Fretted Instrument Intonation
Several factors affect fretted instrument intonation, including depth of the string slots in the nut, bridge saddle position, and the position of the frets themselves.
On fretted string instruments, pushing a string against a fret—aside from raising the string's pitch because it shortens the string—also causes a slight secondary raise in pitch because pushing the string increases its tension. If the instrument doesn't compensate for this with a slight increase in the distance from the bridge saddle to the fret, the note sounds sharp.
Most electric fretted string instruments have individually adjustable bridge saddles, adjustable with a screw driver or Allen wrench. Acoustic fretted instruments typically have either a floating bridge, held in place by string tension, or a fixed bridge, such as a pin bridge on an acoustic guitar. A luthier or technician adjusts a floating bridge simply by carefully changing its position until the intonation is correct. Adjusting intonation on a fixed bridge involves carefully shaping the bridge saddle with a file to alter the string's contact point.
Another cause of poor intonation on a fretted instrument is that the maker didn't cut the string slots in the nut deep enough. If the string is higher than fret height at the nut, the string deflection-caused pitch increase is progressively greater closer to the nut.
Read more about this topic: Intonation (music)
Famous quotes containing the words fretted, instrument and/or intonation:
“This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with
golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)