You're right - it's not a circular process if the fretting system has been worked out properly. As I said, I've been using David van Ooijen's instructions for tuning in 1/6 comma and it's a straight- forward process.
But I was referring to the historical instructions found on the LSA Fret Placement Chart, which (no disrespect to the Ancients) haven't been passed down to us 100% accurately. So there's some to-ing and fro-ing between frets and open strings to figure out that Gerle, for instance, was aiming at approx. 1/6 comma. Obviously, having established this, I don't need to repeat the process - I can just tune straight to 1/6 comma... On 3 Oct 2008, at 23:39, Sam Chapman wrote: > In any tempered fretting system that's been worked out properly you > need to first set the frets, then tune the strings to each other in > perfect octaves or unisons, since these intervals must be pure in all > schemes. If this doesn't work and your lute sounds out of tune, then > the fret placement has been wrongly calculated. There should be no > need for a "circular process" (unless you're interested in inventing a > new temperament by trial and error). -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
