Does Anyone Feel Out of Tune When Playing Sunshine of Your Love?

You sure you're in the same key as the recording?

 

I doubt they had an electronic tuner handy or any guitar techs for that matter, especially if it was a live recording. They might have had a tuning fork or a questionable piano backstage to tune to. Someone asked Jack about his tone in those days and he said it wasn’t an overriding quest for a specific tone. Some nights my tone was just playing through a Marshall with all but one speaker blown.

 

Try playing with early Van Halen - they tuned to whatever Eddie was tuned to at that time - often half a half step or so flat. When they started using keys, that all went away.

What you're talking about is very common on older recordings.

 

A lot of old recordings are like this. You have to tune to the recording in order to play along, as they weren't always tuning to concert pitch of A=440. Sometimes it was dictated by the piano in the studio, sometimes it was just that one person tuned to their own A string and everyone else tuned to them. Doesn't mean you shouldn't use concert pitch when you play the song live.

 

Sometimes the tape was sped up or slowed down in order to hit the proper total time. This was usually done for AM radio.

 

Wait, "Sunshine Of Your Love" is in D?!?! Ruh-roh...

 

I’ve played Sunshine behind Jack and Pete Brown. It’s in D.

 

D MINOR. You sure you're playing it correctly?

 

"ALL RIGHT CLASS, LET'S REVIEW"....

 

It was standard practice in those days to tune to whatever keyboard was "in the room". Many songs from that era are "pitchy"

 

Or to fit everything on the album. That was common all the way back to the days of 10" 78's.

 

He's really digging in on a short scale and smearing the 3rd so it's major and minor at the same time, and having fun slopping it up.

 

And if that keyboard was a dusty old piano in the corner of the studio... Or an analog synth... Or if the guitars/bass were simply poorly tuned/intonated...

Many modern recordings have this "problem" too.

But it doesn't really matter as long as it sounds great. It's just a slight hassle to play along with. Often it's even part of the vibe to be out of tune. It's hard to imagine how Highway 61 Revisited would have sounded in perfect pitch. Probably not nearly as interesting. The obsession with perfect tuning/timing these days can totally suck the life out of music, at least for some genres.

Always tune by ear when playing along to older recordings (and some newer ones too!). And accept that even then things may sound out of tune by modern standards.

 

One of the many joys of fretless

 

I bought a cassette deck and a CD player with pitch controls to solve it. Tuning on a lot of the music I was playing was all over the place.

 

The last band I subbed for play rockabilly/early rock(Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Eddie Cochran, etc.), so i use a fretless to play along with the recordings as the tuning is always all over the place. Practice was always a huge pain because of having to use ancient recordings as reference. Im a pretty weak fretless player but this helped me “play to the song” and stay in tune more (on my fretless jazz)

 

Another issue; when songs were recorded and mastered on tape if they wanted to speed it up or slow it down a little to make it sound better it effected the tuning. Not an issue with digital but with tape it could it had a big impact. It’s quite annoying when you’re playing along at home!

 

When I try to learn Stones' tunes from the original recordings I struggle as a) the bass is low in the mix and b) the tuning is all over the place. I try to find live recordings from recent years and they are much, much better.