Large frets can be another issue, as they act almost like a scalloped neck, in that when you press down hard the pitch changes.

A luthier, whose instruments were perfectly intonated, would hire me to record his parts on his guitars, because, as someone who performed live and did sessions more often, I played them more in tune than he did. Stories abound: people would pick up Jimi Hendrix’s guitar after he sounded perfectly in tune and find it horribly out.īill Frisell developed his habit of pushing on his guitar neck with a delay engaged to create a kind of chorusing effect largely to mask the dissonance of a guitar’s inherent tuning flaws. Remember we discussed the imperfect design of the guitar? While you can compensate your tuning so it sounds more or less acceptable, experienced players have also learned how to unconsciously push, pull, and bend strings into perfect tuning. A properly cut nut that allows the string to pass through without friction is also important. Vibrato arm or not, stretch the strings after replacing them not once, not twice, but until they stop going flat when you pull on them. Pressing down the arm loosens the wraps, which can cause the strings to go flat when the arm returns to position. When it comes to wrapping the strings around the tuner post, less is more, especially if you use a vibrato arm. Still, there are ways to get through a song, if not a set, in tune. Hugely popular during the hair-metal era, they have fallen out of favour due to their sonic properties, string-changing difficulty and, let’s face it, fashion. The best device to ensure a guitar doesn’t go out of tune is a locking system such as the Floyd Rose or a Kahler. Once your instrument is acceptably in tune, you want it to stay that way. Later, we will discuss other techniques to work around this design issue. One thing most guitarists do is compromise the tuning a bit so that neither the E nor the A chord is perfect, but both are acceptable. This works, though if you have been playing for many years you may find it disconcerting. Guitarist/inventor Buzz Feiten and others have compensated for this by moving the nut to a different position and intonating the saddles differently.

E flat tuning