tone and tuning
In this section...
Hampshire Guitar Orchestra » Guitar stuff » hints & tips » tone production » tone and tuning
Tone and Tuning
When two guitars are out of tune (or playing in unison, as the old joke goes), the two notes beat against each other.
If one player is playing a note at 200Hz and his partner's string vibrates at 200.5 Hz, there will be a beat note (the difference between the two fundamentals) of 0.5Hz - once every 2 seconds. In music of a moderate tempo, notes will be despatched much faster than this, and the tuning problem will not be heard.
However, if the two notes have a metallic sound (because they have a rich harmonic content) then the harmonics will beat against each other as well. The 800Hz harmonics, for example will beat twice a second, and this will be much more apparent.
Furthermore, metallic notes that are slightly out of tune have a "honky-tonk" sound that's even more apparent than the beating sensation.
In ensemble, in particular, a more rounded tone will not only conceal any beat notes, but kills off any tendency for the overall sound to have a honky-tonk quality that sounds so amateurish.
So far...
So far then, we've seen that
- a mellow sound seems more sustained
- a rounded tone is less fatiguing on the ear
- a rounded tone is more forgiving of timing issues
- a rounded tone is more forgiving of tuning issues
Coming up...
The harmonic content of every note can aid or mask the inner parts. Next page..