Playing
Begins with Learning How to Tune
a Guitar
Guitar
Tuning Method
You've
spent a few years learning how to
read sheet music and now you are
ready to advance to a stringed
instrument.
To do so,
it is absolutely essential for
any aspiring pro guitarist or
future gospel star to learn how
to tune a guitar. One of the most
important prerequisites to
creating awesome, tolerable music
is making sure that you’re
playing in tune. Singing tips
abound and you can also find some
great tuning methods online with
a little searching.
Music is
called “music” for a
reason—calling it such
separates it from the uncivilized
species of noise, discordance,
and just about anything else you
can think of that punishes the
ears.
Give your
audience a break. Learn how to
tune a guitar. Using a tuner
(aptly named) is usually the
method of choice for getting the
instrument to produce the sound
it was meant to.
If Money
is Tight - Buy a Cheap Electronic
Tuner
Not having
hit the big time just yet,
you’ll probably find
yourself on a budget. A cheap
basic tuner will emit the correct
E, A, D, G, B and E pitches,
allowing you to adjust the pitch
of your guitar strings according
to an electronic
authority.
If
you’re more of a
perfectionist performer, you
might spring for a slightly more
sophisticated tuner with a needle
that detects how far from perfect
pitch you are. The idea is to get
the needle to point directly in
the middle: a needle straying
left indicates that you are
sounding flat, and a needle
hanging out on the right reads
sharp. Some fancier tuners will
combine both pitch emission and a
needle to ensure
accuracy.
The above
teaches you how to tune a guitar
through more conventional means.
Nowadays in the technological age
you can find tuners online, and
for free no less. But until
technology provides pre-tuned
cyberspace guitars at your
disposal, you’ll probably
have to figure out how to tune
your guitar through old-fashioned
real world techniques. That's how
real rock stars do it.
Traversing
the musical world or more
domestically, your own social
circle, you might be lucky enough
to encounter a fascinating and
rare oddity: the human pitch
pipe. The more technical term for
these individuals is “people
who have perfect/absolute
pitch.”
They are
blessed with the ability to
recognize and produce pitch
without external reference. When
learning how to tune a guitar,
perfect pitch people need only
concern themselves with the
physical mechanics of the guitar
because they’ve got the rest
of tuning covered.
The rest of
us mere musical mortals are left
to our own devices, but we have
the option of consulting an
expert. Perfect pitch people are
like tuners you can have human
interaction with, and most of
them are only too happy to help
the less fortunate; in doing so,
they synthesize an ego-boost and
a charitable deed into one. In
any case, when utilizing the
human pitch pipe, make sure to
pick one that has plenty of
patience and lung capacity.
Perfect
pitch is almost always the focus
of tuning, but there’s
somewhat of a cheat around it.
The most important aspect of
tuning is the relation of pitches
rather than the pitch itself. As
long all pitches are in tune with
each other, things will sound
fine. Basically, when everyone is
wrong to the same degree it
becomes right. This can produce
havoc with singing as the scales
will not be "standard". So, if
you plan to make the effort
anyway, you might as well try to
be right in the first place.
Whichever
route you take, remember that
tune is of the utmost important
and the key to making good music
that people can listen to and
appreciate. Practice makes
perfect no matter if you are
going to junior auditions or
applying for a major gig, tune
keeps your guitar tolerable and
sounding good.
More Musical Info about
Electric and Acoustic
Guitars
Getting
the Right Sound from a Cheap
Electric Guitar - If you're
on a tight budget and need to
buy
a cheap electric
guitar
for now, don't worry.
Easy
Method to Guitar Tuning - No
matter how well you play you must
first learn
how to tune a
guitar
for maximum effect. This tutorial
explains why.
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