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A few weeks ago I took my F5G to have some setup work done on it. The action was terribly high and I was having trouble with the A-strings not holding tune. The luthier thought maybe the nut was pinching one of the strings, but he said it looked fine and he said the keys looked fine. But I'm still having trouble with the A's. I can get them in tune and as soon as I start playing, one of them will go flat or somethimes go sharp. I can't figure it out. If it's not the nut or the key, what else could it be?
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I don't know if this will help you at all, but I used to have a bad habit of pulling on the A string, especially with my 2nd finger. I found myself having to constantly retune it. For some reason, I wasn't doing it to any of the other strings (?). I had to practice keeping my fingers as square as possible to the fingerboard.
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Sounds like binding in the nut slots and that's something that you can't always determine by just looking.
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Next time you are playing, take a look to see if you are resting your palm behind the bridge. If you are, check to see where. If it's on the A string, then Bingo!
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Thanks everybody. I'll be careful not to pull on the A's, pay attention to where I'm resting my hand, and if that don't work, I'll take it to get the nut checked again. Thanks again, your suggestions are very helpful! <><
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I've also been playing around with how many wraps around the tuning post when restringing. I've found that my mandolin stays in tune much longer with 1+1/2 to 2 wraps than 3+.
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I think too that an inherent problem with the A course is that they are thin strings that have a long distance between the nut and the tuning capstan. They seem to take longest to stretch in. For whatever reason, it seems like the A's and D's get the most complaints.
