The Glade 4.0

... for fun and profit...

I know there are a few guitar players here, so I thought I'd share this gem from James Taylor. His Youtube channel is a must subscribe for his fans, or anyone interested in learning his songs.

This (specific) technique won't apply to electric guitars (they have their own issues), but for acoustic players, especially if you capo, this might help you get in tune (or out of tune as it were) and actually sound better.

The adjustments he's suggesting are to compensate for string action -- strings go sharp when you press them down.. the higher the action, the more sharp they go -- and string thickness -- larger diameter strings vibrate in a wider pattern, and are usually played harder, causing them to go sharp as well. Lastly, if you use a capo, as he does for most of his tunes, this will help 'normalize' your tuning.

I have a slightly different technique for doing what he does. His guitars are almost all identical, and perfectly set up. Most of us don't have that luxury. My variation for tuning for a capo, is to actually tune the guitar with the capo on it.. the trick to this is, to relax the capo tension as you make adjustments, so the strings can move freely while adjusting, then clamp back down to re-check. I still tune the B string and the wound strings slightly flat, although less so than the numbers he gives.



The numbers he gives are good starting points, but really only apply to his specific set up. Yours might be exactly the same (but probably not).

Generally speaking, unless you have very light gauge strings and super low action, you probably want to tune your guitar slightly flat, especially on the larger wound strings (and the B string).

Cool man, thanks for posting. Will have to give this a shot.

Very cool.

I've always liked the method of tuning my old guitar teacher taught me, which was use an instrument to tune the low E string, and then use harmonics (and hearing them resonate in sync) to tune the other strings. For instance, Harmonic E on the 5th fret will sound the same as the harmonic A string at the 7th fret. Etc.

That's also allowed me to tune some crazy out-of-tune guitars without a tuner at all, solely by ear and memory (and being pretty damn close).

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Yea, this is sorta guitar tuning 201. It assumes you have a tuner or some way to get to a decent A440.

This technique is more about how to compensate for various (medium or heavy?) string guages, high action (favored by country/bluegrass players), and capo users.

I never knew how good of a guitar player James Taylor really was until I saw some of his YouTube videos. I think it was the one where he showed how to play one of his songs with cameras looking out from inside the sound hole. The guy's a bloody **** brilliant guitar teacher.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

He has several video's like that, and if I may say so, he's quite generous to take the time to make them and post them. The antithesis of guys like Don Henley and Van Halen/ZZ-Top (Stage Three Music), who actively have youtube channels shutdown when people post 'how-to' videos (search youtube for "Kent Carlevi" for resurrected examples of his excellent work before Stage Three Music had him shut down)

a couple of my favorites

Here is a great video for electric guitar owners. He explains a lot of details that even a lot of pro's don't consider when setting up an electric guitar.

he shows how, with a few simple tools, you can make you guitar play in tune all the way up and down the neck.