That Ancient Chinese Ritual...tu-ning.

Groan. Sorry. Bad musician joke. There’s tons of info online about how to tune your guitar…but every once in a while, someone asks me about it. (There are also tons of bad musician jokes online as well.) So, here are some tips and resources….

First of all…there are a lot of different tunings. Yep. And no, you don’t have to learn ‘em. After you’ve been playing for a bit, you can have fun exploring them (and that’s great fuel for songwriting…hey, isn’t that what this blog is supposed to be about?). But for now, start with EADGBE. Standard tuning. You can stay there as long as you like. You can either hike on down to your Locally Owned Music Store (or, lacking that, your local mega-mart might have something along these lines) and purchase a pitch pipe (cheapie, but does the job) or an electronic tuner (more costly, requires batteries, also does the job.) Got a piano or electronic keyboard handy? You have a tuner. Start with E below middle C, then A, then D (right above middle C), G, B, and the next E.

Or, included in the price of your monthly DSL or cable, find an online guitar tuner!

www.onlineguitartuner.com , http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/utilities/tuner/ , http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/onlinetuner.html ,
To name a few. There are many great sites out there to get you going! This blog is to be about songwriting and creativity, and I’ve spent several posts writing about making guitar playing easier for a beginner (or “re-beginner.”)

The reason for that…if you have to fight with the tools of songwriting, it interferes with the creative process. And while you don’t need a guitar to write music (your instrument might be piano, or violin, or voice, or banjo, or hurdy-gurdy, or whatever), it is always a good thing to have additional instruments, even if you just “play around” with them. This is because it nudges your brain in a slightly different direction.

Brain nudges. Might be time to take a break from the guitar info and foray into the world of Brain Nudges and Stirring the Creative Pot.

Capo: Putting the squeeze on it

Capo: A capo, or, rarely, capo tasto (from Italian capo, "head" and tasto, "tie or fret") is a clamp-like device used on the neck of a stringed instrument to shorten the strings, hence raising the pitch. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo)

Wikipedia says it well, but they don’t mention that capos can be your best friend when you are learning to play (and beyond). (Actually, the Italians said it first, and no one can talk about music the way Italians can! Accelerando, mio tesoro! Or something like that.)

So far, I’ve talked about string gauge and action (or string height). The more tension in the strings, the more pressure required to press ‘em down accurately (so that you get a clear sound)…and after a bit, the more pain - until you get used to it.

A capo is one more tool that can bring the strings closer to the fretboard. You can do this whether or not you had the action lowered.

Just one thing…you’ll notice that the capo raises the pitch when you use it. That’s its primary purpose. Each fret = one-half step; capo 1 (capo at the first fret) will raise a C to a D#; capo 2 (at the second fret) will raise a C to a D. (If this doesn’t make sense, don’t worry about it right now. Whatever you do, don’t stop playing!)

Now…if you really want to Be Kind To Your Fingers, get some light electric strings on your acoustic guitar, have someone lower the action (or not), tune the strings DOWN one-half step and then capo at the first fret. Your guitar will probably sound a bit weird, but you will be able to play for quite a while without pain!

Seriously, you probably WON’T need to do ALL of that. But you can if you need to! The long and short of it is…do whatever you have to do to make it easy to play if you are just starting out (or if you haven’t played in a while, and have, as a friend of mine says, “soft fingers.”)

Tuning. Ah, yes, tuning. Until next time --

Action, Baby, Action (or making it work so it doesn't hurt 2)

You might hear someone talk about the “action” in reference to a guitar. No, it’s not how fast someone can play demi-semi-quavers, or 64th notes. Simply put, it refers to how close (or how far) the strings are to the fretboard.


And once again…this is a “personal preference” thing, taking into account an individual’s style of playing, string gauge preference, and even things like “am I gonna play slide guitar on this thing or what?” (A guitar set up for slide playing is going to have a higher action – i. e., the strings will be higher up, or farther away, from the fretboard.)

Here’s where buying that guitar from your locally-owned music store makes a difference. A guitar tech can easily “lower the action” on your guitar by gently filing down the slots on the nut of the guitar. (Contrary to popular blues jam belief, the “nut” is NOT the player. It’s that little slip of – well, nut – that has slots that hold the strings in place. It’s at the base of the headstock.)



DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. (Unless, of course, you’re a guitar tech guru, in which case, you wouldn’t need this blog entry anyway.) They are teensy weensy files with itsy bitsy teeth. And it's a delicate process!

Huh? You bought your guitar at…ah. OK. Hm. Or it was a gift. (Gift is good, you can claim innocence when you go into the music store and ask for help. They will often have mercy on you, figuring you might become a customer if you learn to play…)

Now…if for some reason you can’t or won’t do that (your ex-wife married the store owner), you can still purchase a capo. Ah, capos. More on that in the next post….