Playing in tune

[Fred Treece]

Of course, trust your ear. Except when you hear a recorded playback of your band when you thought you were playing in tune and discover you were out, either with the band or with yourself, or both. That’s what Jim Palenscar’s OP was about. That, and a way of practicing with an electronic tuner in line to help develop a sense of what “in tune” actually is. Or re-develop that skill, which may have taken a turn somewhere in your 52 or 65 years of playing.

My hat is off to anyone (especially a pro) who publicly owns up to a shortcoming they didn’t quite realize they had and follows his own teaching skills to correct the problem.

[David Farrell]

Very interesting, friends.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has tuning/intonation problems.

It can be a very humbling experience to be in the studio playing and/or hearing a recording of yourself.

Steel on my friends!

[Paul Mozen]

3 words..... parallax, parallax, parallax....

[Jim Palenscar]

The playing of 2 notes will help keep the "eek" down for sure. The tuning issue is a bit of a different issue than my original post and can be a quagmire for sure. For 45+ years I tuned all the beats out of my guitar(s) and the guitar(s) would sound fantastic by themselves but I never really liked how it sounded in a band situation. Especially the A pedal and E raise. I would tune the A to 440 w the pedals down and then use that relatively sharp E (cabinet drop)as the basis for the rest of the tuning. The C# would usually be about 4 cents flat and the F to the C# about 25 cents flat. That requires rolling the bar up almost 1/4 of the way to the next fret for the guitar to be in tune with the music. I am aware that Paul said he doesn't/didn't do that years ago- don't know currently but not sure how one would play it in tune otherwise. On the Peterson tuner that I have at the shop I've stored many players' tunings in order to not have to bug them about it when I work on their guitars. Players like Doug Livingston, JayDee Maness, Greg Leisz, Frank Carter- all sound so marvelously in tune and most of their tunings are wildly different- go figure. I suppose the lesson is to get your guitar in tune- however you might go about it- and learn how to play it in tune. One of the problems in using sweetened tunings and a Peterson tuner is that it will only display correctly when at the open position- if you check it up the neck you won't find it to be useful unless you set it back to equal and now your sweetened settings are out the window. I suppose that the roots would be ok but have yet to try that.