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"Tone is in the fingers"... but where?


phaeton

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I'm sure we all have seen that most anyone sounds pretty much the same on any guitar and amp setup. But when we say "the tone is in the fingers", are we really talking about tone?

 

A player can optimize the mechanics of holding a string down behind a bit of fret wire and plucking it, but this is more like 'accuracy', IMHO:

 

1) Holding the string(s) straight down with correct pressure so as not to pull them sharp

2) Timing the picking motion right after the string makes contact with the fret (to avoid clunkers/double notes)

3) Picking the right string, and not picking or deadening adjacent strings by mistake

4) Vibratos where the motion is smooth and the bend reaches the proper target note consistently.

5) Enough strength in the hand where hammer-ons and pull-offs are at the same volume as picked notes

6) Solid rhythm, either for strumming or single note runs- all repeated notes or phrases are consistent in cadence

7) Cleanliness cleanliness cleanliness.

 

But how would this transfer to tone. And if not, what else does one do to improve their playing tone? I feel like the above things can be practiced in a way to improve skills, or practiced in a way to further cement bad habits. What's the good approach?

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I'm a process oriented guy to the core. It is amazing how most guitar players that come out of GIT, sound like they came out of GIT. The same is true for Berkeley.

 

In fact I was at a concert where a singer songwriter gal was on a ES-125 and I told my friend (who is a non musician) that she sounded like a Berkeley grad. He looked it up on his phone and sure nuff she was. He kept asking me through the evening how I knew. I told him that Berkeley (and GIT) are pretty strict on their methods and it creates a sound.

 

I suspect your list is accurate in this respect.

 

When I hear someone who sounds like SRV or Robben Ford, I figure that they've adjusted all of their touch, fretting, etc and through trial and error managed to create that sound.

 

The really perplexing part is exactly what adjustments to each aspect of playing create a specific sound - such as Berkeley, GIT, SRV, Robben Ford, etc.

 

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Pick angle, amount of surface allowed to contact each string, placement of fingers to pick, whether to allow a little thumb to strike immediately after pluckin to create a harmonic, rolling the wrist so as to strike with the side instead of the front........I think it helps to narrow down a genre and focus on the tried and true for that genre, then try and incorporate other methods that may improve your fingers personal 'tone'. :thu:

 

Pick thickness and shape also, seeingbas how I'm oobviously on picks today. I can't use thin picks, but Stubbys are equally challenging for me, so I just use what I know I can use, may try something that (iinsert name) recommends, but I know if I can't get comfortable with it in a few days, it ain't for me.

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the sound is in your head,you sculpt the sound to how you think it should sound and buy gear accordingly ,if you are attending a music collage chances are everybody will be listening to a lot same stuff anyway whoever is fashionhorrible at the time. i listen to a lot of hendrix, when i listen back to my recordings i can hear the influence.

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I'm sure we all have seen that most anyone sounds pretty much the same on any guitar and amp setup. But when we say "the tone is in the fingers"' date=' are we really talking about [i']tone[/i]?

 

A player can optimize the mechanics of holding a string down behind a bit of fret wire and plucking it, but this is more like 'accuracy', IMHO:

 

1) Holding the string(s) straight down with correct pressure so as not to pull them sharp

2) Timing the picking motion right after the string makes contact with the fret (to avoid clunkers/double notes)

3) Picking the right string, and not picking or deadening adjacent strings by mistake

4) Vibratos where the motion is smooth and the bend reaches the proper target note consistently.

5) Enough strength in the hand where hammer-ons and pull-offs are at the same volume as picked notes

6) Solid rhythm, either for strumming or single note runs- all repeated notes or phrases are consistent in cadence

7) Cleanliness cleanliness cleanliness.

 

But how would this transfer to tone. And if not, what else does one do to improve their playing tone? I feel like the above things can be practiced in a way to improve skills, or practiced in a way to further cement bad habits. What's the good approach?

 

I think "tone is in the fingers" is a metaphor for how a player approaches the instrument. Maybe a better way to say it is "tone is in the heart."

If you go screaming at someone who stole your parking spot at the store and then go home and play you'll find that you can't make a really soulful sweet sound on the guitar. On the other hand, if your dog dies (god forbid) and you go into your studio and pick up your guitar you will play some of the most sensitive soulful notes you have ever played. So, part of a players job is to work on some awareness of his mental state. To develop some insight into human nature and to bring that insight into the way he/she approaches the instrument and the art of making music.

 

This is beyond mechanics and moves into spirit.

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...

 

This is beyond mechanics and moves into spirit.

 

That's where I was going to go with my post.

 

Most of the replies talked about the subtleties of the mechanical connection to the guitar. While I agree that that is a big part of it, those mechanical connections are a manifestation of the spiritual connection between the player and the music. There are some technically accomplished players who don't connect us to the music in as powerful manner as some "raw" emotional players with less physical prowess on the instrument.

 

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I've always hated that saying. No way Eddie Van Halen sounds the same using a single coil strat through a fender twin EVEN with distortion. He's going to sound like EVH playing through a strat and a twin. The whole "he sound the same on any gear" is nonsense.

 

Now this is where somebody is going to come and say "that's not what they mean by tone is in the fingers". To that I say.... They should be saying technique is in the fingers.

 

If Eddie and I both stand with the same guitar and play ONE note...no bending, no palm muting....same dynamic level...it would sound EXACTLY the same.

 

Of course when you put two different people on the same gear it's going to sound different cause they both have different technique. And yes a small amount of tone can be shaped from the BASE tone of the gear you're on...basically by muting sharpness by with the palm or fretting fingers and dynamics. By that's FAR from the "tone is in the fingers" that I think most people mean when they say it.

 

One example I use to always give here was this....

 

[YOUTUBE]D9v5e1TTwts[/YOUTUBE]

 

I'm amazed at how many people on HC over the years hear this clip and think that it sounds like Joe's "tone". I honestly think these people can't separate the actual tone from the technique. ie...they have bad ears.

 

That sounds like absolute garbage. I mean...it's joe playing amazingly as usual. It sounds like the song and it's nearly perfect. But the tone? NOTHING like the original. It's all shrill and trebly and sounds like what it is.....a garbage guitar through a garbage amp.

 

To me this video is absolute proof that tone is NOT in the fingers.

 

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I've always hated that saying. No way Eddie Van Halen sounds the same using a single coil strat through a fender twin EVEN with distortion. He's going to sound like EVH playing through a strat and a twin. The whole "he sound the same on any gear" is nonsense...

 

...To me this video is absolute proof that tone is NOT in the fingers.

 

Check out Mark Knopfler on this Jumbo Gibson Stratocaster...

[video=youtube;5wTVLIZaxMk]

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your fingers and hands and teeth lol are the only part to touch a guitar, obviously to make it work..your ears hear it ,if it sounds good to your brain you continue to play. if it sounds like {censored} the cycle is broke and you give the guitar back . this should not happen on your own gear, but if a venue does not reflect pleasing sounds back at you ,you will wander around playing your guitar trying to find a sweet spot if you can`t find it you are knackered and you have to grin and bear it .

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Allot of the tone differences come from the right hand and where the strings are picked between the bridge and fretboard. If you pick closer to the neck or even over the fretboard you get a warmer darker tone. If you pick closer to the bridge, you get a brighter, more metallic sound, so there is tone in the fingers, just more in the right hand then the left.

 

In between the two there are a number of spots where you can use the side of the thumb when you pick to create overtones depending on where the strings held on the frets. Guitarists like Roy Buchanan and Billy Gibbons made this right hand method of producing pinch harmonics into a science.

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My point is it sounds more like Mark Knopfler than either a Jumbo Gibson or a Stratocaster. You may want to argue semantics, at which point I would agree with you, but to me, there is more to 'tone' than measurable harmonic content of the individual notes. To say "it sounds NOTHING like him on a strat" is something I can't do.

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A lot of what I regard as tone is in the way you move "between" notes (or chords). Like how long you stay on the frets before you move. I noticed teaching beginners that they tend to come off too early to try and get the next chord fingered in time for the beat. as they practice and move to each fingering faster they hold notes longer which sounds a lot like improving tone because the note has decayed further when they come off it.

The thing to go for is a sort of 'legato' fluidity with fingers moving along the fingerboard rather than up and down like a dragonfly hopping all over it.

 

ps

Not about "long" notes necessarily but the speed and fluidity of change.

[video=youtube_share;WyGrZmuwEhw]

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Check out Mark Knopfler on this Jumbo Gibson Stratocaster...

[video=youtube;5wTVLIZaxMk]

 

Those two are such virtuosos, It's really a joy to hear them play (I know Chet's no longer with us, God bless his soul). What's most remarkable to me is the convergence of soloing styles. And though I probably wouldn't be able to identify Knopfler's playing here per se, he certainly does have a characteristic playing style which infuses all of his playing in one way or another. Still is it fair to equate a playing style to tone itself?

 

To me the phrase "tone is in the fingers" is just a hackneyed phrase which is often taken out of context. All it means to me is that to sound good i.e., be proficient on guitar, you have to practice. Guitar is all about training the hands and fingers - muscle memory, an understanding of the instrument and the imagination to bring it all together. I feel like I have good tone on electric and acoustic, but I certainly can't express myself nearly as eloquently as those two.

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