posted March 05, 2002 06:36 PM            

Concert pitch simply dictates which note will be the note all others are tuned to, accordingly and the exact pitch of that reference note... A=440hz.

Guitars are easily tuned to this pitch reference... in fact electronic tuners are callibrated to this A=440hz standard.

Tempered tuning refers to how each of the remaining pitches are tuned relative to the concert pitch. The standard guitar fretboard is designed to accomodate equal temperament... as is practically every modern instrument. Equal temperament means that there is equal distance (measured by pitch... not physical distance) between each and every note of the chromatic scale.

Now, some people are very unhappy with equal temperament, because it is a compromise between being able to play in all keys with equal facility and having popular chords sound out of tune... namely open position major chords. these same people have gone to a lot of trouble to design systems that will allow you to play your open position chords closer to in tune... problem is... when you mess with the pitch of those notes, you mess with how they react along with other pitches on the neck.... in other words you've created one tuning nighmare while trying to solve another tuning nightmare.