets is noticeably wider than the space between the 2nd and 3rd frets. I > assume it is some kind of meantone. Am I right? If so, to what temperament > do the frets approximate? > > Best wishes, > > Stewart McCoy. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
