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, Mike continues last week’s instruction in tuning and intonation:
Tuning and Intonation 102
A tuner is a modest investment that prevents everyone from sounding bad. Today, there are literally hundreds of options out there for getting a decent tuner.
Tuner Pedals
A tuner pedal that mutes your guitar so that you can tune without having anyone hear is a great idea. Boss, Korg, and Peterson all make great pedal tuners. With a tuner like this, you can mute in the middle of a song, or mute and tune between songs. Most of these tuners run between $75-100. It’s the pedal you’ll use the most. Check out musictoyz.com for a good selection, or see your local guitar shop.
Headstock Tuners
Many manufacturers are now making tuners that clip to your headstock. My experience with these tuners has been mostly positive - though tuning mid-song is sometimes difficult in loud settings. These tuners operate by gauging the vibration in the headstock from the vibrating string. Sometimes - if a neighboring amp or cymbal is loud, the tuner can get confused. But if you don’t have a lot of stage volume, or if you have plenty of space, one of these tuners will work very well.
Built-in Tuners
A number of manufacturers are producing built-in tuners. Certain acoustic guitars will have the tuner in the control plate for the pickup, along with the guitar’s EQ and volume controls. Modification kits are available for electric guitars now too. N-Tune makes these for Fender and Gibson style volume pots.
The new Gibson Robot Guitars tune themselves. Pretty cool gimmick. Watch for many manufacturers to follow suit. Here’s a video that shows all the cool stuff this guitar does:
What’s a Strobe Tuner?
Strobe tuners are the most accurate tuners around. A pair of wheels spin with light behind them. At different radiuses around the wheels, marks are cut out, allowing light to pass through from behind. The front wheel spins at a particular speed, representative of a frequency (i.e. A=440), and the back wheel spins at a speed determined by the pitch of the instrument. The strobe created by the light and spinning wheels becomes more steady as the two wheels spin more and more closely to the same speed. This type of tuner has amazing visual accuracy. Digital strobe tuners digitally replicate this process.
Strobe tuners are extremely useful for guitar setup (which we’ll cover in an upcoming article), but even for every-day tuning, the accuracy of a strobe tuner will leave no doubts in your mind.
Worried about tone?
If you’re like me, you’re worried about tone. You’re worried about the cheap buffers and switches that pedal manufacturers throw into their little boxes. You’re wise. Most tuners aren’t true bypass (true-bypass means that when the pedal is off, the signal is bypassed through the pedal without losing any signal and without running through any processing or signal buffers. Look for more on this topic in an upcoming article about preserving your signal on a pedal board).
What to do? Throw the tuner into the tuner-output of a volume pedal, or spend the extra dough on a tuner that is true-bypass. Or use a headstock tuner. Some guitarists will simply unplug from the amp and plug directly into a tuner, but this would certainly require great ears and a well-setup guitar with great tuning machines that reliably stays in tune. Most of us just need a tuning pedal.
Guitar In The Church 5: Tuning And Intonation 101
Guitar In The Church 4: Less Is More (Playing With Distortion)
Guitar In The Church 3: Adding Color To Guitar Parts
Guitar In The Church 2: Pursuing Excellence With Acoustic Guitar
Guitar In The Church 1: Jim Campilongo On The Lost Art Of Melodic Guitar Playing
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 0 comments… add one now }