# I didn't know....



## murdude (Jun 3, 2017)

While playing my relatively new mim tele', I noticed that in picking a particular song that had an arpeggio D chord at the end of a phrase..it was out of tune. So, I tuned and tried it again. Still out of tune. I tuned it again. And again and again using different digital and anolog tuners, and all agreed that the guitar was in tune on the open strings and at the 12th fret harmonics.

I looked at other sources of the problem. Strings were less than a week old, but they had been stretched and played. I checked to see if the tuning keys screws were loose. All seemed fine. But, although the tuners and my ear, said it was in tune on open strings, sometimes when I played a chord that had a full octave, such as a first position C, the two C's were not in tune with each other. If I made it in tune...the open string was out.

In my quest to find a reason for this, I happened upon this in an article about tuning, _"Sometimes bad tuning is caused simply by pressing a string too hard and causing it to go sharp, especially if you are playing electric or with light guage strings."_ My reaction was "Yeah...right!"..but I'll try it.
I started playing the chords with less pressure and only as hard as I needed. Sure enough. The chord was in tune

I have played for many, many, years, although not with a tele', but I had never heard of this. Has anyone else had kind of experience, or is it just me that needs to learn things that I somehow missed.


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## blueshores_guy (Apr 8, 2007)

Well, it's not just you.
The D major chord played near the nut, using only the top 4 strings, seems especially susceptible to that issue, even more so with light strings.
Always good to learn new stuff.


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## BGood (Feb 20, 2015)

Yep, it's either that or your nut is cut to high. It's a good thing for you though, you see that after a while, it gets easier to play like that. I can't imagine Steve Vai pressing too hard on his strings.


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