MIKE DEASY
FINGERTIPS
There is a famous Chinese song
that has survived down through the ages, TU-NING...it's
still one of my all-time favorites. T-shirts bore
the inscription, "TUNE OR DIE", and this adage
is appropiate for yesterday, today AND forever!
How you sound to yourself and others is first of
all determined by the tuning of your instrument. If you
are out of tune, everything you play will be out of tune
and sound like crap! Your guitar is like your mind, if
you are thinking about some perceived hurt or anger it
will color all your thinking and hence all your
conversation, and thus all your relationships. If your
guitar is out of tune, everything you play will be out of
tune and will create a negative response, not only in
your audience but in your own heart itself.
One of the reasons young bands and orchestras
sound like young bands and orchestras is that they do not
or cannot tune their instruments. The obvious solution is
to obtain and use an electronic tuner. This wonderful
invention came about many years after I had been playing
the guitar, so my mind contains a plethora of alternative
tuning methods. For those who are interested, I
will elaborate on those shortly.
The electric tuner is a Godsend for everyone,
listener and player alike. But what could and should have
been the greatest ear trainer in musical history has, sad
to say, become a great crutch.
If you manually tune your guitar and then use your
tuner to check and correct yourself you will find where
your ears are deficient and train your ears to hear
correctly and you will develope "Ears To Hear".
the human ear has a tendency to hear certain notes of the
scale slightly flat. Therefore a singer singing acapella
(without musical accompaniment) will tend to drop their
pitch on the thirds and seventh notes of the scale as
they occur in the song being sung. Without proper
training and awareness, the singer will then continue to
sing a little flat and if these notes (in a song being
sung in the key of "C" the offending notes
would be "E" and "B") continue to
occur in the song, will continue to go flat, and by the
end of the rendition be hopelessly out of tune. A trained
voice will compensate slightly and remain on pitch.
Singing with musical accompaniment should keep all but
the most stubborn singers in tune or, on pitch.
I am of the opinion that the human ear is probably
correct and that we should drift flat on the thirds and
sevenths and that the ear and mind perceive these sounds
correctly and that musical instruments which copy the
sounds a human hears should have been designed to
accommodate this phenomenon. The guitar has that
wonderful capability which is clearly demonstrated in
that peculiarly, American musical art form called the
"Blues" where the vanishing and interchangeable
flated thirds and sevenths are flatted, without becoming
minor in gender. In between a totally flatted third or
seventh, the semi tones are what make the
"Blues" such a distinctly sounding musical art
form. The capability of the guitar to "bend
strings" to accomplish this phenomenon is all the
more reason for the guitarist to train his or her ear.
HEARING....
To tune with a tuner first, denys oneself the honor
and privilege of having an "ear to hear".
The ability to"hear" when chord changes
occur gives you the ability to actually play. If you have
to count the number of beats a certain chord is played or
read it on a piece or paper, you will never have the
Godlike experience of being a spontanious player. To have
"ears to hear" means first of all you listen.
You listen to something besides yourself. If you are the
only one playing then this means also listening to your
own heart. If you are playing with other players then
this means listening not only to what they are playing
but listening to their hearts as well.
If while you are playing your mind is counting, or
trying to hear when to change chords, then you miss the
powerful opportunity to be thinking about what you are
playing. The properly trained ear will be able to
intuitively know when the chords are going to change and
will automatically make the right changes at the right
time. When two or more people do this together, it is
called music. The biggest failing of any band is when
each of the individuals listen egotisitcally to
themselves and fail to perceive what the others around
them are saying in their playing. Have "Ears To
Hear." The first step in having "Ears To
Hear" and becoming a spontaneous player is manually
tuning. Once again the process is to tune manually first
and then check yourself with the electronic tuner.
At some point in your illustrious musical life it
would be an amazing adventure to play a solo, a hot lick,
a fill, a zoomer, a boomer, that wonderful piece of your
exposed soul shooting like a lightning bolt, from your
brain down your arm into your fingertips onto the hot
steel of your guitar strings and pulsating into the
atmosphere and assailing the ears of those around you as
they move and grove. They love you and they borderline
worship your ability to communicate the inner man in such
a profound manner. This can only be accomplished if you
have, "Ears To Hear".
The other reasons to be able to manually tune your
guitar are as follows. Your batteries are dead in your
tuner, or you need to touch up your tuning in the middle
of a song.
If you think, "I tuned with my tuner and now
I am in tune," sad to say you do not have "Ears
To Hear". First of all, you only tuned the open
strings. Try playing another note on one of those strings
up the neck and see how in tune it really is. There are
several variables that must be taken into account if you
want to really sound in tune and have "Ears To
Hear". Every guitar has some inconsistencies
in the frets and the neck. Secondly the age of the
strings will always play havoc with tuning your guitar.
New strings stretch and go flat and must be
touched up as they stretch into pitch. You can hurry this
process somewhat by pulling on the strings when you
install them, but be careful not to break the strings in
this process as you will have to start all over. This
will also test how you attached the strings at the head
of the guitar where the tuning gears are located. The
attachment will vary depending on the construction of the
guitar, but if you can get the string to overlap itself,
this will help the string lock upon itself. Locking
tuners are wonderful, but only come on a few select
guitars or are custom added. If you would like specific
instruction on locking your strings down, e-mail me the
specifics of your guitars' tuning gears and I will get
you the appropriate information.
Never, I say, never tune the guitar sharp or
higher than standard pitch in a futile attempt to
compensate for the stretching of the strings. Guitar
strings have a memory and once you tune them sharp they
will always want to return "HOME" and you will
fight with your tuning even after the strings stop
stretching and are relatively stable. When you tune, go
below the pitch and slowly come up to pitch. This will
keep your strings from thinking they should be sharp and
will keep them alive a little longer at pitch or in tune.
After a few hours of playing, you will find that your
strings will go dead and become dull sounding. This
process is gradual and to the untrained ear may not be
noticable, but believe me, it is true and is painfully
evident to the other musicians you are playing with and
even your audience will know. They may not technically
know why but they have "Ears To Hear", from
years of listening to the best, and can feel and hear
when things are out of tune.
When your strings get old they also become
increasingly difficult to keep in tune. The higher up the
neck you go, the worse the problem becomes so some
adjustment for age has to be made in your tuning. The
younger the string the more it stretches. When the
stretching stops the string is mature and then the aging
process begins. There are a few golden moments when the
strings no longer stretch and have yet to age into
dullness. Enjoy those and compensate for the rest. Bass
player Joe Osborne once told me that he boiled his bass
strings to keep them alive. His strings were already
fifteen or twenty years old at the time! I once saw him
change and put new strings on his Fender bass, but the
sound was so altered from his well known and unique sound
that he trashed the new strings and put the old ones back
on. Once when his house burned down, the only thing he
saved was his family and his bass, in that order. I would
imagine that he still has the same strings on that most
recorded of all basses.
Other variables are the song, the key, and the
other instruments and players you are with. To solve
this, I always tune for the song and to the pitch of the
keyboard as it usually is unchangeable and will vary in
pitch from key to key. Keyboardist Larry Knechtel (Bridge
Over Troubled Water, Elvis Costello, Simon and Garfunkel,
The Mammas & Pappas, Bread and many others) always
carries a tuning wrench with him to touch up whatever
acoustical piano he is playing, but he also has perfect
pitch and is the exception. Once tuning has become part
of the trained intuitive part of your brain, it will
become as automatic as driving your car. How you
initially train your "Ears To Hear" will not
change throughout your musical life any more that your
driving habits. So train yourself appropriately and you
will have"Ears To Hear".
THE MECHANICS....
The oldest and most common method of tuning is the
"5th Fret" method. By placing your finger
(first finger, left hand for right handed guitarists)
behind the fifth fret (the frets are those little metal
wire things embedded in the fingerboard of the guitar).
So, squeezing with enough pressure to produce a clear
tone, place your finger behind the fifth fret on the
sixth string "E" on the neck, that is the part
of the guitar that is closest to your chin as you look
down at it. The sound produced by this action should be
matched by the sound produced by plucking the open fifth
string or "A".
Then place your finger behind the fifth fret on
the fifth or "A" string. The sound produced
should be matched by plucking the open fourth string.
Then place your finger behind the fifth fret on the
fourth string or "D". The sound of this note
will be matched by the open "G" string. Now
here is the variable...place your finger on the third or
"G" string only now put your finger behind the
fourth fret. This sound will be matched by the open
"B" string. Now we go back to the earlier
pattern and place your finger on the second or
"B" string behind the fifth fret. This note
when sounded will match the open first or "E"
string. Always tune the ascending or higher string to the
lower string because you want to tune the untuned string
to the one you have already tuned. This may sound more
complicated than it actually is. If you would like visual
conformation on this procedure be sure to sign up for
"The Finger Tips" interactive live-on the-net,
guitar workshop. Also, if this is new to you, find a more
accomplished guitar player and they can demonstrate this
process for you. An older player would be best because
they won't be so locked into their electronic tuner and
will remember this antiquated method. Another method of
checking your tuning manually is....
THE HARMONIC METHOD
The harmonic produced by brushing lightly on the
sixth or low "E" string just behind the fifth
fret (be sure to pluck the string with your right hand at
the very same time you brush the string ever so lightly
with the left hand). This should produce a tone that
matches the harmonic produced by brushing the fifth
string behind the seventh fret. By sounding both
harmoncis at the same time, this should produce a single
unvarying tone. If you hear a beating or warbling, keep
tuning the guitar until the beat slows and finally stops
and the two notes become one. Then brush the fifth string
lightly behind the fifth fret. As you pluck the string
and brush the fourth string behind the seventh fret
again, the tones should be adjusted until oneness occuts.
Do the same process with the fourth and third strings
until they are one. Now the variable occurs play the
harmonic on the third string behind the fifth fret but
the "B" or second string will not produce a
"G" Harmonic behind the fifth or seventh fret
so you must match the third string harmonic by pressing
down on the second string behind the eighth fret. Now you
can go back to the pattern, play the harmonic by brushing
the second or "B" string behind the fifth fret
and it will be matched by playing the harmonic on the
first or high "E" string behind the seventh
fret.
This process can be repeated or interchanged with
a combination of harmonics and hard notes by playing the
harmonic of the lower note behind the fifth fret and
matching to the fretted note of the next higher string
behind the seventh fret. Don't forget that the variable
will occur going from the fourth to the third string. To
tune to the key a song will be played in, tune a chord of
that key, for example, in the key of C, play a C chord
and make sure the notes in the chord are in tune, first
with your tuner or your ear and then adjust to the fixed
tuning instrument such as the piano.
"Never, I say, never tune at the same time someone
else is tuning. You will compensate for each other and
neither of you will ever get in tune."(Tommy
Tedesco, June 12th, 1968, Capital Records, Hollywood
California).
For more finger tips, be sure to come back and
visit "Finger Tips", as there will be new
information here regularly. And be sure to sign up for
the monthly interactive play-along-live-on-the-net
"Finger Tips" Guitar Seminar.
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