First Happy Holidays everyone.
“Hears” my dilemma. I have a new set of ears from a state of the art set of hearing aids. I’ve been playing for three years and until 10 days ago I have not been hearing what I was doing. Not like I am today. It’s cool! But, now all I hear is string buzz and ringing. Not good when I am finger picking. “Hears” where I need your advice. What drills can I do to get a more precise position on strings to eliminate buzz and rattle? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Barry
Turn the hearing aids back off?
Just kidding! Are you sure that the hearing aids aren’t just over amplifying the bad sounds? They may be optimized for hearing voices and you may have a setting for music that is better.
The first thing I think of is to figure out if it is you or the guitar. Can anyone play it without buzzing? Can you fret notes and cords in isolation and properly such that they sound good?
If not maybe a good setup is what you need.
However if it is really you having learned habits, since you previously couldn’t hear the results, I think the only answer would be to slow down and find the positional errors and relearn them. I buzz when my pressure isn’t right, when my finger is not adequately placed, when spare fingers (usually the 3rd) hover too close to a vibrating string, or my finger placement is too close or rolls down to be too close to a vibrating string and probably a zillion other errors. I struggle with this all the time, so it is a process.
Good luck!
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I thought about your first solution. I recorded my playing and it ends up on the recording too. So, I suspect it is position and pressure. Thank you for the advise about slowing down and getting it right. I don’t aspire to perfection but would like the sound a little less cluttered.
Thank you.
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I got hearing aids a few years ago, and it took me more than 10 days to get used to them. For example, mine frequency shift the higher frequencies down to lower frequencies, and it sounded like distortion or string buzz at first.
I think getting someone else to play the guitar would be better than listening to a recording of yourself, because if it is the hearing aids, you would hear the same artifacts on the recording.