When hearing recordings of acoustic guitar music I always wondered about the squeaky/whiney sound the strings make when changing notes/fingerings.

How much of it (if any of it)is intentional? Is the more you hear of it the "sloppier" the playing? I suppose it is impossible to eliminate it entirely.

a lot of it is the physics of the strings themselves, either nylon or steel and the acoustics of the instrument itself.

Granted, some players have a heavier touch than others. As with anything, some are just better at it.

In most cases, squeaky strings are not avoidable and part of how that instrument is played.

Just my opinion, as a guitarhead.

hey Steve....
Well, most of it would be just nature of the beast.
The better the player, the less the string squeak, in general. But even greats like Russ and Julio Fernadez still have it occasionally, it's nearly impossible to eliminate.
It occurs when your fingers don't completely leave the strings when changing hand positions; (muting)... if they did, however, you'd get a worse sound at times, ringing unplayed strings...the faster the passage, the more likely it is to occur, since the player is keeping the fingers as close to the fretboard as possible.
There's even a few products on the market to help reduce it, like FingerEase, a spray that lubricates and cleans the strings. I use it on my bass most of the time....in fact, I'm out and need to get some more....Also, the type of string makes a difference; Elixirs have a gortex coating on them that helps eliminate it a bit more, but they cost 2 or 3 times what normal strings do. On my bass, roundwounds squeak more than flatwounds (round wounds use round wire outer wrapping, flatwounds use, well, flat wire) but the flatwounds I used last would burr up after a couple months, and that's painful to get a metal splinter in your finger. Flats also sound duller.

I think you notice it less on electric guitar, primarily due to the "action" (height of the string off the fretboard) usually being set lower so the player can go faster; most acoustics require more finger downforce. Plus most electrics use lighter guage strings, smaller diameter, less contact surface with the fingertip.

Now, I will say the best and quietest acoustic guitar I've ever heard, is a Taylor. My band buddy Harry plays one, and it's pure as spring water, gorgeous tone, excellent playability- of course it was 3 grand too.

Hope that helps answer your question...some people find the minor squeaks to be required and perfectly normal, it shows the human touch. Generally I don't notice it too much, unless it's my own playing, then it's highly annoying.

Later
Tonyy

Hey, thanks, that helps. It seems quite prevalent on Pat Metheny's "One Quiet Night" I've been spinning. Knowing it was Pat, I couldn't think it was due to bad/sloppy playing

He plays a "Nashville" tuned baritone guitar (guitar tip #164 ). Must be a real bugger to play.

http://www.guitartips.addr.com/tip164.html

Marcus, I have to respectfully disagree with your statement that the squeak "is no indicator for good or bad playing". That's not always the case.

If that was true, why do studio engineers bring in highly skilled "ghost" players like Steve Bailey on bass for example, to redo overly noisy passages on recordings? Apparently it happens enough for Bailey to have made a very good living at it, and he's certainly not the only one who does it. I'm sure there's others that do lead guitar re-recordings too, and I know for a fact there's ghost drummers. The need for that sort of thing would obviously be less necessary in jazz or cjazz, or other styles where musicianship standards are higher than the average pop band.

A lot of the squeaking in some recordings IS from poor technique, but with someone like Metheny, or Carlton or Freeman, or Rittenour, I think it's far more about the speed and complexity of the passages, and some of the almost inhuman fingerings and hand positions they can pull off. Plus the fact that during improv and with the creative juices flowing, the hands may not respond as perfectly as the brain can command them to do.

I'd think all really good players and most great players would have a hard time playing the same licks without some string noise, especially if they were "making it up" on the spot.

Anyway- like I said before, in the case of the greats like those, it's an unusual and minor thing, and some people do find it adds the human factor to the music- there will always be artifacts of the interaction between human and instrument on a recording session, and I think it adds to it rather than detracts. Keeps it sounding real.

Like Kat said, it's also a matter of physics; string type and material, guitar setup, microphone position, pickup type and settings, tone control settings, etc etc.

With brand new strings on my bass, at practice last night, I squeaked a few times on the first song; one fast spray with Fingerease between songs and a rag wipe-down, and from there on it was clean as could be. Well, as least at my skill level .... So, physics were on my side; a little lubrication works wonders, and helps cover my lack of technique perfection. SO does a really LOUD horn section

sheesh, enough said, sorry...

Hey Steve, great link- I may have to try an alternate tuning or two on my old acoustic, just for fun.

TonyY

A while back, we had a discussion over the "beeps" and "sonic anomaly" reported on one of the Ripps CDs.

http://www.magicisland.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001210#000014

Well, we learned in a later post that it was Russ's finger on the strings.

Kat, had forgotten all about that discussion, good call. Nick came thru for us there, eh?

Yes, Nick sure did answer that one.....always an original...

no problem, Markus.
I can't imagine too many duets I'd want to hear, that were squeaky...
Shakira would be right near the bottom of my list anyway...nice voice, just do not like her music. I'm sure she's great in her style...haven't heard enough of it to know, and what I have heard was trash mouth lyrics.

On a side note, I actually heard something amazing this weekend...we normally do our Easter concert on the weekend before, which was this past Sat and Sun nights. Well, lots of times we'll hire in some "ringers" to fill in the empty chairs in the orchestra, if we don't have anyone in-house that can do it. This year, we had a couple extra trombonists that were excellent, an extra trumpet (gave us two, one of our regulars was out) a great oboist and an excellent flautist.
We even had a harp, three violins, a cello, a clarinet and of course drums bass and piano and acoustic guitar. Basically a crowded stage
Anyway- the amazing player was on the french horn; if you're familiar with it, it's always the section of the high school band that causes the most headaches and piercing pain in the ears, since so very few folks seem able to play it. The guy we had was just unbelievable. To be honest, I don't know his full name (Dave something...) but he's a member of the regional symphony here.
It's a beautiful thing to hear it played properly.

The harp has always fascinated me. When I was younger, I was performed in a Gian Carlo Menotti piece (The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore) which called for a harp.

The concert harp had 7 little foot pedals, one for each note of a scale before the next octave repeats.

I learned that the tuning for the harp starts about 3 octaves below middle C up to a G over 3 octaves higher (never asked why).

when the pedal is in the "up" position, the note is flatted. In the middle, it's a natural, and in the "down" position, it's sharpened.

The mechanics of that, plus the foot pedal movements and the plucking of the strings seemed very complex. The sound from the harp was just extraordinary.

Kat-
Yeah, I'm amazed at this family...there's the older brother, who is going to the Governor's School of the Arts. He plays flute 8 hours a day; also is a very good alto sax player, but flute is his forte. I'll email you one of his songs, he's a member of a chamber quartet that's phenomenal.
Then there's three sisters. All three play harp, two play violin also. One of the girls won the state championship for harp playing.
Of course the Mom plays keyboards and the Dad sings.

One thing I noticed upon closer examination was the harp has color coded strings; so you know where the octaves are. I'd always wondered what they use for point of reference, like guitar frets.

Anyway- it's an amazingly beautiful instrument, especially when played by an artist, like this young lady is- you can tell it's her passion.

Most of the string squeaks are on wound strings and can be hard to avoid. The cleaner you play the harder you work. If a squeak is intentional, most of the time, you will know it. I do speak from experiance. I've been playing for 23 years.