Is our tone in our fingers?

stufisher

I'm sat with a cuppa and perusing t'internet  ... just found this little vid and I immediately thought this is one to put yo tFB.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMFwojYcM/

What's the collective view on this subject?

Personally, I do believe there is something to debate but I'm not sure if it's more style-related rather than just tone.

Surely tone can be replicated through technical wizardry by playing style can be unique and recognisable as such.

RickLucas

Yes.

TheMarlin

RickLucas said:

Yes.

Agreed. i remember when David Gilmour was on Desert Island Disks, he said he could walking into any guitar store, pick up any decent guitar, plug into any decent amp, and would sound exactly like himself.  

TheBigDipper

I think so. 

thecolourbox

Some of it is, some of it isn't. I can't play wah with my fingers

sweepy

One of the local pubs to me, The Red Lion in cropredy also had a little music shop in the back room, lots of nice Jap Tokai Gibson, Fender etc. a group of us used to pop in every Tuesday for a pint and a gear natter and one thing we always noticed was how different we all sounded through the same rig, so I have to say a sizeable portion of your sound must be in your hands 

LastMantra

Whatever dirt pedals I use I end up with basically the same sound. One of my pedals broke a while back and I've not got round to fixing it, at first I thought that's my main distortion and a large part of my sound, but after a while of using a different pedal I figured I sound pretty much the same. I suppose I tune them in to get the sound I like. 
Glad I never got into the expensive boutique jobs.

GoFish

TBH I still don't really know what "tone" is (as used by guitaristas)   But, to use an Americanism, it's the rider not the bike. That I can agree on.

darthed1981

Not fucking mine...

Danny1969

thecolourbox said:

Some of it is, some of it isn't. I can't play wah with my fingers

True, but things like where you hit the string, how hard and whether you use a pick or finger can make a big difference. 

Want a free reverb on an acoustic then play the notes but don't kill the other strings, let them ring out. Want a great 60's surf sound then hold the pick really loosely on an electric and pick down near the bridge. Chicken picking quack comes from muting the string with your thumb then plucking the string. I've picked up loads of tricks watching people like Greg Koch and Tom Bukovac 

I think the trouble with tone is nobody really knows what we mean by it. Sometimes we think someone has a great tone but they haven't really, they just have such a great musical expressive way of playing we think it's a good tone. 

stufisher

This might add something to the discussion ... or at least clarify some of the nuances we are considering:

https://www.musicgateway.com/blog/music-industry/music-business/what-is-tone-in-music-everything-you-need-to-know

slacker

Yes and no. It's not one or the other. A great player can play a bad guitar and the other way around. Learning songs and lessons will make you a better player. A good guitar amp and pedals will make you sound better. Learning how to be your own sound engineer i.e. learning how to eq and how to use gain will make you sound better.

All of the above will combine to sound like you. Change one element eq stop relying on the minor pentatonic or not mid scooping will change your 'tone'.

Years ago I played very briefly with a guy that pulled the strings sharp. He never sounded good on any instrument.

Jez6345789

I get the expression and agree with it but the reality is it’s in your head your hands are just the physical manifestations of what your brain is telling them to do.

it’s all those little aspects of a person how they hear how they interpret the attack the subtle phrasing etc.

think we have all seen the player with phenomenal technical  chops and the guys who you don’t even think about what they are playing* but from the moment  they play you quickly know they are the real deal.

Barney

No ....I think it's in a tone or volume control ....good phrasing and note choice is in the fingers and tone can change a bit with different plecs and attack ...but mainly it's good phrasing ..note choice and how you hit the note ...dynamics ect ....

Sporky

The problem is that "tone" is used to mean lots of different things. Some uses are definitely influenced, or even determined, by technique. Then you get "tone suck" in the pedal world, which is a tiny but of level and treble loss.

I had a chum years ago who described a guitar as "toneless" because playing it harder or softer just made it louder or quieter, with no significant change in timbre. 

stickyfiddle

Your fingers and how you use them are a big part of how any guitar ends up sounding. I always get comments from other people that my setup is always really trebly but in my hands it sounds pretty regular. Admittedly I don't like a lot of bass for band-mix reasons, but I'm more extreme than most folks because I guess my hands sound... fat?

Honestly I always assume anyone stating a blanket position that the player makes no difference just kinda sucks

prowla

Well - yes and no...

Of course fingers (ie. technique, muscle memory, etc.) do have a major contribution to "tone"; however...

• Curiously the tone controls on the instrument have an effect on the tone: play the bridge pickup with the tone on 10, switch to the neck pickup with the tone on 0 - the sounds coming out of the speaker will be quite different.
  
• Where you play has a significant influence on the tone - play a chord near the bridge and then near the neck.
• Play through a cranked-up valve amp and then a tranny one - do they sound the same?
• Play a Strat, a Les Paul, a 335, a classical guitar, a 12-string acoustic; they'll sound tonally different.

So, it's not an either/or question.

Perhaps you could say that two people playing the same instrument through the same gear, on the same settings would sound different, but extrapolating that to say therefore fingers totally define the "tone" is a fundamentally flawed assertion.

mrkb

As my fingers don’t touch the vibrating string (one end is on a metal fret, the string is excited by a plectrum) then it’s not the fingers.

it’s from three things-
1 the equipment - a cranked metal amp won’t allow a clean sound
2 how the player sets up the equipment - Ive noticed I set different amps up to sound similar ie to my sound
3 how the player plays the notes - how hard the string is hit, etc

flying_pie

Tone is 100% in the fingers.

Never mind phrasing, vibrato and picking dynamics and all that stuff, fingers also turn the dials on all the pedals and amps, operates the internet searches for gear, do the soldering of components and handles all the financial transactions 

Caffeine_Vampire

 Mine is in my feet.

I have great toe'n.

I'm leaving now.

Lestratcaster

Yes 100%. 

I'm a tutor and always get that comment from learners when I pick up their guitar "that it sounds so good when you play it".

How many versions of the Comfortably Numb solo have you seen that sound good but not quite the same as when Gilmour plays it? That's because we can't clone his hands and skin genetics unfortunately as only he can make it sound the way it does. Some people can get close, very close though.