Tuning and Explaining

[Brent Hahn]

I play bass in a three piece, backing a very talented, traditional folk writer. We're all good players and the band sounds great. But the other night, our hour-long 12-song set wound up being only 8 songs. Why? All the tuning and explaining. If you're not Joni or Jackson you don't have black-clad ninja roadies running out with fresh-tuned guitars in Standard, Drop D, DADGAD, Open D and God knows what else. Never mind the 12 string. And apparently you can't be a traditional folk writer without doing lots of explaining. There's no explaining on the radio, but these are songs that will never be on the radio so that's a non-issue.

I'm venting about this is two ways:

1. This post. And...
2. Writing a song called "Tuning and Explaining."

[mr. beaumont]

On the bright side, no need for the bass to retune.

[Tahitijack]

An old saying among Hawaiian slack key guitar players: We tune for five minutes to play a two-minute song.

You have my sympathies.

[Nymuso]

I use drop D so much I am constantly retuning the bass string between songs. But I’ve been doing it for so long that I can do it very quickly and accurately.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

On the bright side, no need for the bass to retune.

Sometimes. And sometimes, by the time a 12-string finally sounds like it's in tune with itself, it's no longer in tune with anything else.

[GBS]

The old Leo Kottke quote, on one of his albums:

"I start this like I start all of my songs. With a lot of tuning...."

[Mandobart]

The "charm" of chatter and tuning machine button twiddling is always lost on me. If you've gotta tell me what every song is about before you play it, you're not a very good songwriter.

And what's wrong with maybe bringing two guitars - one that stays in DADGAD or drop D?

I've been a volunteer in several acoustic music organizations for many years. The folkies are absolutely the worst in terms of being self-absorbed and oblivious to what makes for an enjoyable experience for the audience.

[Glennwillow]

Sometimes a little background on an original song can be helpful to the audience, otherwise they may not have any idea what the song is about and never connect with the song. But an explanation should be helfpul and brief. It should be rehearsed so that people are not going on and on. People need to put some thought into a presentation. A 20-second intro to me doesn't seem too much. More than that, I think is asking for trouble.

I keep a guitar in DADGAD all the time, though most of what I play is in standard tuning. I think retuning is just awful and loses the audience. If I take a 12-string, it's tuned carefully before the show so there's no messing around. When I played live, I never even used a capo so that I could minimize any need for retuning. Every once in a while I would hear the need to retune the guitar, but with an electronic tuner it took only a few seconds to fix the problem.

People need to think about their audiences.

- Glenn

[Robin, Wales]

Brent, you should find yourself a bluegrass band. The gap between songs at a gig is officially set as the time it takes to tell a joke about the banjo player. Then you are straight into the next song, no messing around.

Bluegrass bands follow the pirate code "Them that falls behind gets left behind!".

[Skarsaune]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Brent, you should find yourself a bluegrass band. The gap between songs at a gig is officially set as the time it takes to tell a joke about the banjo player. Then you are straight into the next song, no messing around.

Bluegrass bands follow the pirate code "Them that falls behind gets left behind!".

The joke about the banjo player hopefully gives them enough time to retune. Heck, the jokes I use are usually about the banjo player tuning.

Turnabout is fair play, though. I've recently picked up a banjo myself.

[mawmow]

Bringing only one guitar is sometimes just not enough…

[EZYPIKINS]

When writing out set lists, group songs in tuning keys.

If you have to tune to say open G for example, crank strings 1, 5, and 6 down a couple turns real fast then bring up to pitch tuning the whole guitar at least a couple times, from string 6 to 1.

Again, a proper setup, and quality tuner is key here.

As far as how many songs you can play in a given amount of time. Time your set. Including tunning as well as ad libs.

But, always be ready to alter your set. No telling when you will be asked to play more, or less time.

Experience is all about the experience. Go with the flow. Don't let it rattle you. All is good.

When I get in front of people, I don't want to stop.

Usually in a time constraint set, someone will inadvertently signal you. One more song.

Be ready to end the set with a song in whatever tunning you happen to be in.

There's always next time.

[Earl49]

David Wilcox changes tunings for practically every song during his set. He has learned how many turns or partial turns are needed so he can get close quickly. Then during some brief clever banter he can fine tune and launch into the next song promptly. I think he also plans his set to group certain tunings together.

When I have performed Hawaiian slack key (in six different tunings, some changing all six strings) there are times that three guitars worked best, if that was feasible. Sometimes you change two or three strings and I have learned to tune those a few cents sharp or flat to match the unchanged strings. With fewer guitars, you can pre-load big changes between sets. And just like playing, the more you practice changing tunings the better you get at it. But I really don’t want to bore the audience with retuning…

[Tahitijack]

Slack key master Berry Flanagan re-tunes between every song and sometimes during a song. It is amazing to me that you rarely see a slack key player break a string. I asked Ledword about that and he said he uses expensive strings (Elixir)which seem to hold up to the constant changes in tension.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

The "charm" of chatter and tuning machine button twiddling is always lost on me. If you've gotta tell me what every song is about before you play it, you're not a very good songwriter.

And sometimes you can enhance the experience of the song by not explaining it, especially when there's not much there to explain. Imagine Dylan at Newport "explaining." His songs can be brilliant, but when they're just weird we give him the benefit of the doubt for knowing what he's talking about, even if we can't figure it out.