I finally got around to microtuning my Oscar Schmidt autoharp zither. I tried several tunings tonight but all of the ones I tried (12 of 17, Blue JI, etc.) left something rather sour in the relatively small selection of chords this zither is made to play. Explicitly (in order of the damper keys left to right) Gm, Bb, A7, C7, Dm, F, E7, G7, Am, C, D7, G). The sound file is arranged as follows – at first I play each note undampened low to high and then I play each chord in the above order and then I just play around. I use two contact mics with clamps to pick up the sound. I used EQ to take away the “bumps” as I was playing the instrument. In the future I will probably use a normal microphone but in the production there is a nice stereo effect.

Just Zither Me

http://micro.soonlabel.com/just/pre-archytas-hobbit/daily20110621_zither_ji.mp3

The tuning is a “pre” Archytas[12] transversal Hobbit devised by Gene Ward Smith. The actual Hobbit tuning is not Just but I preferred the Just version because I have been enjoying the extreme purity of Just Intonation harmonies. (At least within the accuracy I was able to tuning the zither pins)

! prearchytas12.scl

Archytas[12] transversal

12

!

16/15

9/8

6/5

5/4

4/3

64/45

3/2

8/5

5/3

16/9

15/8

2

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