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Old 12-06-2017, 09:07 PM
Carbonius Carbonius is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Canada
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Hello Dr. Todd Tipton and thank you for the reply. Sometimes sharing something additional or not isn't the point. Having another knowledgeable person weigh in with a detailed opinion certainly adds to the conversation and the validity of what is being discussed.

In the past I found this to be a very controversial topic. By "past" I mean the steel sting guitar crowd. I'm actually finding the classical guitar crowd is much more aware of these strange anomalies. It would seem that the majority of steel string players don't even know that there are anomalies! That makes perfect sense if all one does is strum a handful of chords and sing. I'm certainly not speaking negatively about that. It is a very enjoyable aspect of music. However when one endeavors to play complicated pieces where the only thing being heard is the one instrument they are being played on, anomalies stand out much more so. I've noticed many steel string fingerstyle guitar players use alternate tunings that deal with a lot of these anomalies nicely.

I do plan to do some experimentation with nut and saddle compensation for the G string. From what I have read, applying compensation to the low E string at the nut can also help. This makes sense as I sometimes find myself tuning the low E flat for certain passages. I always have the option of bending a string to make it go sharp. However if the note I'm playing is already sharp, there is nothing I can do except try to sharp every other note!

It would be ideal if there was someone in my community that was already skilled and doing nut compensation but there is not. I will not be shipping a delicate classical guitar hundreds of miles to someone else to give it a try. So that leaves me. I've learned that moderation goes a long way. As such I will just seek to alter the temperament a bit. It gives me a good excuse to acquire a few more tools! I will keep the stock nut and saddle as they are and make new ones to take their place. That way I can compare what I've done to the original. There's also a lot of great data available online from people who have been doing this for decades now. So I'm not having to completely start from scratch.

All in all, I'm just very happy to be able to play guitar again. Playing without having my ears hurt is a God send. The added benefit of hardly any pain on my fingertips and hardly any strain on my wrist is just icing on the cake!
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