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#1
10-07-2020, 03:37 PM
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Always Tuning v Neck Relief v Stg.Tension
Hi.
We all know how much we have to be re-tuning throughout a session..And I for one am really tired of it...I'm constantly jealous of piano players who, once their piano has been tuned, never have to think of that for a long long time... Am I correct that the neck relief is not completely obtained by the building of the instrument and/or by a truss rod alone; that part of that relief is obtained by the string tension ? Because if string tension is a factor in the forming of the inward arc the fingerboard needs, we're always gong to be tuning alot...Seems to me the reason pianos need little tuning is that the metal harp inside holds the strings at tension and does not get affected by their pull on it.. I was going to write a much longer post but I'll instead just say: Perhaps an ideal guitar would be one where, like a piano's harp, a guitar's neck would be all forged, say, aluminum and its relief arc built into the mold..This way whatever strings are mounted and tuned would not affect that arc.... Of course there are all the other parts which are wood. But I think a metal neck classical guitar is going to stay in tune way longer than a wooden neck.... I know this will likely never come about..But it'd be nice to find out.. Maybe some of you already have knowledge about this idea of having a metal neck; why it's not feasible/wouldn't make a difference. M 
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#2
10-07-2020, 04:43 PM
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This may not make any sense - but in some ways its kind of neat -
I can change the pitch slightly for certain songs - or to give it a more forceful tone . You can learn to make small changes in a monents notice -kinda like always customizing your tone . sometimes continually tuning can mean dead strings or crappy strings or just old age of the strings ( not the person tuning of course ) I enjoy lights more because of variances i can use for different songs ! Go figure !
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--------------------------------- Wood things with Strings ! 
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#4
10-08-2020, 03:18 PM
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It isn't usually about the guitar going out of tune, it's about the strings going out of tune.
They are made out of metals, which are sensitive to being put under pressure (fretting, being picked), and are very sensitive to temperature. You don't tune up your guitar, you tune/adjust the strings - that what the time spent in applause is for.
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Silly Moustache, Just an old Limey acoustic guitarist, Dobrolist, mandolier and singer. I'm here to try to help and advise and I offer one to one lessons/meetings/mentoring via Zoom!
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#5
10-08-2020, 07:13 PM
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I wholeheartedly disagree with that !!
It's the expansion and contraction of the woods, from the neck to the body, top, bridge, framework, and binding, due to temperature and humidity changes where the instrument is being played, including the warmth from the player's hands and torso ... What occurs is: When the wood gets warm it swells..Tho you can say, 'so do the strings', the fact remains the wood expands allot further, in turn tightening the strings causing therm to go sharp..If the room gets cold the wood gets cold and shrinks, in turn loosening the stings, causing them to go flat.... This is thee biggest influence on guitar and other wooden instrument's open string pitches... Ideally we want a performance area to be able to remain a constant temp and humidity at a level comfortable for the player(s)...Unfortunately the vast majority of classical guitarists never can guarantee themselves that !! Again, I'm jealous of pianists as the vast majority of the time, tuning is something they, compaired to us, rarely deal with !! My OP is merely a concept I have that if, If at least the neck, head, fingerboard, and frets where one solid piece of lite metal (likely aluminum or magnesium) it could possibly become to the guitar what the metal harp is and does for a piano; holds its pitch..For all we know the neck, through long periods of play, may even become hotter than the body; it's density thicker, tighter grains holding in the heat longer.. Finally: I, at the same time, realize that if the neck were metal,'may as well make the entire guitar as one piece of metal' can not be. Half the love for the type of guitar, that being the classical guitar, is its sound. Nothing but nothing can replace the beautiful tones and overtones the cedar, spruce, rosewood, ash(frame), top, bridge, body, binding, and even rosette make in response to the plucked string !! And I too realize that because OF that, my metal neck concept just might not be enough to counter act their 'granular properties', anyway !! M Last edited by MarkinLA; 10-08-2020 at 08:41 PM.
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#6
10-08-2020, 09:27 PM
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Aluminum has a relatively high coefficient of thermal expansion. In simple terms, it changes size and shape more than many other materials in response to changes in temperature.
Kramer made electric guitars with one-piece aluminum necks. Players weren't very happy with them as the necks would back-bow as the aluminum cooled between sets. Players would then have to warm them up again prior to playing to eliminate the back-bow. String tension/tuning was all over the place. Concert pianos are tuned frequently by professional piano tuners. While the player might not need to be too concerned with tuning the piano - unless it is sufficiently out of tune that the player is unhappy with it - concert pianos still need to be tuned on a regular basis. Given that a guitar has only 6 strings, compared to the piano's 220 to 230, tuning a guitar is a simple task that takes only a minute. Many older, European-made up-right pianos that were imported into North America don't hold their tuning very well: some can't be tuned to concert pitch due to the rate at which the tuning pegs slip. (Tuning them lower helps them stay in tune longer.) Another aspect of guitar tuning that you don't seem to be accounting for is that the strings, themselves, stretch and is one of the causes for them going out of tune. Then there is Gibson's unpopular auto-tuning tuning machines. They automatically keep the strings in tune. I don't know enough about the specifics of them to know why they weren't popular.
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#8
10-23-2020, 06:00 PM
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Quote:
Last edited by MarkinLA; 10-23-2020 at 06:07 PM.
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