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7 Mistakes!

4/24/2013

Here are some mistakes people make with their guitars, both in terms what they do with their instruments and playing technique. Some are done with good intentions, some because players just don’t know any better, some out of pure laziness. A few I’ve mentioned before but bear repeating. In no particular order...

1. Crank down/tighten the tension rod in the neck to lower the action. Just the other day someone dropped off a guitar for a basic set-up. The poor thing was unplayable because the tension rod (which adjusts the relief, or curvature of the neck) had been tightened to the point that the strings where almost resting upon the neck. That, combined with a lack of humidity had made the guitar just about useless. Sure, we all want low action but guitar necks MUST have some “relief” – on inexpensive guitars this can be a bigger problem because the overall angle of the neck, nut grooves and height of the saddle may be wrong. The reality may be that you may have to put up with higher action than you’d like to avoid buzzes. Or just buy a better guitar!

2. Take all the strings off when changing. This is related to the first thing I mentioned. When you remove all the tension from the neck, then replace it with about 175 pounds of pressure that is generated by light gauge strings up top pitch, then repeat this process a few times you’re asking for trouble. The best analogy I can offer is – what happens when you bend a stick again and again? Change your strings one at a time, keep tension on the neck. The wood will accept and adjust to this. It won’t to repeated application and release of huge amounts of pressure.

3. Resting your forearm on your thigh when you play while sitting down. This is just bad technique, plain and simple. When a player does this he is trying to support the weight of the neck with his leg. The problem is that there is no way to properly drop the wrist, which is essential for arching the fingers and using fingertips. It also makes barre chords very difficult to play cleanly. Keep your legs together with your arm outside your leg and hold the neck up so your wrist and forearm can move freely.

4. Keep your fingernails short on the hand that plays notes and chords on the neck. I often see students who are reluctant to cut their nails very short, especially women (sorry!). If you try to press straight down on a string with your finger tip and the end of the nail makes contact with the fingerboard, that nail is too long. It’s difficult enough to press down hard enough to generate clear tone. Why make it even harder? Sorry, but you see very few “hand models” who play the guitar! Short nails are essential.

5. This one is for real rookies, people who are perhaps changing their guitar strings for the first time. Be sure to wind the string so it takes a path INSIDE the string posts. Otherwise, the string will be on “backwards.” Winding so the path of the string is on the outside of the post makes tuning very annoying – turning the tuning knob will be in the opposite direction compared to the way it should be to raise or lower the pitch when tuning. This most likely is not harmful to the guitar, just very annoying. Plus it looks sloppy.

6. Be nice to your guitar when you’re NOT playing it! Sadly, over the years I’ve seen a few guitars with necks broken off because their owners leaned their guitars against a wall when they were done playing and for one reason or another (an over enthusiastic pet, a rambunctious youngster running past it, a slammed door nearby) the guitar fell over. Then the 175 to 200 pounds of pressure from the strings did its work. I feel it’s a good thing to keep a guitar readily available to play when inspiration hits but if you’re going to leave it out of its case, buy a good quality guitar stand like the ones from Hercules and place the guitar (out of the line of traffic!) in it when not in use. Or put it back in its case. But don’t stand the case up against the wall either because even in a hardshell case guitars can break if the case falls over.

7. Take a minute to wash your hands before you play. Clean hands and fingers will make guitar strings last much, much longer before they go dead. And get in the habit of wiping off the neck and the body when you’re done playing, especially the part of the lower bout where your armpit rests. Not making assumptions here about your personal hygiene but lemme tell ya, guitar finishes DO pick up odors!

Peace & good music,

Gene

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Guitar Bridges - a primer

4/22/2013

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In order for an acoustic guitar (or other string instrument that is not electronically amplified) to make a musical sound the vibration of the string must be transmitted to the top of the instrument. This is accomplished by way of the bridge, that raised slab of wood on the face of the guitar through which the strings are attached. The more vibration transmitted, the better or at least louder the sound will be.

This area of the guitar has to accept a huge amount of stress from the strings. According to the D’Addario strings web site, a set of light gauge phosphor bronze strings exerts 178.3 lbs. of pressure on the bridge of an acoustic guitar; mediums exert 192.3 lbs. (As a side note, the site also states that a set medium gauge strings for an acoustic 12-string pulls 322 lbs.! This is the reason a 12-string should NEVER be tuned up to natural pitch. More on that in a future column.) And in most cases the only thing that is keeping the bridge from flying off is some glue!

That white piece of plastic, bone or some synthetic material embedded in the bridge is called the saddle. This is a very important part of any guitar for many reasons. First and foremost, it is at one end of the “business” part of the string, i.e., the part that vibrates. The saddle must be located with the utmost precision to ensure perfect intonation when strings are fretted. Back in the 1970s some Martins came out of the factory with bridges (and therefore saddles) glued in the wrong locations. The result was some otherwise fine guitars that were totally out of tune up the neck. This can be remedied by a qualified guitar tech and Martin did their best to make good on their famous lifetime warranty with these faulty guitars but if a bridge has been in place for a long time a correctly placed bridge results in a lighter line of wood on one side of the bridge or the other. Not a desirable thing with a guitar that should be worth well into the four-figure range!

Not only must a saddle be placed in the correct position, it must also have the correct amount of curvature on the top so the strings cross it in a way that won’t cause buzzing or muffle the vibration. “Compensated” saddles are standard on many guitars. They feature a slightly different section slightly back from the rest of the saddle for the G string to cross. This is because core of the wound G string is a much thinner diameter than the other strings and because of this, during the act of pressing down that string is bent more than the others. If the saddle is straight across, and depending upon the amount of force that is used to press down that string, it can sound sharp compared to the other strings.

The height of the saddle is another important aspect. The higher the saddle, to a point anyway, the more severe the “break angle, ” which the angle between where the string emerges from the bridge and the top of the saddle. A sharp break angle results in more tension on the string, which in turn makes the string press harder on the bridge – a good thing, sound-wise. A very soft or slight break angle and the strings will often sound dead and lifeless because more of the string makes contact with the top of the saddle, and the string may actually be able to move BEHIND the saddle, resulting in a dull sound and buzzing. Some people lower the action on their guitars by filing or sanding the saddle. If you choose to do this, always sand the BOTTOM of the saddle (which should easily slip out of its groove – never glue in a saddle). But be sure to do a tiny bit at a time and check the height frequently.

Bridge and saddle materials very much affect the sound of any guitar. The harder the materials used, the better the vibration is transmitted and the better the sound. Bridges are usually made of rosewood, ebony (on expensive guitars) or synthetics. Saddles are made of hard plastics, bone or even fossilized walrus ivory. In the old days, elephant ivory was used but this is now illegal. I firmly believe that bone saddles and nuts improve the sound of almost any guitar due to their hardness compared to plastic. The fossilized walrus ivory (completely legal) is nice but obscenely expensive.

The huge amount of pressure on the bridge sometimes causes lifting, cracking or even total detachment. A good guitar tech can re-glue and clamp a bridge; this is not a job you should attempt because special glues and clamps are used. A cracked bridge should be replaced. Never use epoxy to glue a bridge – or anywhere on your guitar for that matter.

I may be making this all sound like bridge problems are inevitable. This is certainly not the case; I’ve seen Martins and Gibsons that are going on 100 years old with original bridges in perfect condition. Also know that the area of the top where the bridge is glued is heavily reinforced inside with braces and an extra flat piece of wood glued to the under side of the top, called a bridge plate. So don’t worry, but keep an eye on your bridge!

Peace & good music,

Gene

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How's your action?

4/17/2013

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Assuming someone is not an absolute beginner, the first impression most people have a guitar they’re considering as a purchase is the “action” – the distance between the strings and the neck. A guitar with high action is more difficult to play than one with strings close to the neck. In other words, a guitar with good action is desirable. This is true, to a point. But there are other considerations and low action is not always necessarily a good thing. Here’s why.

The act of pressing down on the strings to make contact with the neck is the single most painful aspect of playing the guitar. Until fingertips get calluses and the overall strength of the fingers and hands improves beyond what is needed in everyday life, getting a clear, clean tone from each string is a huge challenge. In fact, I have had a few students who quit trying to play in a few short weeks because they just couldn’t deal with the pain. Most do fine of course and after a month or so it’s reasonable to expect the sound will clean up and those annoying buzzes and muffled notes will gradually disappear.

Technique has a lot to do with this and that’s part of my job: to make sure the student is pressing down correctly, in the right places. But there is no reason to struggle with the guitar because the strings are too high. Adjustments can be made to the instrument to make things easier.

Sometimes those adjustments can result in too much of a good thing, however. Many guitarists seem to be under the impression that a perfectly straight neck is optimum condition. This is not true. Think about the way a guitar string moves when played. The farther away from the dividing points – a fretted note and the saddle, or in the case of open strings, between the nut and saddle – the more upward, downward and side to side motion there is when the string is played. When a string is pressed down on a perfectly straight neck it is lowered toward the fingerboard. If there is not a tiny bit of curvature in the neck, known as “relief,” it’s likely the vibrating string will bounce off one or more frets higher than where the player is pressing. The result is that annoying buzz. Guitar necks MUST have a certain amount of relief to play without buzzes.

The danger of very low action is that even with some neck relief, buzzes can still happen. Almost all guitars produced today are equipped with adjustable necks. Without getting into the mechanics of how this is accomplished, what the adjusting nut does when turned is impart more or less relief in the neck. Some players wrongly think the adjustment is raising or lowering the neck and this is not the case.

So how much relief is right? The generally accepted way to check for the correct amount of relief is to place a straight edge such as a yard stick on its side with one end on the first fret and the other at about the 18th fret. At about the 9th or 10th fret you should be barely able to slip a business card between the fret and the bottom of the string. This is not a perfectly exact measurement; if you want the relief adjusted perfectly, take your guitar to a qualified guitar tech for a good set-up.

There are other variables of course. If the nut slots are too high or the saddle is too high – or both – the relief can be perfect but the strings will still be too high above the neck. This is much less common than it used to be with inexpensive guitars but I still see it from time to time. Fixing this condition is another job for a guitar tech but if you search the Stewart McDonald web site you may be able to find a video that outlines the procedures for cutting and replacing a nut or filing the one you have.

Lowering a saddle is easier. Remove it from the bridge and sand down the UNDERSIDE of the saddle. Do a little bit and then restring the guitar to check for the correct string height. If it’s still too high, remove the saddle and repeat. It’s crucial to have patience in this procedure and check and re-check frequently.

So what is “perfect action”? Most players would reply a set-up in which the strings are as close as possible to the neck without the strings buzzing when the guitar is played. Just remember that your perfect action may change on the seasonal basis as the humidity where you live changes and the guitar expands and contracts with the relative humidity. Also, how hard you play will definitely factor in to the amount of relief your guitar neck has – if you strum hard there is no choice but to set the action and relief fairly high. Finger style players can keep the action quite low without buzzes happening.

So take all these factors into account when judging a guitar. You don’t want to fight with the thing but very low action is not always the answer.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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Can I have your autograph??

4/11/2013

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This is not really guitar related I guess and I’m not even sure what my point may be, but I just read a story about a recent auction where a copy of the Beatle’s “Sgt. Pepper” album that was signed by all four of them sold for an astounding $213,000 – not including a 15% buyer’s premium! Amazing. I have to wonder what John Lennon would think of this. “Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can.”

Maybe it’s over-the-hill hippie in me but when I read stuff like this it kind of rubs me the wrong way. How many people could $213,000 feed and clothe? And chances are the anonymous buyer bought it for investment purposes, not unlike the explosion in fine art of buyers acquiring famous pieces of art for the sole purpose of investment, not because they enjoy or appreciate the piece.

But without willing buyers out there, none of this would be happening. I’ve written at length in this space about the crazy prices of “vintage” guitars. I don’t think it’s as prevalent in the guitar world but I’m sure some of the buyers here too are buying purely on speculation. God bless ‘em if they have that kind of money to throw around, I guess. But there is something in the equation that just doesn’t seem right to me.

Guitars can be played and appreciated but things like autographs have no intrinsic value. I have to confess that about 10 years ago I sold a copy of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival program on which I had managed to get the autographs of Mississippi John Hurt, Pete Seeger, Mary Travers, Peter Yarrow and many others. This was without a doubt one of the dumbest things I’ve done in recent memory. I sold it on Ebay for about $125. What would it be worth today? That is truly an irrelevant question. What it was worth to ME had to be much more than a measly $125. To this day, I can’t remember what inspired me to do it.

So why do we value autographs so much? Whether they are signatures of famous musicians, politicians, movie or sports stars, I guess it’s because in some small way we are making a physical connection to that person when we hold an autographed item in our hands.

If the acquisition of an autograph is only based on a potential profit that connection is debased in my opinion. Some well-known figures feel the same way. Actor Steve Martin refuses to sign autographs but upon being requested for one, he hands the person a small business card that says: This is verify that you had a personal encounter with Steve Martin. Singer Joan Baez never signs but instead will offer to shake a person’s hand, thereby making a more meaningful connection.

But getting back to music and guitars, I came upon the web site of a guitar retailer in Tennessee who is selling a 1960s Epiphone acoustic that was signed by Paul McCartney; it also has a sticker from one of his Wings tours so it was probably signed back in the 1970s. The text on the site says that this is the very model of guitar on which Paul wrote “Yesterday.” The guitar is of passing interest to a collector of vintage acoustics but not particularly noteworthy in terms of sound, quality or value. The advertised price? $59,900.

Crazy. Just crazy.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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The dilemma of amplifying an acoustic guitar

4/8/2013

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Is there a way to amplify an acoustic guitar and have it sound natural? That is, the way it sounds without amplification, just louder? This is a complicated question but a compelling one if you intend to perform. What follows are my experiences over the last 30 years. I’m sure there have been better solutions right along but as with so many things it comes down to money – and that is something is often don’t have enough of!

Let’s say you finally bought your guitar of a lifetime. It sounds fantastic and you want that wonderful sound to he heard by more than a few people close by. You have no choice but to amplify it somehow. Back in the 1970s a couple companies like Barcus Berry began selling “contact pick-ups,” thin pieces of wired plastic-like material that were installed beneath the saddle in the bridge of acoustic guitars. The only alternative at the time where pick-ups that mounted in the sound hole and were essentially microphones and not very good ones at that. They made acoustic guitars sound like bad, muddy electric guitars, were prone to feedback, and the wire was always in the way when you played. Those first contact pick-ups were permanently mounted under the saddle, with the input in place of the bottom strap button. They were a bit better, but not much. They too were prone to feedback and had a quaky, raspy sound that accentuated the treble end and although they sounded a bit more “acoustic” they were not pleasant to hear and certainly did not transfer the sound of a fine acoustic guitar.

Not much changed in design for the next fifteen or so years although the overall quality of this type of pick-up (called a piezo pick-up) did improve a bit and guitarists began using equalizers to improve the sound. But in the early 1990s a few companies began producing “active” (i.e., battery powered) acoustic pick-ups that were much better sounding. Unfortunately the act of changing the 9v battery usually required taking all the strings off to reach inside the guitar (some are still like that).

Then the Fishman company began producing active pickups that were wired in tandem with a small microphone mounted inside the guitar. They had a nice little control panel that was housed on the side of the guitar that included things like a 3 or 4-band equalizer, impedance switching capability, volume control and a low-battery light. Many manufacturers began offering them as standard equipment on some models, including Martin. The Fishman devices sounded pretty good but still not purely acoustic and some players objected to having a “trap door” on the side of their very expensive guitars.

With the rapid development of all things electronic in the 1990s and into the first decade of this century, many smaller companies took up the challenge of making a natural sounding acoustic guitar pick-up and some major players emerged like B-Band. Most of these were active pick-ups that still required a 9v battery. But about 2005 a small company in Washington called K&K began producing contact pick-ups that were passive, mounted inside the guitar on the bridge plate and sounded great. When used with their pre-amp they could produce as close to a pure acoustic sound as I’ve ever heard and I’ve had them installed on over a dozen guitars so far. I love them! Being somewhat mechanically challenged I always have my regular guitar repairman Fran Ledoux of Bay Fretted Instruments do the installations but supposedly it is not that difficult to do yourself following the detailed instructions that are included with the K&K. There are even You Tube videos showing how to do it.

However – and here’s the take-away from this column – I still believe that the best sound will be attained by using a good microphone. Mics are difficult to use for most people however because they are prone to feedback when placed anywhere near speakers and the player must stay a very certain distance from the mic for the best sound. So what I do anytime I’m playing a medium to large venue is to use a combination of my on-board K&K run directly into an amp or the PA board plus a good quality omni-directional low impedance microphone. With this set up I get a good sound, and by leaning in to the mic when it’s time for a solo I can get the slight boost in volume needed to be heard on single-note passages.

There are many, many other options out there and many players prefer to tweak the sound between the guitar and the amplifying unit rather than depend just on the pick-up and a mic to get the best sound. This probably makes the most sense, but as I said in the beginning, my pockets aren’t as deep as I wish they were and buying even more gear is not an option as long as I’m doing local gigs that don’t require the loudest, most refined sound.

So your best bet if you’re considering amplifying your guitar is to go to a large retailer and try many different combinations of pick-ups, amps and outboard devices. Also consider the type of engagements you’ll have and how sophisticated your equipment needs to be. Good luck and if you come up with the perfect sound, please let me know!

Peace & good music,
Gene

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Street music in Italy

4/5/2013

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We’ve been back for about a week following an absolutely wonderful trip to Italy, my first time visiting Europe. The culture, the breathtaking art, beautiful hill towns in Umbria and Tuscany, everything that is Florence, the people, the food (!), so many things that I will never forget. While we were not able to take in any scheduled music performances I did hear snatches of music here and there.

There are many gypsies (called Roma over there) in Italy, especially in Rome. They are generally not well thought-of by the Italian people and have a reputation for being untrustworthy and very proficient pickpockets so we avoided direct contact with them but there is no denying that music is a big part of their culture. On the street in Rome I heard an excellent gypsy band, composed of accordion, stand-up bass, guitar and a drummer playing a small kit. They were playing high energy gypsy folk music that I was not familiar with and sounded great. Their tip bowl was quite full so I think both the tourists and the locals enjoyed the music.

In Florence I heard two other gypsy musicians, a single accordion player who had a small battery powered amp and was playing after dark on the steps of a church. He had very few listeners but it was obvious that he was passionate about his music and he ended his night by playing the Andrea Boccelli/Sarah Brightman hit “Time to Say Goodbye,” which I am slightly embarrassed to admit always brings a tear to my eye as it is often played on Princess cruise ships when they are leaving the final port on cruises we have taken. The gypsy accordion man did a great job with it. It was sad and lonesome and passionate and fitting as he sat all by himself on those church stairs.

In basically the same area I heard a classical guitarist who was playing classical pieces very well – in the rain! I wondered out loud to my companions what kind of damage was being done to his guitar but he didn’t seem to care. I gave him a 5-Euro tip and hoped he would stop soon and not ruin his beautiful guitar. He smiled and kept on playing.

Up above Florence in an area called Piazelle Michelangelo there was a young guitarist/singer playing at the bottom of a set of stairs through a portable amp (with a car battery for power!). He had an attentive audience of a couple hundred people and was playing….. Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”! I don’t know why this struck me as strange but it did. Were they mostly tourists or locals? I don’t know.

Even stranger was the young woman near the train station in Rome. She was playing Irish music on the fiddle. I had read in an English language newspaper about the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations at an honest-to-goodness Irish pub nearby so I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me but it did. Unfortunately no one seemed to be paying any attention to her. I put a 2-Euro coin in her basket.

Back in Florence we happened to pass the open door of a beautiful little theater where a kind of “best-of” selection of Italian opera arias are performed a few nights a week. A lady soprano was warming up for the evening performance – now THAT was Italian, at least in my view.

There is no real point to all this except that it’s obvious that in today’s world with cultures melding the arts are not immune to outside influences. I don’t have an opinion on this except to say that I hope individuality from a cultural standpoint isn’t lost. I didn’t expect to hear someone singing “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!” (neither did I want to!) but it makes me happy that the little place offering Italian opera is there.

Peace & good music,

Gene

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An overview of guitar strings

4/3/2013

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The easiest way to make your guitar sound better is quite simple: change the strings. Although some recording artists prefer the sound of “broken in” strings because they have a mellower sound that can be easily tweaked in the recording process compared to the brightness of new strings, I believe that just about every guitar benefits from the ringing sound of nice new strings. The best part is that this improvement – which can be quite radical if you haven’t changed strings in a while – is inexpensive.

But when it’s time to buy strings it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the variety of brands, materials used in making them, and string thicknesses referred to as “gauge.” Back when I started playing the choices were much more limited: nylon or steel, steel or brass wound, basic gauges and brands. What I’m going to try to do is throw out some basics, not define what you should be using in absolutes. Oh wait – there is one absolute. You should never put steel strings on a guitar designed to use nylon. This is because nylon string guitars (classical style, with a “slot” head onto which the strings are attached) are constructed with much lighter interior bracing and thinner tops to better transmit the vibration of the much lower tension of nylon strings to the body of the instrument. If you make the mistake of putting steel on a classical guitar you are asking for big trouble in the form of cracks, warping, even a bridge coming off. However, there is one exception. More on that in a minute.

If you do have a nylon string guitar you still have some choices, mostly in terms of string tension. High tension strings are appropriate if you play with a heavy hand; moderate tension is best for all-around use in strumming or finger-style playing.

I’ll focus on steel string guitars because they are much more commonly used these days. There are basically two gauges of strings that are popular on steel string acoustic guitars: medium (.013, .017, .026, .035, .045, .056, highest to lowest in fractions of an inch in diameter, with the high E and B strings unwound and the remaining four strings wound with an alloy of brass or bronze) and light gauge (.012. .016, .025, .032, .042, .054). You may find some very slight variations in what are called medium and light gauge from one manufacturer to the next but these are generally accepted diameters. There are also “custom gauges” that include thinner high strings and thicker low ones, plus sets that are labeled extra light. In almost all cases, what you gain in ease of play with extra lights is more than negated by their weak, thin sound. But some people like them anyway, particularly players who primarily use electric guitars, which almost always are strung with very light strings.

Mediums have their place. If you are a very aggressive player or need to be heard in a band with other loud instruments such as a banjo, mediums make sense. In fact, virtually all bluegrass style guitarists use mediums. There is definitely more finger pain involved with mediums however, compared to lights. Some guitars respond better to mediums due to their heavier tension and anyone who strums most of the time may find that there is less string noise with them. The reason I gave up using mediums many years ago is more pragmatic. Even though all guitar makers claim their instruments can withstand the heavier tension of medium gauge strings I absolutely believe that over a period of time they can cause problems even with the finest of guitars, things like necks that go out of set (the angle and distance of the strings from the fingerboard) and bridge plates gradually becoming loose from the underside of the top of a guitar, resulting in a pronounced arching up – warping – of the top. I know some guitarists and luthiers would argue this but I stand by my opinion. I’ve seen mediums do serious damage to some very nice guitars.

So that leaves my preferred string gauge, light. Yes, I’m probably losing some volume by using them but the advantages of less stress on my guitars and my fingers (!) more than make up for that. So, my advice is stick with light gauge.

Now that exception for those playing guitars made for nylon strings, and this goes for very small bodied steel string guitars too like parlor or single-O size. “Silk and Steel” strings may be worth trying. They are a very light gauge softer feeling steel, unwound for the high E and B or with light steel cores on the other strings with nylon and light brass windings. These are very low tension strings compared to regular steel ones and if you really want or need that steel string sound but only have a classical guitar they might be just the thing. However, keep a very close eye on the bridge and the action of your classical – if you notice any changes, take them off immediately and go back to the nylons.

The alloys used to make steel strings are a long, separate discussion that I won’t get into now. Your basic choices are phosphor bronze and 80/20 bronze/brass alloy. Both types have their fans but I find the phosphor bronze much more pleasing, less harsh than the other. Also, some strings such as Elixers and Martin SP Lifespans have a micro plastic coating that is supposed to make the strings last longer before they go dead. My experience with Elixers is quite negative; to my ear they sound harsh and squeaky when you move your fingers. The Martins seem not to have those tendencies. Unfortunately, all coated strings cost at least twice as much as regular ones.

My bottom line advice is to try out many different brands of strings. You will surely find one that sounds great on your guitar (but may NOT sound so good on your friend’s!). As I said at the beginning, new guitar strings are a small investment to make to bring your guitar to its full potential.

Peace & good music,
Gene

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7 Mistakes!

Guitar Bridges - a primer

How's your action?

Can I have your autograph??

The dilemma of amplifying an acoustic guitar

Street music in Italy

An overview of guitar strings

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