I first came across the idea of a self-tuning guitar on Dr James Frankel’s commendable blog on music technology in education. Initially, I was quite sceptical about the idea of $2,199 on a self-tuning guitar or $900 to have the technology fitted to your own guitar.

My own feeling is that it would be better simply to improve your aural skills. The example I gave in a comment on his blog, is that the ear which would be surrendering tuning rights to technology is the same ear required to judge how far to bend a string or how wide a vibrato ought to be to suit the mood and style of the moment.

However, I feel that this comment didn’t really do service to the system as there is more to it than that. If you’ve never seen and heard a self-tuning guitar, take a look at this clip:

The technology has three main aims:

1. tuning the strings
2. getting strings up to tension before tuning begins – this would be a real time saver (I’m presuming that all six would be wound simultaneously – not possible for humans without unthinkable genetic manipulation)
3. ensuring that the adjustable bridge screws are correctly positioned so that the note at fret 12 is exactly one octave above the open string i.e. twice the frequency – you can imagine how much of a stop-and-start activity this would be if manually done – this might seem a little unclear unless you watch Gibson’s short instructional video. Click on the final choice entitled “instructions” when you get here

Is there even an occasion when handing over tuning decisions to technology is not ideal? I can think of one.

The technical bit
Many classical guitarists make tiny adjustments in tuning depending on the key. For example, if you are playing in E minor, you want the open G string to match exactly other fretted Gs. If you’re playing in E major (and you know for a fact that open G is not going to appear) then some players tune that string very slightly flat. Why? The key of E involves many appearances of G# and one of those most likely to appear is at the first fret of string 3. Pressing at the first fret raises the pitch slightly higher than any other increase of one fret – due to being so near to where the string is pinned to the nut and the resultant G# can end up being slightly too sharp for some ears.

Without getting into a huge dissertation on equal temperament, shall I just throw in for good measure that were you to be playing in Ab, the same G# would be called Ab (an enharmonic change) and might be tuned very slightly differently? Why? G# is most likely to mix with an E and a B to form a chord of E. An Ab is most likely to mix with a C and an Eb to form a chord of Ab.

Such choices are obviously not available to, say, pianists but most choral singers would be familiar (although perhaps not consciously) with the idea of notes being nudged very slightly up or down in the interest of more pure tuning.

So, would you consider buying this in for your guitar students, or is it a technology too far?

Categories: Music, Technology, Video