Builders: "Tuning"...What method do you use?

[Bruce Sexauer]

While I neither condone nor keep "secrets", there are things I simply cannot communicate, and my process which most closely resembles what lay people call "tuning" is one of these things. This process has too many parameters to quantify, and perhaps more closely resembles landing an airplane on a floating airfield on gusty day with big seas . . . and no second pass available, than some sort of tuning operation. How does one explain such a thing?

In my mind, volume and response come from structural delicacy, tone comes from integrity, and the balance of volume and envelope is what is addressed by proportion, which is where anything that might be called "tuning" lays for me.

[Alan Carruth]

Bruce wrote:
"In my mind, volume and response come from structural delicacy, tone comes from integrity, and the balance of volume and envelope is what is addressed by proportion, which is where anything that might be called "tuning" lays for me."

That's a pretty good summary I think.

murrmac123 wrote:
"My gut feeling is that great builders, just like great guitar players, are born, not made..."

Have you ever heard of the '10,000 hour rule'? I can't recall the name of the researcher, but somebody got to looking at what 'talent' really was. Are there simply people who are 'born to' whatever they do well, or is it something else? In the end he determined that, given reasonable physical endowments (those born blind won't become good painters, for example) the only thing that correlated closely with 'talent' in particular area was that the person had spent at least 10,000 hours doing it.

Of course, this is simply kicking the can down the road in some respects: it doesn't tell you why somebody would spend that much time doing something, particularly if it's something that doesn't pay well.

It certainly is true that some folks simply hear better than others, either because they were born that way, or because they have retained their hearing better for whatever reason. Those folks may well have a leg up in producing decent sounding guitars, but they still have to spend the time to learn how to build with integrity, as Bruce puts it.

In my own case I had very good hearing in my youth, but jet engines and machinery in the Navy blew that out. These days I use any means I can to make up for that. If that's 'cheating' then so be it. It's a bit more cumbersome, but I'm getting there.

[redir]

I think I agree with murrmac123 on this one. Experience of course helps and I know for a fact that over time I've gotten much better at this thing. I know because I still have the very first guitar I built and I'd be to embarrassed to show it to almost anyone

But I like to compare certain aspects of things to other certain aspects of things in my life. I took up bicycle racing many many years ago and actually was pretty good at it and went right up the ranks till I hit a certain point where there is absolutely no doubt about it genetics takes over. Some people are indeed born with natural talents that separate them out to almost super human abilities. There was no way I could turn pro, but I was a descent amateur.

I think art is very much the same way. The way a painter sees the world has to be very very different from us mere mortals and when I look at some of the guitars that talented builders put up on this forum well, it's humbling to say the least.

Another clue to this innate talent argument is the guy who is building his second guitar and it's better than my 50th... How does that happen due to anything other than natural talent?

[Bruce Sexauer]

I used too poo-poo the idea of talent, especially when anyone told me I was so endowed. But as time has passed I see there is something to it. So many people say to me "I could never do that", and I have come to realize that thought never crossed my mind. That alone is an unusual thing, perhaps some kind of talent. For me, the guitar has ALWAYS looked like a simple, or at least understandable, proposition, and there was never any doubt in my mind that I could make them. . . of course I can see that it is neither simple nor fully understood by anyone, actually. In retrospect, I have a mind for engineering that many people do not seem to possess. Surely this is an example of talent? And then, beyond any understanding, my earliest work that I am aware of not only sounds quite good to me today, but also a very large percentage of it has withstood the test of time; it's still with us! I have come to suspect I was made to do this work, and I am thankful that I came to it early in my life.

It doesn't hurt that I keep obsessive hours and have never strayed far from the "work" in my adult life. My motto, borrowed from the I Ching, is: "Perseverance furthers".

Talent is not all encompassing. I have been nearly as obsessive with my musicianship, and although I have come to be able to play acceptably, I long ago had to come to grips with my limitations in this area. Lutherie is easy for me, music is challenging. I attribute this to a lack of talent as I am WAY past 10,000 hours.

[printer2]

Originally Posted by redir

Another clue to this innate talent argument is the guy who is building his second guitar and it's better than my 50th... How does that happen due to anything other than natural talent?

Seen a few first or second guitars that would easily best what I have made so far. Mind you we don't know what background the person had previously or how much time they spent on the build. I am sure if I concentrated on one guitar and took a year to do it it would be close to perfect. But I am not obsessing about the looks of my guitars quite yet. I don't see the point of making them look spectacular unless they will sound spectacular. Which gives me more time to experiment and learn what I can do to hit the tonal range I want to achieve.

I am too old to look forward to the 10,000 hour mark in my building journey. I did build a body for a bass guitar in the early 80's, if I saw a book or the hint that people could build acoustics I probably would have taken it up. Like Bruce I never thought "I could not do that." Well maybe brain surgery but then again I was more interested in the mechanical than the biological. Lately I have become fascinated by neurology but that is driven by some unfortunate circumstances. Maybe it was growing up with parents that did a little farming and if something needed to be fixed or built it was attempted. I really thought other people did the same but only realized in my late teens that was not the case.

And that is a long way of introducing my method of "tuning" guitars. I don't. I just build to what I think is needed to carry the structural loads. This is still a work in progress as I there is a lot of territory I have not explored. I guess I will pick up on the finer nuances of the sound but for now I just want to have the guitars be somewhat responsive and not have wolf notes. I kind of think of tuning as knowing how to get rid of wolf notes, picked up the Gore &Gilet books and they go through the relationship between the top, back, hole resonances and the mass of the guitar. Other than learning not to make too many mistakes (slip of the chisel and the like) I think playability is something I would like to get more of a handle of.