Rbello wrote: Excellent video and a fascinating subject - studying the evolution of temperament is like a full year of college - history, physics, religion, music - its all there. I am trying to understand this and would appreciate if you could help - Are the following statements more or less true?
Our electronic tuners should tune the open strings and presumably the 12th fret harmonic "correctly" according to the equal tempered scale if the 12th fret is positioned at half the scale length and the harmonic frequency should be precisely twice the open string?
Right (more or less  ). Of course the location of the 12th fret doesn't really factor in, as even if it's not at the midpoint the node of the octave harmonic will be. Actually that's not entirely true, as string stiffness can accelerate upper harmonics above the lower ones, but that's among the topics I'll be getting in to on the next video.
Quote: Intonation would apply to the accuracy of fretted notes and be affected by all the things discussed - fret placement, compensation, etc... the assumption being that if the 12th fret harmonic and fretted note are the same, and the intervening frets are correctly placed, that each note would theoretically sound at its expected frequency (understanding that the compensation may affect each note differently depending on its position on the neck)??
Kind of - there are still some other confounds that can come in to play, including not only string stiffness and elasticity, but also things like dominant resonant frequencies of the chassis they are attached to. These are the things that can drive people nuts in chasing isolated deviations at the expense of throwing off the rest of the range. Again though, that's going to hopefully be touched on in a more clear and understandable way in the next video.
Quote: OK, now a practical question: Given the fact that equal temperament is fundamentally a compromise, are there particular keys or open chords on the guitar that the system favors over others? Like many people I am sure that I have tuned correctly but then immediately begin retuning at the first strum. If I knew that certain open chords will never be in tune under equal temperament then I'll stop fussing.
In theory, no. Equal temperament is by definition, the only chromatic temperament which does not give favor to any one key over another. In practice, there are other variables which can make certain chords or positions harder to manage, but these are products of string, chassis, and setup characteristics, not the temperament itself.
Thanks for the questions, as this kind of thing really helps guide how I should focus and present in upcoming videos. The next one is going to be some time out, maybe a few weeks even, but I want to try to give as clear answers as possible to a lot of these common curiosities.
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