Lately I’ve been paying more attention to individual sounds that I hear in songs. I think it has mostly to do with the fact that I’m using a personal MP3 player with quality headphones for the first time in my life.
Anyway, in Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” we are all familiar with the opening guitar sequence. On some of the chords there is a sort of ‘twip’ sound at the end of the note. IOW, it seems as though the finish of the note is messed up.
I’ve noticed this on other songs’ quitar play as well but that’s the only one that comes to mind right now.
Is there a name for that and why do I hear it on some chords?
It’s called “string chirp”, and it is caused by letting your fingers drag on the wound strings just a little bit. It’s considered sloppy play by guitar teachers, but it’s acceptable–even desireable–in rock and roll sometimes.
The most egregious and annoying example I can think of is Cat Power’s “You are Free”, where the string chirp gets so out of hand it is, IMHO, unlistenable.
Mark Knopfler does the guitar work for Dire Straights there. It’s, if I recall, not ALL that difficult to play but I found it hellish to work out by ear because of the heavy distortion.
And I would guess that it was intentional in that song, since Mark Knopfler, an excellent guitarist, is probably quite capable of avoiding it if he wants to.
Buy a set of Elixirs and that gets rid of a lot of it. They’re covered with a thin layer of Goretex™ which clean up that noise. Personally, I prefer the noise. Especially when I’m trying to figure out how to play a song off of the recording to guitar.