Why are some songs recorded out of tune?

ICBM

Is it just old people like me who don't understand what the problem is? ie those of us who learned to tune a guitar before the days of commonly available guitar tuners…

I always thought it was well known that a lot of records weren't at exactly concert pitch, and if you wanted to play along with it you just tuned the guitar to the record.

NickL

scrumhalf said:

A lot of Chuck Berry's early stuff was speeded up to make him sound younger.

Does that explain why Johnny B Goode is in B flat rather than A, or did he play it that way live as well?

duotone

sweepy said:

It wasn’t uncommon for tracks to be sped up or slowed down to the Producers whim to change the “feel”

This completely makes sense.

pintspiller

Holidays in the Sun and EMI on Never Mind the Bollocks always missed me off when I strummed along because they were not concert pitch like the rest of the album

bingefeller

If you're interested in Eddie Van Halen's _exact_ tuning, then read this thread on the Metropolous forum.

http://forum.metropoulos.net/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=42944&sid=94fa80ea5d97d6b6b56addd8b2fbe52e

EricTheWeary

NickL said:

scrumhalf said:

A lot of Chuck Berry's early stuff was speeded up to make him sound younger.

Does that explain why Johnny B Goode is in B flat rather than A, or did he play it that way live as well?

Chuck had Johnnie Johnson on piano and doing his arrangements and it’s usually said that because Johnnie had a jazz background it was arranged in Bb. In Chuck’s autobiography he talks about listening to blues ( esp Muddy Waters) but also the popular jazz and swing of the day. Johnny B Good is sometimes said to be just a reworking of Louis Jordan’s Ain’t that just like a Woman ( although I don't know what key that's in). 
Although as Chuck would have, presumably, been tuned to the piano and the original recording is now over sixty years old and will have had various pressings who knows for sure what the intended key was. 

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

Johnny B Good is sometimes said to be just a reworking of Louis Jordan’s Ain’t that just like a Woman ( although I don't know what key that's in).

G.

The opening motif is very similar, yes - but apart from that and being a 12-bar, it's not very close. The lyrics are completely different - and which were always Chuck Berry's real focus, he only had about four or five songs if you just listen to the music without the vocals .

Danny1969

ICBM said:

Is it just old people like me who don't understand what the problem is? ie those of us who learned to tune a guitar before the days of commonly available guitar tuners…

I always thought it was well known that a lot of records weren't at exactly concert pitch, and if you wanted to play along with it you just tuned the guitar to the record.

Yeah that was my experience too. No one had a tuner when I was growing up, not even at school in our well equipped music room which boasted 3 pianos and an actual early Korg synth .... which used to drift in tuning all the time ....

At band practice we would tune our guitars to each other, having no other form of reference. To avoid breaking strings we always went tuned to the guitar that was lower in pitch. When I started work and brought my first tuner I plugged it in and realised our E strings were tuned just sharp of D .... and we soon found out we couldn't sing the songs we had written when we did tune up properly so we went down to D again. 

prowla

It's common in rock/metal to tune down one or two semitones; it allows the instruments to be played with the natural open chords, is easier on the singer's voice, and is a little more ominous.

(I think Sabbath did it.)

Mint67

crunchman said:

I do suspect that guitar bands (with no keyboards) in the days before tuners would have just tuned one with itself and then tuned everything else to that, or they all tuned to the same studio piano that was a bit out. 

I was trying to play along to something on Youtube recently where it was about half a semitone out.  From memory it was a reasonably recent recording so shouldn't just have been a video tape at slightly the wrong speed.   I think there were Hammond organs or something along those lines involved.  Do they ever drift off of concert pitch?

Keyboards drifted trrribly till the digital age

Rocker

A couple of Don Williams songs are not in concert pitch.  Still great music though.

RobDavies

DiscoStu said:

Not alternate tunings, not one instrument out of tune, but the whole song recorded slightly off standard tuning? I was listening to Metallica's Ride The Lightning album in the car today and remembered when I used to play along to the whole album on guitar and when 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' came on it would always sound wrong cos the original is slightly off tune. Same goes for Radiohead's 'No Surprises', it's not quite in tune with the rest of the album.

Why?? Conscious decision or a mistake made in mixing with the tape speed? 

Metallica are always out of tune, live.  

There are parts of Call Of Kthulu that are almost unlistenable on RTL due to someone being out of tune.  
The first track on H2O's debut album really grates as well., due to tuning issues.  

It winds me up.  There's no excuse for it.  

Jalapeno

One of the most popular records in the world - Miles Davis' Kind of Blue - was recorded at the wrong speed and the album was slightly flat (I think).  The re-issue is correct.

Also Robert Johnson's recordings are all over the place pitchwise

ToneControl

Wasn't there a load of 80s rock guitar tracks with solos speeded up to sound more impressive (but also more squeaky and less guitar-like)

ICBM

There’s a big difference between being out of tune and not being at concert pitch. It’s easy to forget that given the overwhelming use of digital tuners now, but it’s entirely possible to be perfectly in tune at some pitch other than concert or any recognised standard pitch.

It’s also possible to push the limits of tuning creatively, and what sounds like expressive use of pitch to one person can grate for another, hence the endless arguments about the end section of Layla, and Neil Young’s playing...

viz

Many many songs on the radio aren’t at 440, especially if it’s a mix of songs across the decades. In fact it’s rare for two consecutive songs to be set at the same pitch, I find. I’m forever having to give my guitar a quick tweak between songs when playing along to Planet Rock for example.

Nowadays I just use my Digitech Whammy to nudge my tuning to match the Hertz.

VimFuego

I saw a youtube video a few months back about how concert pitch has changed over the years, and continues to change. Apparently it's now something like 444, driven by orchestral players playing slightly sharp in a desire to cut through the mix. 

scrumhalf

Chuck Berry's early singles were sped (speeded?) up to make him sound younger.

Back inthe day before electric tuners bands used to tune to something constant, like a piano in the room. Hence the band would be in tune with each other but not necessarily at concert pitch.

HHwarner

a lot of DC stuff is all over the place

bingefeller

ToneControl said:

Wasn't there a load of 80s rock guitar tracks with solos speeded up to sound more impressive (but also more squeaky and less guitar-like)

yup, especially Vinnie Vincent.   Live he could actually play pretty fast and clean when he wasn't trying to go way over the top.