Tone is in your fingers (not)

 We've all seen this adage - "tone is in the fingers". It is used to explain the difference in sound between different guitar players. The corollary is that bad tone is caused by bad fingers. I disagree with both of these premises. 

In systems design, there are two basic choices - run open loop, or closed loop. An open loop, or no-feedback system the system alters some input signal, but does not monitor the output. Some tube amplifiers operate this way, and can be perfectly fine until someone applies a different load, then suddenly the amplifier behaves differently. 

Your bathroom shower is an open-loop system. Your water heater heats the water, but the temperature of the shower is a mix between hot and cold. You set it manually, If nothing changes, you'll have a great shower. If someone flushes a toilet, you might be suddenly burned by the hot water because the cold water feed has been diverted to the toilet. Someone turns on the hot water in the sink, and you might freeze. The shower is unable to make any adjustments to the water temperature without some kind of manual intervention. That's an open-loop system.

A closed-loop system on the other hand takes some of the output signal and feeds it back to the input, where it is compared, if you will, to a reference, and the output is adjusted accordingly. The cruise control in your car is a closed-loop system. A power supply is also a closed-loop system where the output is fed back to the input, compared to a reference, and the output is adjusted to maintain a stable supply voltage, regardless of the load (up to a point of course).

Solid-state, and many tube, amplifiers have feedback in order to set a stable gain regardless of load (as long as it's in its safe operating area) and frequency. 

So, what kind of system do we have when playing guitar? It's really a closed-loop system because the key element is YOUR EARS! You listen to the sound that your fingers, guitar, effects, and amp makes, and you make subtle changes in your playing and your settings to achieve the tone you want. It's all about LISTENING and responding to FEEDBACK.

If you're not getting the tone you want, the problem isn't in your fingers, it's in your ears. Listen, make adjustments and listen again - critically. Once your feedback path is working optimally you'll start to get the tone you want. 

Tone is in your ears.