the IDIOT

i wish that when i was a whippersnapper geek who started tinkering with guitar after years of playing piano, i’d had YouTube and this superior series on one of the most overlooked, complex subjects in popular music:

used to frustrate the hell out of me when i taught bass, because most students (and parents) would never understand why you’d charge them for 3 half-hour session just to talk about tuning, so i never taught it adequately. were i a music teacher now, i’d simply send the little fuckers to YouTube. would send college students there too, because that guy covered the subject about as well as i’ve ever seen, including the subtle, sometimes nasty difference between notes in the harmonic series and equal temperament. his graphics are top notch. ignore the slightly jarring editing of the audio and video; he busted ass preparing the important stuff, including a field trip to the sidewalk for a surprising demo of string physics.

my mom was a piano teacher, and everybody in my family played music, but it wasn’t until i became a hack piano tuner that i realized how stupid my approach to tuning guitars had been. i’d heard about equal temperament problems, but never applied it to that bitch major third interval on the open guitar — G to B. instead, trusting what i thought was a superior ear, i’d tune open intervals consonant, then go nuts wondering why it sounded like smashing glass as soon as i crossed frets (made far worse by a distorted guitar amp). understanding the shifted interval ratios of equal temperament brought me to the light. put simply, using only the relevant intervals for standard guitar tuning:

one thing i’ll always respect about eddie van halen, he trusted his instinct and just made things happen, even if he didn’t geek the theory. most people don’t know it, but eddie van halen revolutionized tuning. much as people yap about him, few discuss his tuning trick. even his wikipedia article made no mention of it until i put it in there, leading to editing wars with dumbfuck ritualists who swear there’s no such thing as a perfect third. well, because it’s perfectly consonant, i do call it a perfect third, and here’s how EVH did it:

on songs where there are many, or at least prominent, A-position chords (don’t know if that’s the correct name; somebody slap me with the right one), he’d flat the open B just a smidge (~14 cents), taking it from a 1:1.26 (rounded) ratio to 1:1.25. this removed the “wah wah wah” beating accentuated by amp distortion, and allowed the introduction of the proud major third (now perfect, consonant, justly intonated, or whatever you want to call it) into hard rock guitar, previously limited to mostly power chords of root, fifth, octave. it comes with a price, in that as much as it smooths out the A-position chords, it screws pretty much every other one. however, the serious van halen fanatic can do like eddie, and train himself to bend the B string back up to equal temperament when fretting many chords that would otherwise have been disasters (e.g., open D major).

[note that whenever i refer to the group van halen, i mean only that 70s–80s group including one david roth.]

good examples of EVH just intonation:

• Runnin’ With the Devil
• Jamie’s Cryin’
• You’re No Good
• So This Is Love?
• Where Have All the Good Times Gone!

most rock guitarists appreciate that EVH had a unique sound back in the golden age, but will usually attribute it solely to the guitar and amp. tell ya what — good luck sounding like EVH on something like “Runnin’ With the Devil” if you tune conventionally.

that reminds me of yet another plus of the immortal, now dead (ha!) EVH. he didn’t use an electronic tuner. i concur with this 100%, with the possible exception of using a tuner for the high E. so i disagree with the YouTube guy on that general recommendation, which basically means i also disagree with him on others, such as not tuning the guitar to itself, or fretting when tuning. any real guitar, i think you’re better off tuning it to itself (from the high E), checking a wide mix of intervals, fretted and not — but always referring back to the high E to avoid the propagating errors he discusses with good reason. strongly agree with him that tuning with harmonics is a joke.

when i had a small recording studio, i saw plenty of guitarists screw tuning with electronic tuners. and it was no coincidence that when i had a raunchy motorcycle band come in sounding kickass in tune, and asked them how they tuned, they said almost in unison, “by ear. we hate tuners.”

tuners have their place for emergencies and maintenance, but i loathe them for general use. the tension on a guitar string increases when it’s plucked, and the thicker, lower (note) strings change pitch markedly from the initial hit through the sustain. because it’s difficult for an electronic tuner to immediately track and report on a plucked note, these gadgets encourage the user to sit there with a note ringing out while tuning. in rock, for example, this often leads to power chords with no power, because the strings are going sharper than standard at different amounts and rates, fighting each other. obviously, some people have figured out how to tune well with electronic tuners, but i just don’t see the point if you have the time and environment to tune by ear, cross-checking positions rigorously. still, if i gigged live regularly, i’d probably have one ready for emergencies.

first thing i used to do when i got a new keyboard was to make a simple patch for tuning, based on a sine wave. obviously, such a patch should also ditch all effects.

back to the YouTube dude, he explains very well, using interlocked fingers to mimic gears, why one must only raise notes into tune on a conventional guitar or bass. if the beginning guitarist gets nothing else from his series, that’s a good one. always had trouble explaining that to newbies.

Tags: eddie van halen

Posted 20070322 10:55 under hints from pigloise, music, YouTube. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are closed.