What's more important....Tone or technique?

Jay Ganz · From: Out Behind The Barn

I'm sure you've heard players that knock your socks off, but their tone is too thin, too harsh, or whatever.
Then again, some players stick to the basics but their tone in just amazing. Which is more important to you?

Mark Eaton · Posted 9 Nov 2007 7:53 am

Seems to me you have to have good technique before you start zeroing in on getting the best tone.
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Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

To be a competent steel guitarist, doesn't one HAVE to HAVE. a respectable measure of BOTH?

Is one an accomplished steel player if all he can do is play JEFF NEWMAN"S Speed Pickin' run that is so familiar to most everyone? The one, that is often played throughout each and every song for the entire evening.......with perfect technique..........

Or the one who has perfect TONE but is off fret about 1/2 way and doesn't know one chord position from the next.........

I always thought it was a natural blending of all those essential basic ingrediants, coming to together in a compatable form.....that some folks just don't seem to comprehend.

Oh well, what do I know?

Ben Jones · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

what if you have great technique and awesome tone, but what you choose to play is boring, emotionless, goes nowhere and says nothing? (there are many six string players that fall into this category for me)

I think content trumps technique and tone.

Ken Pippus · From: Langford, BC, Canada

My vote is for tone. Admittedly it takes good technique to get that tone, and if you're bad enough you can't play in tune, technique (or talent) is the rate limiting step.

KP

Cal Sharp · From: the farm in Kornfield Kounty, TN

Tone is essential, I think. Some of the prettiest things - musical passages that really grab you - you'll ever hear on a steel guitar don't require a whole lot of technique, just good tone. Buddy's intro to "Night Life", for example.

Yeah, I know a flurry of 64th notes can be impressive on a fast tune, and that's what a lot of fans want to hear, but try to imagine Buddy playing, say, "Raisin' the Dickens" with the tone of, oh, Jerry Garcia... Just wouldn't have the same effect.

A certain amount of technique is necessary to get a good tone, and if that doesn't come to you early in your playing career you might as well switch to banjo. But the requisite chops to render a believable version of "Highway 40 Blues" or "'I'm Married to a Waitress" might take a little more work, and if you never get to that point you can still get gigs if you have a good tone.

I see guys down on Broadway playing past their technique, trying to play stuff that they know in their head but can't quite get their fingers to do. Then they lose their tone, if they ever had one in the first place. Not good.

My tone is way better than my technique, and I've been working steady for over 30 years. Just my experience.
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Dave Van Allen · From: Doylestown, PA , US , Earth

If you equate technique with sheer velocity of notes then yeah tone.

If you equate technique with bar control, picking accuracy and placement,

then technique

which then produces good tone

although I agree with ben about content...

Jennings Ward · From: Edgewater, Florida, R.I.P.

YOU CAN'T HAVE
EITHER IF YOU HAVE "" LEAKY ELBOWS, ""
JW U PK;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Charley Wilder · From: Dover, New Hampshire, USA

What Ben said! I'll take imagination and "drive" with so-so tone and technique any day!

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

This is all a bit circular because good tone production requires technique, but I think Cal's right.

I remember reading a James Burton interview a very long time ago. His advice was, to paraphrase - first learn to get a good tone, and then focus more on other things. To me, good tone is the foundation of music. I'd rather listen to a player with a gorgeous sound playing something simple and slow than someone with a poor sound playing intricate 16th or 32nd note passages. Of course, "good" tone is in the ear of the beholder.

This was certainly the advice I got when I started playing blues guitar - this is SOP in that world. I also got the same concept drummed into me when I studied bowed upright bass. I would spend hours and hours just working with the bow on open strings until I could get a good, resonant tone. Then, my instructor would allow me to start working on the left hand, saying "If it sounds bad, it is bad."

Dave Robbins · From: Cottontown, Tnn. USA (deceased)

Dead on, Cal! Winking

Cal is a wise and experienced professional musician of many years. It would do most steel guitar players good to read Cal's posting through more than once and really digest what is he is saying.

Here's a question...Which will you sit very long for:
1. a player with great tone but improper technique,
or
2. a player with great technique but really lousy tone?

Dave
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Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Technique is getting a good sound or tone from your hands and your gear, it has nothing to do with speed. I can name players who play blistering scales, but their technique is pretty poor. Getting a good sound or tone requires that you have the right technique when playing, and the right technique when setting the amp. The amp is a key factor, and many players don't know how to adjust an amp to get a particular sound or tone. That's evidenced by the plethora of players that keep asking "How does so-and-so set their amp?" Your tone depends on both you and your amp. If either one isn't right, the whole "sound" goes out the window.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Hank Ruf · From: Little Elm, Texas USA

The question was what makes a better steeler, tone or technique. Technique is to steel guitar what a foundation is to a house. The house can't be any better than the foundation. You can add all the "pretties" you want to it but it doesn't make it any better. Some of the comments I've read, while perhaps true, were a little off the subject. That being said, I agree with what Ben Jones said. Having great technique and great tone but having no playing from the heart is boring and uninspiring.

T. C. Furlong · From: Lake County, Illinois, USA

I'd have to put two other "T"s ahead of technique and tone. They are Touch and Timing. A player with a beautiful touch who plays with impeccable musical timing is what I love. I also place tone right up there.
TC

Don Sulesky · From: Citrus County, FL, Orig. from MA & NH

I think tone is important but great technique keeps the music from sounding sloopy.
You can have great tone but if you can't attack the melody with the correct notes you have garbage.
Don

Barry Blackwood · Posted 10 Nov 2007 8:22 am

I'm with Bent R. on this one - both. I don't believe I know a player with great chops who gets a lousy tone. Neutral

richard burton · From: Britain

Tone is everything !!

There are some very competent, fantastically technical players on YouTube, that I can only listen to for a few seconds, as (in my opinion) their tone is absolutely horrible.

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

no tone without good technique. Tone is in the hands. Idea

JJ

James Morehead · From: Prague, Oklahoma, USA - R.I.P.

Good tone should inspire creativity, and you need technique to express that creativity. And as students, we should build upon both. Good technique will improve tone. Better tone will be more inspiring to you, and make you want to play better and improve your technique more yet. The reverse is very true, too, to me.

So, to me, they are both related and inseparable, like breathing. If you don't inhale, you won't need to worry about exhaling, or the reverse.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

What Johan said! Very Happy

richard burton · From: Britain

Bent,
What you say is quite correct, I think that I may have been a bit harsh with my comments.

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

I assumed that rudimentry technique was understood here. And so I assumed that technique refered to the development of extraordinary speed or the ability to use other special effects such as advanced harmonics techniques. Extraordinarily good tone can be an effect of technique. It can also be partly technique and partly equipment and/or equipment settings. So I went with tone. While I greatly admire the guys who are capable of the pyrotechnical feats of steel guitar flight, I don't think that is at all necessary to making excellent music. CONTENT is really the sine qua non of musical pleasure (assuming basic competence). And superior tone trumps superior technique every time. Assuming of course that technique does in fact refer to extraordinary speed and/or agility.
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Bob I. Williams · From: Sun City West, Arizona, USA

It's a definate maybe

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