Better Guitar Tone, Without Buying More Gear

This was a major turning point for me in terms of not only better tone, but simply better playing. We are told from day one of playing guitar that we need to press on the string as close to the fret as possible without touching the fret, but that was about it, in my experience.

This is of course true, but there is more to it than that. Ensuring we only need as much pressure to create a good sounding note and nothing more is essential. Any more than that, and all we are doing is wasting valuable energy than can be used to play more efficiently, and also, can push the note out of tune. That’s the last thing we want.

Whereabouts on your finger tip that we should be playing was something that my first guitar teacher never really discussed until we got into more advanced techniques such as bending (more on that later), whereas we really should have covered it from day one.

When playing open and barre chords, finger placement is key, ensuring that no part of our finger is muting any string that needs to be audible. When playing power chords, octaves, or single note lines; aim to do the opposite: be sure to mute any unwanted strings with any bit of available finger flesh. If it’s a higher string, aim to mute using the underside of the fretting fingers.

If it’s a lower string, I aim to mute using the very fingertip of my fretting finger. If I’m playing on the treble strings leaving the bass strings exposed, my picking hand acts as a mute, almost like I’m palm muting the lower strings to ensure 100% loss of string noise and muting of unwanted strings. This was a big game changer for me, and something I work hard with my students to ensure they get the best tone possible, regardless of their gear budget.

One thing I really struggled with while I was developing as a guitarist was pick angle. It seemed that having a slanted pick helped with speed and precision, but my tone would be warmer with less high end attack the flatter I held it, something I discovered after dabbling with country picking techniques. It’s all about finding the balance between speed and tone. Obviously both are possible.

Now, I pick almost flat, but I practise more to make up for speed lost, hopefully, getting the best of both concepts.

After watching a lot of my heroes in all style of music discard the pick completely at times, I started experimenting. As anyone will tell you who plays both with a pick and finger style, the tonal difference can be staggering.

Each finger has its own angle, attack, dynamic, and unique tone; ending nicely to a wide tonal palette that will allow you to express yourself musically in a way that you may not have heard before. It can be strange at first, considering many techniques that may be second nature to you will now be limited, e.g. alternate & sweep picking, but through limitation not only do we discover more tonal variety, but you may surprise yourself with how creative you can be.

Whether you use a pick, fingers, or both; experimenting with how hard or soft you attack the string, and therefore how loud or quietly you can play, will have huge knock on effects on your tonal. Try this: play something you feel 100% confident playing, whether it be a riff, melody, solo, or chordal strumming, but try it using different dynamics.

Try playing it all quietly, loud, somewhere in the middle; if if you fancy, do all of them during the same excerpt of music. You will be surprised at how much of a difference it will make to your tone and your musicality.

I was at a guitar show a long time ago when I really first started pursuing a career in music, before heading to music school when I was 18. I was obsessed with sounding ‘professional’ in order to get gigs, be seen, and get my name out there. Tone and playing well was everything, my sole focus in sounding like a real guitar player who could make a career for themselves.

At the guitar show was replica setups of famous guitar players’ guitar rigs, and anyone was welcome to play through them. Being a huge Queen fan, I couldn’t turn down my chance to play through a replica of Brian May’s rig: a Red Special through Roger Mayer treble booster into 9 Vox AC30s. Something miraculous happened.

To my disappointment, I sounded like me. Warts and all, even exposing all the unwanted string noise I never even knew I had. That was a huge tuning point for me, as I realised that even if I owned the exact equipment they used in the same way, I still wouldn’t sound like them. I still wouldn’t have their touch, feel, pick attack, and dynamic command. You can imagine how bad I sounded through Korn’s 7 string Ibanez and Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier rig...so much string noise!