Years ago, I was walking downtown, & found myself humming the main line from some orchestral piece (now forgotten, alas) dominated by violins.

Suddenly I stopped, rewound a few bars in my head, & sang it aloud.

That was the moment I realised the limits of equal temperament. What happened in the score was that the violins played through a note, the key shifted somewhat, then as the violins went back over that note... it was a half-step flatter. Not a "half step" as in one fret down, but between the frets.

I sang it out again, this time in 12et, & it sounded kinda, well, limp.

Since then, I've been able to appreciate Arabic music, which is 24-tone, as well as some of the subtleties (to most Western ears) of the koto & samisen & pipa.

It's only been recently that I've come to understand that the same applies to jazz & blues, with sparing use of a "blue note," a quarter-tone bend. A half-tone bend just doesn't sound right. I've been experimenting with sharping up one string in two- & three-note chords as well.

Okay, maybe it's just a passing obsession, but has anyone else encountered this? or even put it to effective use?

Two of the guys in my band are Lebanese and even though they are "Americanized" they still acknowledge their heritage and everyso often we'll end a song with a middle eastern scale note run and I'll have to get one of those quarternote bends correct. Mostly we do it in practice for fun and save the standard endings for the gigs.

Also as a fan of George Harrison, I've been listening to music that covers the "Arabic scale" for a long time. It still doesn't sound "right" to me.

Do you think I used the quotation marks enough?

It fascinates me, but I'm reluctant to analyze it too much -- might suck some of the fun outta it!!

This all came back to me when I first played that old Harmony Rocket & was enjoying the natural tone with some slow single-note jazzy runs. With the thin strings, I had to restrain myself from wild bends, & went too conservative, but heard how great this sounded as I cycled around.