The RPM Challenge

(Friday, 25 April 2008) Written by Sister Savage

So I was warbling my way through 'Why Do You Come See Me Now' (with only a short pause in between chord changes...), and it doesn't sound good. So I grab 'Town's On The Edge'...no dice. 'Folk Punk Baby'... 'Breaking and Entering'? No. Something is very wrong. I am a minute away from recording 'No Reply', so I give that one a go somewhat glumly, and...gah! Horrific.

This is how thick I am (not that this is the extent of my thickness, you understand) - flipping guitar is out of tune...

How quickly is this supposed to happen?

Should I check the tuning every time I pick it up?

Oh but tra lalalalalalalala! My fingers are definitely toughening up!

Still ridiculously thrilled with Self, Tessy <---- plays the guitar, you know

Comments (12)

1 Written by Jim Tyrrell, on 04-25-2008 09:32
"Should I check the tuning every time I pick it up?"

Short answer: yes.

There's a few ways a guitar might go out of tune in a short period of time. Here's some common ones:

1) Change in temperature.
2) Resting the guitar in such a way that one or more tuning pegs are moved.
3) Playing until the guitar is slightly out of tune when you finish, and simply not noticing until the next time you pick it up.

It's always a good idea to check the tuning when you start playing. And it's essential to check it every time you start recording.

Keep at it!

2 Written by Sister Savage, on 04-25-2008 12:28
Thanks! (I think my toddler playing with the tuning things may also have something to do with it!)

Tess

3 Written by Helen Sventitsky, on 04-25-2008 15:51
Hey Tess,

I'm probably as bad a guitarist as anyone you would meet, but I can pretty much attest to everything Jim says. When my husband and I traveled around the Southwest in an RV, I was carrying a wooden Baby Taylor around, and, given some of the extreme temps we experienced, the guitar always had to be restrung, realigned, etc. And I never got the B string to work correctly.

I would also suggest getting a tuner, if you are concerned about the guitar not always being tuned correctly. There are plenty of digital ones that can be had for cheap, tho' I use the ones that came with my digital recorder and they've worked for me without issue.

4 To Tune or not to tune....
Written by Osborne and Hutchison, on 04-25-2008 16:22
is easy to answer. As the others have said. Check the tuning every time you pick the guitar up. It's amazing how a guitar can go out of tune just sitting there. If you're not recording, and not playing with someone else, then I would just tune the guitar to itself. Just pick one of the strings and tune to the open note of it. If it's been warm in your house it will be a little flat, if cold, it will be a little sharp.

Keep at it Tess!!!

OZ

5 This might help:
Written by IronAngel Forge, on 04-27-2008 02:07
A couple things that might help you out a bit:

Strings are stretchy, so new strings have a tendancy to go flat after you play them a bit, or even if the guitar just rests in it's stand or case.

I usually stretch the strings a bit before tuning them by pulling them up off the guitar just a bit. This also pulls the slack that might be hiding behind the nut (where the fingerboard ends - that little gap between the nut and the tuners can hold a fair bit of tension).

When I tune, I try to "come up under" the note: that is, I try to come into the tuning from flat to sharp (so the note pitch is rising instead of falling as I come into tune). This helps the gears in the tuner stay tight (this is called "gear lash" in mechanical engineering terms). By bringing the guitar into tune this way, the gears are tight in the tuners, and are less likely to slip as you are playing.

Another trick is to put some graphite in the string slots next time you change the strings. This can be easily done with a simple pencil, just rub it into the slots before you put new strings on as you change them. This allows the strings to slide over the nut without catching more easily.

Lastly, a lot of modern guitar players use digital tuners all the time. While this allows you to get into tune quickly and quietly, it robs you of a great chance for ear training yourself. That time spent trying to match the sound of each string to the next is teaching your ear to very precicely figure out sound relationships. This will come in really handy later. A lot of people sort of stumble into realizing that they can learn a song just by hearing it, as they have trained their ears accidentally by tuning their instrument. It also helps your singing a fair bit (as your ear realizes that you are flat or sharp more easily, even if it is only a very small amount).

And one more thing I realized as I was scribbling this: there are several ways to tune a guitar. This is the one I use: I tune the Low E string with a digital tuner. I then use harmonics to tune the A and so on for the rest of the guitar. To do this, you pluck the string while resting your finger lightly over the 5th fret of the E string so a singing bell like harmonic sounds. There are lots of things online that will show you how to do that if my description doesn't make sense. You then match the harmonic on the next string at the 7th fret. Adjust the higher pitched/thinner string to match the lower one, so the two harmonics sound as a single note, with no throbbing "beat" sound. You can double check against the harmonic tuning by checking the fretted fifth fret against the open higher string (like the Low E to the A string, for example). Until you get to the B string, that matches the 4th fret of the G string, and I don't know of a way to tune that string harmonicly (drat!).

Then you might want to go back through and double check it with a digital tuner on occasion.

I'm guessing you probably already knew all this, but just in case you had not seen these tricks, there ya go!

6 Adendum n' stuff:
Written by IronAngel Forge, on 04-27-2008 02:24
Well, I just did a quick google search and learned this: (which I wish I had realized years ago)

To tune the B string, play the harmonic on the Low E string at the 7th fret and compare to the open B. The note should be the same as the B string (ie, same octave and everything!)

Neat!

7 Written by Tangmo, on 04-27-2008 16:53
Great stuff, Iron Angle Force.

Another added benefit to being properly in tune is that you get a much better tone from the strings. Modern strings are designed to operate best at absolute correct tuning. If you listen for the after-tones (that little 'ring' that's present when a string is accurately tuned) you can even learn to tune without the aid of a reference.

For example, an A string tuned to Ab will sound OK, but tuned to a true A will sound quite luverly. Try it and listen for that harmonic 'ring'. When IT matches the tone of the A, you're there. When the small 'tremelo' between the A string and that harmonic matches, you are spot on and your guitar will sound so much better.

Staying there is the issue, so YES, tune up every time you pick up the instrument, and especially every time you record.

8 IronAngel Forge
Written by Strummindude, on 04-29-2008 17:24
Never tune anything to a harmonic on the 7th fret. You have been warned! :-)

In general, tuning strings to any harmonic besides the natural octaves of the open string notes will yield flawed results. It is purely a question of mathematics.

Use a tuner. In the absence of that, tune one of the strings to a good source, and tune all of the other strings to the first one.

And if your guitar is really out of tune to begin with, you probably need to repeat the process a couple of times until you meet the equilibrium of string tension and material compensation.

9 Huh,
Written by IronAngel Forge, on 04-29-2008 22:46
Hey Strummindude! Important info on retuning if the strings are new or way out, I fogot that completely!

I have not found the 7th fret harmonic thing to be any less accurate than using the fifth fret vs. open string tuning that is most commonly taught to a lot of students.

It is possibile that my tuner is not accurate enough, but so far I have not had to adjust my harmonic tuning after double checking it with a digital tuner. I think my tuner is only accurate to about 1 cents though, so I could still be a bit out. I know some of the new strobes on the market are much better.

Some tuning issues can be adapted for with a great guitar tech. A good tech can set your intonation for you for very little cash (much easier to do on an electric than acoustic though usually). Poorly set or filed frets can play total havoc with tuning, but that is a whole other can of worms.

I wonder if the difference is in the end product? That is, mostly I am playing live, where the other equipment may not be in perfect tune either (especially the drums.. our drummer.. shesh..yeah). You get caught up in the energy and experience and do not notice notes that are off nearly as much as you might in a studio situation.

As an addendum to that, I would rather be just a bit sharp than flat live. I can not say why, but if I have to be just a hair out, sharp does not seem to sound as bad to my ear and others than flat. (And by "a hair out" I mean a very small amount sharp; less than 1/8th of a semi-tone) Any further out than that absolutely has to be fixed of course.

For recording, I definitly use the digital tuner and double check it with the tuner built into my POD (which doesn't seem all that accurate either, I can hear a definite difference in pitch while it still believes the two tones are "in tune"), then I usually double check it with harmonics and 5th fret/open techniques, as well as running through several chords to make sure it sounds ok.

One of my acoustics seems to have a slightly out of intonation B string; it tunes up just fine, but certain chords sound a bit out futher up the neck, so if I will be playing the upper chords as opposed to open chords I sometimes have to "sweeten" the tuning so the chords are intune, even though the tuner says the string is out open. Ah well. I still love the tar out of that guitar, and it has a great voice with that one minor flaw that I am fairly sure could be fixed with a trip to the shop. I'm not quite brave enough to take a file to the bridge on that one.

I also was not aware that modern strings were designed to sound at a certain pitch, though it does make sense from a metalurgical standpoint (my understanding of metal far exceeds my understanding of music, even though I have done them both for about the same length of time). Next time I restring, I will have to listen for that. Currently, most of the guitars still have the strings from Jan on them that I put on for RPM 08. (Except for my Nightwing, which still has the strings I last played it live with - probably the oldest set of Peavy Gliders still in use... I put those on in about 1989! And they still hold tune, and still sound amazingly full, rich and still just a tad bit brighter than the brand new fender strings I'm using now - And they still LOOK NEW! Amazing for cheap strings.)

Great info all! Fun thread too... well... not thread per se... however/what ever this is!

How is it going so far Tess?

10 7th fret harm
Written by Strummindude, on 04-30-2008 06:22
I agree, for most practical purposes, tuning to the 7th fret harmonic would probably do the job, seeing as intonation issues in most guitars more than likely overwhelms any of these subtleties anyhow.

But there is still that undeniable 0.4 Hz difference in pitch between the 6th string (E) 5th fret harmonic (329.6 Hz) and the 5th string (A) 7th fret harmonic (330 Hz), in an accurately tuned guitar. At least in theory.

Talking about theory, the guys at truetemperament.com really take it to extremes. Check it out!

11 Truetemperament
Written by IronAngel Forge, on 04-30-2008 13:55
I happened to see one of those guitars some time ago, and wondered how they played. In particular, I wondered how bent notes would sound on that board.

Neat stuff! Thanks again Strum, great info!

12 Written by Sister Savage, on 05-01-2008 04:20
Thanks guys - this is great stuff!

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