The Steel Guitar Forum

A couple of weeks ago I attended a steel jam of sorts and everyone just down and started playing along with top notch accompaniment.

The clash of sour tones was so BAD..........
I had to fold my tent and sit out the rest of the evening.

WHAT's YOUR opinion as to the importance of band members tuning up properly with the BAND instruments and/or each other? The clash of out-of-tune tones was an unbearable bunch of racket to the point of total and complete musical disorientation.

How do you handle it? This never used to be the problem until everyone got their own electronic tuner and because they were in tine with themselves, all seem to be blithely happy with themselves.

Being out or having someone else out of tune drives me nuts and like you I have to go away.

Ken: I appreciate your sharing your position on the subject. I tho't it was possible I was just becoming an olde fuddy-duddy. Oh well, maybe I am.

I have been told I am anal about tune and pitch. I cannot even stay in the building when instruments are out of tune or singers are pitchy. I have been that way since I was a kid. If you watch any of the programs on TV or the real musical talent they and their bands have it together. I really think this is what keeps a lot of bands in the garage. But I have been told I am an Ahole because I have no interest to play for pennies or with people who don't know they are out of tune. You are right on the money Ray!

Careful Ray!! The last time you started a thread about out of tune steel playing (and I agreed with you), you and/or I ended up being called arrogant, and self-appointed (or maybe it was self-righteous) tuning Nazis.

Hey Paul,
Can I join your club? What others think really doesn't bother me.

Niels: Consider yourself in. Not sure what you're in, but you are.

Ray Can You clarify this a little? When you arrived were they all in or out or some in and some out or some in and out and if some weren't in then which ones were in and which ones were out and were they still in when you dropped out or was it in or out when you came in or was it out all the time or just in and out or just out before you headed out.

There are three things that just irritate me. One is another player out of tune, when I am out of tune and someone breaking time. I am with you on this one Ray.

This is the down side of electronic tuners.
Some folks have not developed their sense of pitch because they have always used a tuner.
A tuner is a great tool, I use one. Most folks do. However it does not guarantee folks are in tune to each other, or in tune to the room which gives off it's own pitch. Ever try playing acoustic music in a room with a cieling fan going? The whole room can sound like the inside of a rotating speaker.
I'm not saying anything we don't already know.
The solution is too take control, with a smile, and stop and get everybody in tune.

Usually the bands that I play with are in tune with each other. Most of the bands have keyboard players. As I guess we all do, I have to compensate with bar placement to be in tune with the keyboard and the band as a whole. I'm wondering if Ray is referring to a situation where there is more than 1 steel player who are out of tune with each other. I think that I would find that difficult to handle and would have to exit. In my experience, people become "tuning nazis" because they have problems with tuning and perceive themselves as being out of tune most of the time.

tuning is only important if you want to play in tune... otherwise it's overrated...

kinda like fingernails on a chalkboard

Ray Montee wrote:WHAT's YOUR opinion as to the importance of band members tuning up properly with the BAND instruments and/or each other?

I've actually had musicians ask, "So, it was a little out of tune. What's so bad about that?"

My answer to players like that is, "Very simple ... if it's out of tune it's a wrong note!"

Same here .Out of tune is just wrong....I almost got in a tif with a steel player when I was on bass, for tuning (audibly no less) in the middle of a song.....I have better anger control these days hehe....

Bud you said it. A tuner is a great tool. The problem is a lot of people use it as a crutch.

ray...how you tune makes no difference.

what comes out of your amp does!

it's all a matter of your ear shaping any note you play to blend with the music in a pleasant manner.

Even as a beginner, playing along with tracks I had a problem with that. On my training tape was an "E Tuning Note", which my tuner detected as something like 9 cents off one way or the other. All I know is if I didn't calibrate my tuner to that note and retune the guitar, it sounded bad even when I wasn't playing bad.

Guess that's why they put the tuning note on the tape. Another factor in that case playback speeds of tape players can vary.

PS: Now I recall the rest of the story. When I moved the tapes to the computer I used pitch adjustment to bring it in line-- at least with my tuner.

I think learnin to tune by ear is a very important thing to learn right off and deserves as much consideration as learnin to play well. I've played with some pretty darn good guitar players that had bad ears when it came to tuning and I actually had to tune their instruments for them.

Stuart.....you're not only a great musician but I'm quite confident a brilliant intellectual (a member of MENSA?) as well. In an attempt to respond to your valid question I hereby submit the following for everyone's perusal and evaluation:

When I got there, the accompanists were all set-up and in tune with each other.......complete with smiley faces.

There were a bunch of steel guitar players assembled in the room; some with single and/or double neck pedal steels; some with six or eight string lap steels, each with a different level of musical playing background.......student, to amateur, self-taught and working professional.

Now, the one guy was over there while the other two guys were over there in that area and the remaining several players were right about here. Some were facing easterly, others westerly and the remainder generally northerly.

Now that guy was on a hard dining room like chair, while those two over yonder there were on a really inflated looking leather daveno and the remaining bunch were on pack-a-seat right there and there.

Now to my knowledge, not a single one in the room attempted to tune accurately with the band or anyone else in the room. The din was unbearable and for one that plays by 'ear' rather than sheet music, I found it to be so bad that I couldn't play my own guitar, even when the stopped playing.

You get what I'm saying, right?
Just wanted to answer your question as best I could.

By the way: Did you realize that Marilyn Monroe couldn't play a Sho-Bud pedal steel because she had six toes on her left foot and thus her foot was too wide to operate the pedals?

I wouldn't blame out of tune playing on the use of tuners. I've never calibrated my Strobo-flip to any other tuner, and I've never had a problem, even though every instrument in the band was using their own separate tuner of various brands. I use the Strobo-flip setting that has the Es somewhat sharp, so I'm already a tiny bit out of tune. But the steel is in tune to itself, and then I make the necessary corrections using my ears and bar placement. It really wouldn't matter if someone else's tuner was a little bit sharp or flat.

It's clear to me that some steel players just don't seem to think it's very important to listen intently and make the corrections with the bar that are necessary to play in tune.

Playing in tune is a constant challenge. No one is perfect at it, but those that make it a priority do much better.

Ray, Stuart is looking that 6 toe thing up. I think you got him with that one.
Ray maybe the guys were throwing you off with their 1/4 tone blues pickin' and they forgot there distortion pedals.
Distortion and volume is the way a lot of folks solve a tuning problem.
He who plays loudest plays in tune.

For those using the Peterson Strobe Flip Tuner, Sid Hudson was kind enough to give us his settings. It is under pedal steel here on the forum. I have found it to be more accurate for me than what the SE9 has on the tuner.

I like the Peterson 0E9 with Es at zero myself..
Seems like the SE9 tuning is like wow! the Es and open notes are sharp?
But the real issue at a steel jam for instance... is that when a steel player is playing then other steel players should not be playing!
The other day just for a test I took my acoustic and tuned it to a regular tuner and strummed an E chord and then hit an E tuned to SE9 or 442.5 and it was like holy crap how can people not hear that?
Old school is everyone takes a reference note and tunes to that.
The weird thing about steel is if you need to play with a piano player and tune to strait up tuning (ET) it sounds terrible until the piano player starts playing and then it sounds fine.
In Austin I know players that tune by ear and players that tune to ET and they are great players and all sound good.

Ken: How does the E note (tuned SE9) on the PSG sound against the acoustic when you depress the A & B pedals?

Conversely how does the E note (tuned OE9) sound when A & B pedals are depressed?

PS: Assuming you are not playing an Emmons with the counter-force system.

I always tune Es with the A/B pedals down.
Give it a try yourself and tell me what you think.
We all tune a little different and different bands are different.
This is why I decided to test it against a standard Guitar tuning for myself.
There is approximately 10 cents difference between SE9 and 0E9 and I don't have that much cab drop and no counter force set up.
I like Es As and Bs to be pretty close to A 440 tuning on U-12.
With the new Peterson tuner I am using the U-12 settings turned down 10 cents to bring the Es to zero.