Here is a rig rundown of Lindsey’s stuff.
It mentions a Renaissance Guitar. A quick Google turned up this listing on MF for an affordable version of what he is using in that live clip above:
ETA: puly - yeah, I assume they are separately-recorded tracks; I still don’t hear how the lead track is a non-standard tuning.
Oh, I don’t think the lead is necessarily in a non-standard tuning, just that one of the strings might be slightly detuned (which I guess can qualify it as “non-standard tuning,” but not in the way it usually refers to in guitar). I’m just guessing at that, because it almost sounds to me like it’s just one string that is a quarter tone or so flat. That is, it’s consistently a couple of notes that are off. Or maybe a badly intonated guitar or something. But the same effect can be done with plucking the strings while bent, so he absolutely can be doing something like that.
I used another program to slow the solo down to 5% speed so I could get a good listen to the pitches of every individual note.
Some things I noted:
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the lowest notes played in some bars are sharp. For example, the first four bars, the VIth (A), Vth (G), IIIrd (E) are sharp. This is consistent with these notes played on a lower out-of-tune string.
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the IInd (D) sounds okay in the upper register, but when it’s played later in the solo an octave below it’s sharp. If Lindsey Buckingham was intentionally using a different tuning system, these notes would not be a different pitch.
I also looked at some other youtube videos of him playing the solo and they all sound in tune.
So, in conclusion, I’m pretty confident that it’s not a deliberate attempt at using an alternative tuning system (which would, in itself, be pretty strange to use purely for the solo, while the rest of the song is using the equal temperament tuning system).
It’s possible he was aware the guitar was slightly out of tune, liked the sound for some reason and went with it, but I would not describe that as an intellectual process to implement an alternative tuning system.
So it looks like the out-of-tune string theory is pretty good so far (and I realize I meant the third, not the fourth, in one of my posts above, as the solo is fourth-less.) And it looks like it’s sharp, not flat–I was wondering about that, too. Good work.
Excellent analysis, and many thanks for the effort. It’s hard for me to imagine that a tuning nerd like him would accidentally record a studio track with an out-of-tune guitar, but it wouldn’t be my first failure of imagination.
It’s easy to go astray when tuning a guitar. With equal temperament, the only musically pure notes on a guitar are the open strings and the octaves (12th fret). All other frets will produce notes that are technically “out of tune” (as would other instruments like piano, electronic keyboard), from the most pleasant-sounding harmonies built on mathematical ratios (in the case of just intonation: 1/1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8, 2/1).
One method guitarists sometimes use to tune their guitar is to use (artificial) harmonics, by lightly damping the string at certain fret positions, such as 5th fret and 7th fret. However, if one does this, one is tuning to the just intonation tuning system rather than the equal temperament tuning system. The guitar will therefore be out of tune for music designed for equal temperament (i.e. most Western music).
The human voice is flexible in its control of pitch and can therefore adjust to harmonize with what it hears. Barbershop singers, for example, tend to sing in just intonation rather than equal temperament. This might also explain why “expressive” or “soulful” guitar solos tend to feature lots of bending of notes - not only is the sliding glissando a pleasant-sounding effect, it’s also allowing the musician to, by ear, find the sweet spots of the sound, which are built on mathematical ratios of small whole numbers.
There’s a more detailed and very readable summary of musical temperament and tuning the guitar here.
My digital piano actually comes with several alternative tunings (such as just intonation, Pythagorean, meantone, well-tempered), which I’ve not experimented with before. It’s very interesting to hear the effects when playing music. Music that changes chord a lot clearly suffers, but if sticking to a single chord and concentrating on melody it sounds better, which is pretty amazing.
So I should probably be saying thanks for your question. 