Guitar In The Church 5: Tuning And Intonation 101

In today’s churches, the guitar is coming to dominate the landscape in the same way that the piano and organ once did. It’s important that as church musicians we give great care and thought to our guitar playing - everything from chord voicings to tones - so that the instrument is a servant of the congregation, not the star and not the distraction. Each week on Sojournmusic.com, Pastor Mike Cosper will post a guitarist’s feature, which will range from articles to links, online lessons and interviews.  Here, the subject is tuning and intonation:

Tuning and Intonation 101

As a church musician, I’ve got a sensitive ear to intonation. I think that guitarists need to give more care and attention to getting and keeping their guitars in tune. As one who loves music and pays much attention to details, that out of tune B-string is glaring like an off-time cymbal crash, making singing difficult, and making the entire band - no matter how good they are - sound bad. Often times, it’s basic maintenance issues that keep guitars from playing in tune. For our first look at the issue, we’ll look at the most basic element of guitar maintenance: changing strings.

Changing Strings

Most guitar strings will begin to break down from rust and corrosion in a few weeks. They’ll lose life and tone in an even shorter period of time. As a string gets coated with oils from our hands and as the metals oxidize, it becomes less able to transfer the higher harmonics - what often gets called brightness and sparkle. Guitarists who only play an instrument a few times a month can get away with using a coated string and keeping it on for 6-8 weeks, but even coated strings will wear out and become unreliable. As strings become worn, they lose their shape, windings become weak, and the string’s ability to resonate at a single frequency is lost. At that point, the string’s inconsistent shape causes it to throw off a slightly wavering tone, and it will never sound in tune.

The best solution is to change your strings every couple of weeks at a minimum. Some guitarists change them weekly. (I’ve heard that Phil Keaggy will change strings on his acoustic guitar between every take in the studio.) If you’re using coated strings like Elixir or D’Addario EXP, you can probably get away with changing them monthly, but trust your ears; if they’re starting to lose that life and sparkle, their ability to hold tune is just behind.

Stringing the guitar properly is important too. I had probably played guitar for 8 years before I learned how to properly wind a string around a headstock. There are several schools of thought on this. Taylor Guitars has published a great pdf document demonstrating a good, reliable way to do it.  I’m a fan of the method used on this video (some call this the “locking” method).

Properly strung guitars do a much better job of staying in tune. Usually manufacturers have built instruments to use a particular string gauge. Sticking with their specifications will often yield the best results tonally and the most accurate intonation (Intonation is the guitars ability to stay in from string-to-string up and down the neck). Generally, with electric guitars, you’ll need a setup to change use anything other 10’s (most guitars are setup for 10’s). With acoustic guitars, most small bodied guitars (parlors, 000’s, 00’s, and orchestra models) are setup for 12’s and most dreadnaught and jumbos are setup for 13’s. The bigger string gauges are necessary to make the top vibrate properly.

Choosing a String

Like everything with guitars, there are a million options for strings - which metal you’ll use, coated or uncoated. As with most things, it’s all a matter of preference. Stevie Ray Vaughn used 13’s on his strat, and bent the heck out of them. Bigger gauges have a big sound, they’re more percussive and aggressive, and the have a little bit less sustain. Malcolm Young from ACDC uses 12’s on his Gretsch, and bangs out all those classic rock riffs on them. Carlos Santana uses 9’s, as does my favorite guitarist - Jim Campilongo. Smaller gauges sustain a little longer and easier, but are quieter.

For electrics, steel, nickel-coated steel, or pure nickel make up the bulk of the options. Steel tends to be the brightest and most aggressive, and nickel tends to be a little mellower and mid-rich. I’ve come to love nickel, but I play tele’s and fender amps, which never lack in brightness. For the tele, I use 9’s, and for the SG I use 10’s. I find the 9’s have more of an authentic classic tele tone, making everything sound rubbery and springy. The lower tension on the string allows it to translate more of what the hands are doing - for better or worse.

For acoustics, there’s a whole range of bronze - from bright pure bronze to phosphor bronze. There’s also hybrid strings that involve silk windings. Bright strings tend to sound great on guitars played with fingers, bringing out all the harmonics that come off the player’s hands. All that brightness can get harsh on guitars played with picks, and a mellower string is often in order. I like phosphor bronze for fingerpicking - especially when I’m grabbing at harmonics. I like Thomastik-Infeld’s Plectrum strings for flatpicking. I use 13’s on my Bourgeois dreadnaught.

Coming Soon - we’ll talk about guitar setup, tuners, and ear training.