Tuning a Guitar - The Definitive Guide

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Iain_James]Iain James

Everyone likes to think that they can tune a guitar perfectly by ear every time. Very, very few can. The guitar is never ever 100% in tune anyway. It's to do with Pythagorean tuning and Tempered tuning, and... now's not the time. We can, however, improve our tuning.


I know tons of players who just give the guitar a rudimentary tune, and don't even bother to get it up to pitch. Just as long as the strings are roughly in tune with each oher, they don't seem to mind.


The easiest way is, of course to use a tuner. An electronic tuner is good, or try an online tuner.


So which gives the best results? An electronic tuner, where it's all visual, or an online one, where you can hear the note that you're tuning to? It's hard to say really, and a lot depends on the individual player using it. One thing thats for certain though, is this: when you use a tuner like the one above, you're using your ears!! I can't believe that staring at the flickering gauge on an electronic tuner does anything to benefit your musicality.


But what about stage tuning? At a gig? I don't know, but if you go to hear an orchestra, someone usually gives our a 'C' and everyone else tunes to it. I remember seeing the CBSO orchestra rehearse once. Sir Simon Rattle asked one of the Clarinets for a 'C'. The clarinetist had a really wide vibrato. When he'd finished the note, Sir Simon said 'Gentlemen, take your pick..'


What Not To Do


The most common mistake I see when watching people tune is this: tuning the 'A' string to the 'E', then tuning the 'D' string to the 'A'. This is terrible!! What happens here is that minor mistakes in tuning are passed on and amplified. By the time you get to tune the low 'E', it's so far away from the high 'E' as to be ridiculous.You've heard of 'Chinese Whispers'...


Here's My Method.


First of all, take a look at this 'tab' of the guitar neck. Just to clarify, when we say 'top', we mean the thinest string. farthest away from you s you hold the guitar in the playing position. Ergo 'lowest' is the thickest string, closest to you. Looks like this:

E------- THINNEST STRING -------

B--------------------------------------

G--------------------------------------

D--------------------------------------

A--------------------------------------

E------- THICKEST STRING -------

Find a point of referance. By that, i mean one note that you can tune to. Like what? Well, my doorbell is C sharp. (Telephones used to ring at C sharp too. It's considered an 'annoying' note thats hard to ignore). Maybe you have something on your mobile phone you can tune your high 'E' to. If you can't find anything, just guess. Here's the method:


1. Get the top 'E' to pitch.


2. Fret the 'B' string at the 5th fret, and tune it to the open 'E'.


3. Fret the high 'E' at the third fret, and tune the 'G' string to this.


4. On the 'D' string, play the note at the 2nd fret, and tune to the open 'E'.


5. On the 'A' string, play the note at the 7th fret*, and tune this to the open 'E'.


6. On the low 'E' string, play the harmonic at the 12th fret, and tune this to the high 'E'.


*(Carefull here: don't use the 7th fret harmonic: The harmonic at the 7th is a Pythagorean 5th, whereas the note at the 7th is an equal tempered 5th. Use the harmonic, and you'll be practically guaranteed to put the guitar out of tune.)


So, you can see what's going on here. Each individual string is being tunes to the high 'E', so that any imperfections aren't being passed from string to string. It works!


Iain James. february, 2007

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