Playing music is tough, and there are so many things to keep track of. But being in tune (especially for fretted strings instruments) is something you should be able to control.
Back in the days before inexpensive tuners, it was tougher. You had a pitch fork, or pitch pipes and you had to match those tones to your instrument. In the case of a pitch fork, usually an A, once you had your A string in tune, then you had to get the others in tune, relative to that. If your ear tolerated a few cents off per string, by the time you got to your high E string it could be nowhere near perfect octave to your low string.
Also, everyone’s ears are a little different, so playing in an ensemble with more than one guitar and having all the guitars in tune with each other was difficult. There was always one guy in the band that thought he had a perfect ear, and would insist that his instrument was never out of tune.
Nowadays, we have inexpensive electronic tuners, and they make things easier. You don’t have to trust your ears as much – but your ears should be the final arbiter if something seems wrong.
I often hear beginners playing out of tune, and I always encourage players to take a little time to make sure they’re in tune. Don’t just allot a certain amount to tuning – get the job done, it’s important. Being in tune establishes a baseline upon which everything you do, musically, depends. All the hard things in music – playing all the right notes, getting the timing right – don’t matter if the instrument’s out of tune. And being in tune is something you can control.
For those of us who play instruments where finger positioning and good ears are vital to intonation (bass, fiddle, dobro), we have to constantly be listening and reacting. Proper posture is important, but by the 4th hour of a jam, you may have to adjust your positioning to compensate for a fatigued arm or hand – something guitar, mandolin and banjo players don’t have to worry as much about.
When my kids were learning to play, nothing would make me intervene like hearing them playing an out-of-tune instrument. We’ve all seen the “Tune It Or Die” T-Shirts – maybe that’s a little extreme (maybe a LOT extreme), but it is important to be dedicated to playing in tune.
What if an instrument goes out of tune onstage during a performance? This is guaranteed to happen eventually. Depending on the instrument, and its place in the song, you may be able to turn your back and discreetly tune it. You may be able to adjust your playing to avoid the out-of-tune string for the duration of the song. I’ve done this a number of times.
I remember seeing a concert (it was Eddie Money) where the guitar player had a G string go way out of tune, and his part was a big strum, once per measure, and he did NOT avoid the bad string and the whole audience (and the band, I think) cringed every 4 beats. We couldn’t wait for that song to end.
Musicians learn that some mistakes go unnoticed by a typical audience – but being out of tune is not one of those mistakes. It makes the whole band sound bad. Some listeners may not be able to tell exactly who is out of tune, but they’ll know something’s wrong and they will cringe and be embarrassed for you. This is not the effect you want to have on your audience. Admiration, delight – yes. Cringing and embarrassment, not so much.
