Tuning guitar - big shows - famous

fastonebaz

During gigs I occasionally need to tune a string between songs.  Sometimes whilst I'm playing I can detect a string might be a tiny bit sharp or flat and I'm unsure whether to try to adjust it on thr go,  or wait till the song is over.

And that got me thinking,  when big bands put on a huge show with dancers, outfits,  choreography etc, and their guitarist realizes they need to tune between songs what do they do?   Because everything is so choreographed like a theatre show,  they can't really just turn to thr singer and say hold on a second whilst I tighten my G string. 

I wondered if anyone has been to these kind of big shows and saw how they manage it? 

Roland

The obvious solution is switching guitars. The tech hands over a freshly tuned guitar after every number

StuartMac290

One quick nod to your tech gets you a fresh guitar and he can tune the original one up again. My old tech and I had this down to six seconds

richardhomer

I saw David Rhodes play with Peter Gabriel some years ago - he changed guitars every couple of songs at most. The guitar which was handed back got tuned and put back in the rack - or cleaned and put in its case if it wasn’t needed for the rest of the show. His tech did an amazing job.

EricTheWeary

I remember going to see Colin James years ago and he had a fresh strat for every song ( probably three on rotation I think) which is my first memory of that. 

In practice, IMHO ,there's usually a couple of seconds to tune a string and you'll see backing guitarists checking their tuning whenever there's a down moment so the issue doesn't come up. 

p90fool

I've done a few shows in big bands and as a guitarist there is usually a moment during songs when your part is not critical or you have nothing to play for a few bars when you can tune up IME. 

If there's a song where I have a prominent intro I almost always find a way to duck out for a few seconds toward the end of the previous song so I know I'm ready, in fact I often do that even in our four-piece. 

Most well set up guitars are fine after the first few songs, where even the most stable guitars need to adjust to venue and hand temperature. 

I'm pretty comfortable tuning while I'm playing if I get a string go flat as long as I can hear my amp pretty well, but even those of us with excellent pitch can struggle with pitch fatigue toward the end of a long, loud set.

Lots of ways to cope on the fly without having a guitar tech crashing through the brass section towards you waving a fresh Telecaster.

Kittyfrisk

Easy. Just get a Gibson with a G-Force tuner fitted.

I'm wearing body armour & a helmet 

Sassafras

Surely tuning one string is much faster and less disruptive than relying on some bloke handing you a fresh guitar?

vasselmeyer

A properly set up guitar is the key to this. Once warmed up to the ambient temperature in the venue, my PRS DGT never goes out of tune as long as I don't use stupidly old strings. We played two sets of 45m and a hour last night and I used that one guitar for every song apart from a couple of slide numbers. Habitually I check it between songs anyway, and a quick strum on a polyphonic tuner tells me right away that I'm OK. That guitar never shifts tuning despite me being a heavy handed player and a couple of songs with copious use of the vibrato arm.

I also have to say that the Tele that @SteveRobinson built for me is also rock solid in its tuning. Of course, Steve also set that up so it's properly fettled.

fastonebaz

Sounds like when I hit thre big time I'll need to get myself a helpful tech for the wings then. 

ICBM

However do classical musicians manage with only one instrument?!

IvisonGuitars

When I was guitar & bass tech for The 1975, their entire show was on time code with the click track which gave the lighting cues etc which meant any problems needs to be dealt with immediately or it would stop the show so we all used in-ears and I had 2 mixes I could switch between: one so I could listen to Matthew’s guitar (guitarist/singer) and one to listen to Ross’ Bass (bass player). I could tell immediately if a guitar was going out of tune - he used pre-CBS Fender Mustangs which were a nightmare to tour with & I swapped out most of the parts for more roadworthy options. He was a very physical performer/player so when I’d hear the guitar tuning start to waver I’d have another one ready for him by the time he’d realised and nodded to me for a change. I’d also have a separate override of his pedal switching system
too so I could switch them remotely if he was away from the board or hit the wrong one.

Roland

ICBM said:

However do classical musicians manage with only one instrument?!

Classical string players generally don’t have fretted instruments.

SteveRobinson

I went to a baroque concert last night. The orchestra all used period instruments.

The string section all used gut strings which are very sensitive to humidity. They did a lot of retuning.

tony99

I once saw Quim Francetti of Dogbox change a string MID FUCKIN' SONG and he didn't miss a note ok?

ICBM

tony99 said:

I once saw Quim Francetti of Dogbox change a string MID FUCKIN' SONG and he didn't miss a note ok?

I've done that too. In Hey Joe, between the first and second solos...

It did help that there was another guitarist and a keyboard player in the band so it wouldn't have been the end of the world if I hadn't done it in time. And I don't sing, so I could just get on and do it.

Iamnobody

I saw the guy from The Wave Pictures play half a gig with a snapped string. No spare guitar, didn’t want to stop the flow of the gig to change the string. Zero fucks given. 

springhead

I saw Wilko Johnson change a string mid song.  Quite nifty when it's a three piece and you're also the singer.  He had a packet of strings in his back pocket.  Looked through them whilst singing to find the one he needed, threaded up, tuned and off he went. 

lukedlb

I always love how Hendrix would arrive on stage after his introduction and proceed to tune his guitar because ‘we care for your ears’, quipping ‘and for our next tune’. Tuning up his flat string during Hey Joe on the Lulu show is another great example of accepting tuning up as an inevitable part of the show: just pull it off with a cheeky OMG grin. 

digitalkettle

ICBM said:

However do classical musicians manage with only one instrument?!

Classical guitar: you get to watch a lot of ‘zonal’ tuning of nylon strings.

digitalkettle

springhead said:

I saw Wilko Johnson change a string mid song.  Quite nifty when it's a three piece and you're also the singer.  He had a packet of strings in his back pocket.  Looked through them whilst singing to find the one he needed, threaded up, tuned and off he went. 

If anyone has seen a Nick Harper show, you’d come away disappointed if you didn’t get to witness his mid-performance string break party piece