"Wild Strings"

Alan R. Barnard tune4u at earthlink.net
Thu Nov 23 09:10:26 MST 2006


Can you say "Wurlitzer", boys and girls.  I never met a post-war Wurly that had unisons sweet enough for me. Maybe they just sent the worst ones to Missouri. I call it the Wurlitzer Whine. Part of it is string and hammer seating/fixing, something's always phasing on higher partials and it seems the strings are often late bloomers, if you know what I mean.

Tuned an otherwise very nice one the other day, an SG 155. It had lived in an unheated basement for a few years and was almost a 1/2 step flat but as I was tuning I had a very satisfactory impression of the scale, balance of tone, and sweetness of most notes--when one string was sounding!

It was late in the day, ears tired, brain fading, and getting dark. Just as I started the unisons, the owner came in and said "Hey you need some light." He turned on an overhead light just behind me just as I started to tackle my last-pass fine tuning unisons. Aaaarrgh ... horrible. Then I noticed that the light had a very quiet ceiling fan attached and running. Aha! Turned it off. MUCH better .... but ... still a little of the Wurlitzer Whine.

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO
Joshua 24:15


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