The Steel Guitar Forum

I got to spend Sunday afternoon watching and listening to George Jones and George Straight. I thought the GJ show was absoutely fabulous. Especially the musicians.
In my opinion they were "in the groove" and "cookin'".
GS is one of my all time favorites and certainly put on a super fine performance. Individually and seperately, I thought all of his musicians were really cookin' too. BUT,,,,,They just didn't sound in tune with each other to my ear. Was it just my ear, or did anyone else notice it too? I had a musician friend over at the house watching it with me and he had the same reaction as I did concerning the Ace in the Hole Band and their tuning. It was still a great show, but I was just wondering.
BB

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If you play 'em, play 'em good!
If you build 'em, build 'em good!

Probably cuz the steel player was tuning "straight up" !

Everybody <font size=4><b>DUCK!!

Nope...probably 'cause they relied on an electronic tuner instead of their ears!

Before the days of electronic tuners...I never heard players have the problems they have now with simply tuning a guitar, and playing in tune.

This is fact folks!

I got a couple hundred old ('60s stuff) record albums...and all those guys back then played in perfect tune. But nowadays, I throw in a CD, and listen to a "famous player" with one of the top groups and my GOD, it sounds...well...it ain't terrible...but it sure ain't very good, either.

The point I'm trying to make is...if you can't tune (in a quiet environment) without using a tuner, you'll never be able to play in tune.

It's that simple.

And, as Baretta used to say..."You can take that to the bank!"

TO my ears, the GJ bass player was at times a quarter fret off. On some of the slow songs, when he would hit and sustain a note, it was ear wrenching to hear. This is about as out of tune as I have ever heard a band. Most of the steel guitar work on records today sounds cold, tinny and electronic ( reminiscent of the old solid state amps) and seem to produce harsh beat notes with the rest of the instruments. Maybe I am listening to to much XMradio which just finished playing ET with "Half a Mind" and BE on the Sho-Bud....in tune with bar slants and all.

Greg

Hey Donny,
I have the totally opposite view that you have about tuning. In my opinion there were a lot more out of tune stuff on the old records that what we here now for sure. I do both guitar and steel gigs and most steel players who I've worked with who tune by ear are usually the ones out of tune. Once while I was still living in LA three of us did an experiment with tuning up the same guitar by ear and checking it with a tuner. We all three got different readings. I'll bet if you got two of your buds together and did the same thing you'd achieve the same result. Electronic is the only way to go. A fact is that your own ears won't even hear it the same from gig to gig. Get you a good Boss TU-12 and get in tune with the rest of the band. Remember one fact of life. If your steel's in tune with itself (no beats) it ain't in tune! It's OK if you're in your music room by yourself but not with the band!

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney tuning.

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jerry Hayes on 05 March 2002 at 06:06 AM.]</p></FONT>

The best investment I ever made was in an electronic tuner. Prior to using one I spent the majority of my time tuning and not practicing! When you consider all the different note changes on a pedal steel, an electronic tuner is the only way to go. Tune by ear if you want to but then check it with the tuner and write down the tempering for next time.
Uff-Da!

"I have the totally opposite view
that you have about tuning."

Yep, I do to. After 18 years of playing, I would still be at level one if I didn't have a tuner. If the bad sounds coming from stage is coming from everybody up there, then they have a common tuner and it is bad (something I have never seen).

Bad tuning is an individual thing--no a tuner thing.

Donny, I have to respectfully disagree with some of your notions.
Yes, I would agree, if everyone in the world had decided to tune Just Intonation. But they don't.
If someone is like me, they've decided that Just Intonation doesn't do it. My ears are fine. Some of us lean more toward equal temperment. That has nothing to do with ear training. In fact, maybe some of us have gone that way because we have really good ears... haha
I don't want my steel tuned beatless. So, are you claiming that you could tune my steel, in perfect equal temperment, by ear ?? I'll bet you can't. I'll bet you lunch. I'll bet you a round of beers...I'll bet you money.. I'll bet you my steel, my house, my car, anything you want. You can't do it. And that's not a reflection on you... nobody I've ever met could.
If a person decided that they wish to tune Just Intonation, that's great. I don't have any problem with that, and I wouldn't discourage them from doing it. To each their own. And, I agree with you wholeheartedly that ear training in many directions, including tuning, is indispensable.
But to say "you must tune by ear, no discussion, no two ways about it" also says "you must tune JI". I respectfully disagree.
I post this, not to be argumentative, but because I have read statements similar to yours in the past, and I feel that many of us who are newer to the instrument can be lead down the wrong path, thinking it is a black-and-white issue full of absolutes.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>
It's that simple.
</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
It most assuredly is not.
-John

Things were out of tune. I think the bass was the worst. Everytime I have heard Jones band I have thought they were out of tune. If you watched the Opry sat nite they were out there also. Jones is also one of my favorites and has been for 35 years or so but the band is out of tune.

I remember one time Bobbe Seymour telling me that someone asked (I believe it was the late Harold Fogle) after his opry spot with Stonewall Jackson, "Were you out of tune"? Harold replied, "I tuned to the singer". HA!

Sure wish we'd had tuners back when I used to work the joints where they wouldn't turn off the jukebox 'til the last minute. The best we ever sounded was the 4 or 5 years Norman Blake played fiddle, he tuned every instrument including the pedal steel! Talk about perfect pitch, he had it!

Back in the good old days they didn't use that many fixed note instruments with steel guitar as they do today.

Synth, keys, horns and from what I hear, even some drums.

I have been tuning straight up for a couple of years and I have had no complaints.

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com

Don't forget that as we progress musically, our ears should progress along with us. For those of us playing for 30+ years, I couldn't judge if bands played more in tune back then in the pre-tuner days cause my ears hadn't developed much back then. By the way John, I'm getting to the point where I can almost tune by ear to equal temperment.

Just went through it last night. Our front man pulled out a ten year old Boss-TU-12. He usually uses his rack tuner on stage. I immediately told him he was out of tune. He wouldn't believe it until I asked him to plug into my Boss TU-12H. He was 5 cents sharp and he appologized. His tuner was out of calibration! I knew this for two reasons. First, I play two fretless instruments and can plainly hear quarter tones. Second, I check my TU-12 against the rack tuners once a month. They don't lie. Sorry Donny, this is one time I have to disagree with you. The older guys around here who tune by ear are almost always out of tune. There are two guys I know that can do it, and I am impressed. I just find the steel wanders sharp as it warms up and needs adjustment especially in the first set. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Kevin Hatton on 13 March 2002 at 11:46 AM.]</p></FONT>

While playing the GI circuit in Europe, we would sometimes be mixed in with a weekend vaudeville act. While talking in the dressing room to one of those guys in France we learned that he had "Perfect Pitch." Our accordian'keyboard player clinked an empty glass with a spoon and asked him what note it was. The guy asked for it to re-clinked and said immediately: C#. They then took the glass to the keyboard and checked it. It was a C# !! Somes got it but most don't !

Regards, Paul

This ia really good thread for us 'youngsters" but,while reading all the posts,I didn't understand the terms Just Intonation, tuning staight up, or what was meant by "beats".I have a Sabine rack tuner that I use to tune all the strings (440?)
Anyone mind clearing all this up?
thanx,Dan

By tuning everything to 440, you're tuning straight up.

And, the "beats" are the wah-wah-wah effect you get from playing two notes together when they don't match perfectly. Unisons are the most noticeable, but you can also hear 5ths and 3rds, etc. as well. If you choose to tune your steel by tuning out the beats (they get slower as the notes get closer together, when the beats disappear they are matched) then you have tuned using Just Intonation.
John Lacey, that's really interesting. Do you go by the frequency of the beats ? My piano tuner does that. I can't... not yet, anyway
-John

OK guys, I can see that the majority are against me on this, but that doesn't change my mind.

However, there seems to be a general consensus that the GS band was out of tune. Do these guys use electronic tuners? (I'm willin' to bet that they do...after all, they're "professionals", arent they?) So what was the problem then? Voodoo from Garth, maybe?

Listen guys, I'm not going to beat this subject to death. Learning to tune and play in tune is a skill...just like playing an instrument. It takes lots of training, and I don't much care how you do it, but it must be done. I just feel that a complete reliance on an electronic tuner makes you ear a little "lazy".

So, before I leave this thread, I'll drop a few facts on you and let you all "muddle" for awhile.

Did you ever go to see a symphony orchestra? A really big one...with maybe 50-100 musicians? Did you ever see these musicians staring at rack tuners? 'Course not! But did you see them passing around the old reliable "pocket-job" so that they could all get in tune, and play in tune with each other? Did you see them makin' charts so they knew how flat or sharp something should be? Do these musicians have fretless instruments? (Yup, most of 'em are!) Do <u>they</u> carry a chart or a tuner so they know how to tune their instruments??? Nope. Did you ever see a master piano tuner using a tuner to tune a $60,000 Steinway or Bosendorfer (with a couple of hundred strings) for one of the top concert pianists in the world right before the concert??? No, I don't think so.

(Man, just how do those guys do it?)

OK, then exactly why are guitar players and steel men the <u>only</u> musicians in the whole world of music that need some silly-assed electronic tuner?

(Never thought about that...did 'ya?)

Am I saying "real musicians don't need tuners!"

Could be, my friends...could very well be.

Donny, I'm with you here...but what if the band leader "don't allow no tuning (out loud) between songs or sets because it don't sound professional"? We use a tuner in the band but we all use the *same one*. And to be honest. after several sets of high volume club gigging it gets difficult to tell slight variations or "beats".

I do a modified temper tuning with presets...never been a firm believer of the popular printed charts though. How could it work for every body and thier guitars? We all play with slightly different bar pressure which changes that perfect temper the moment you lay it on the strings. And after all, don't we all "comp" with bar to keep in tune with the rest of the band?

Interesting thread and opinions,

Tom

This was a very thought provoking thread.
Thank you all for the explanations.It has made me think about this subject on a whole new level.

Donny,

That thing about real musicians and tuners shows a level ignorance of common practice in the classical world.

Many classical musicians do use tuners . And the oboe player who plays the reference "A" note will often use a tuner. Also orchestras tend to drift sharp as the piece they are playing progresses. Talk with a fixed pitch instrument player like an orchestral harpist and check out their nightmare tuning problems.

Classical musicians do make charts in order to play in tune with each other. A string quartet can spend years in rehearsal slowly checking every interval in every chord of a piece in order to have it sound in tune.

Spend some time working with a French Horn player and see what they go through before they are able to sound in tune. Digital tuners, charts and great gnashing of teeth !

Piano tuners use charts and tuners also. Some of the old timers or purists will use a stopwatch to count beats based on charts they have memorized. There is a level of art to piano tuning that is needed to deal with the sometimes ambiguous nature of even tempered tuning. There are plenty of web boards for that unresolvable issue elsewhere on the net.

One thing to keep in mind is that classical musicians are dealing with a very different set of issues than a pop music musician.

Your contention that real musicians in your good old days where better than the guys now is equally absurd.
Check out the last chord in Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" if you want one of about a zillion examples of steel players that wished for the ability to overdub back in the good old days.

You never know what a player on tv is going through. A couple friends of mine where playing cellos with Lou Reed on Letterman a while back. I saw them give each other a familiar glance while they were busy looking sincere for the camera. It turns out all they could hear in their monitor was the loud croaking of the singer. Lucky for them their parts were low enough that nobody noticed the random pitches they were playing. Give the guy with a gig on tv a break. You never know what they are going through unless you are there.

Bob
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 14 March 2002 at 10:04 AM.]</p></FONT>

Bob,
You never fail to impress me with your overall savvy of the entire spectrum of music -- which, despite what you might assume from reading just this forum, is much broader than Ray Price shuffles, Western Swing, and fond memories of days gone by that are often clouded by nostalgia. (case in point: that musicians played in tune better in the '50s without tuners than they do today with them -- experience tells me it just ain't so).

We don't always agree, but you have certainly made me aware of things I had no clue about and your posts are always thought provoking. It's great to have you (and a few others) with a formal musical education to keep us old 'ear players' honest.

Thanks for your insight.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 14 March 2002 at 01:32 PM.]</p></FONT>

Sorry Bob, that argument doesn't work! (And I'm not the only one who's laughing right now, I got e-mails to prove it.)

You're as much as saying that every classical orchestra and big band had tuning problems and played out of tune before tuners were invented.

That's baloney.

Also, you bring up the most ridiculous examples (like country songs of the '50s, when steel guitars were in their developmental infancy) to try and prove me wrong.

Get real, would 'ya?

And speaking of ignorance...you should really listen to more music recorded by the "greats" before electronic tuners were even thought of. (And, I'm not talking about the "great" hillbillys, either.)

It might make you change your mind!

You guys are all really lucky. A lot of guys I play with most of the time are lucky to even play the right chord, let alone be in tune.