Tuning a guitar is one of the first things to aggravate new students of the instrument. When the guitar isn’t tuned and they go to play, it’ll sound discordant but they may not know why. When they do know why their chords sound wrong tuning it may still pose a good challenge. Frustration can be debilitating, especially at the novice stage. Here are some tips on how to keep your instrument sounding true.

The most obvious way is to buy a guitar tuner. Believe it or not, there was a time when tuners cost hundreds of dollars! Now they’re ultra small devices that can clip onto your guitar. These ones are good because they’re convenient, but they also work reliably since they’re physically attached to the neck, and thus pick up on the strings vibrations through the wood. They can be purchased for around twenty dollars. Unless you have perfect pitch they’re very useful for musicians of all levels.

Assuming you have a tuner you need to know the letter names of each string. Chromatic tuners work by reading the note that is being played. So if you play your E string and it sounds like a D you need to know that your tuner won’t tell you to tune your string up a tone. It’ll tell you that your string reads a “D”, and that as a “D” it is in tune. Guitar players sometimes put their strings in different tunings, so this function is very useful. But for a novice it’s essential to know what notes the strings need to be tuned at. For quick reference: 6th string= E, 5th string= A, 4th string= D, 3rd string= G, 2nd string=B, 1st string= E.

But you don’t need a tuner so long as you have a reference point. For many, pianos are keyboards are reliable since they take significantly longer to go out of tune. If you play an E on the piano you can safely adjust your E to sound like it. Once you have one string in tune there’s a methodical pattern to get the rest in line. If you play the fifth fret of the sixth string the note you’ll produce will be an A. This is what the fifth string should sound like when you play it open. Bo back and forth, playing the A on the sixth string and sounding your 5th string open until they sound identical. Do this on every string except for when it comes to tuning your 2nd string. For this, play the fourth fret of the string above it. This is the only exception. The B on the third string can be found on the fourth fret, which is what the second string needs to be tuned to when it’s played openly.

There are pitch pipes you can buy, and another method of tuning involves playing harmonics and adjusting the strings, but these are the simplest and most traditional ways of doing it. The importance of making sure your instrument is tuned properly every time you play it cannot be overstated! After a few times you’ll get the hang of it: like guitar itself, you just need to practice!

Author Bio: Trying to learn how to play electric guitars? Then consider taking professional guitar lessons from Long & McQuade – one of Canada’s biggest music stores offering a wide selection of musical instruments and music lessons all across the nation.

Category: Education
Keywords: music,instruments,guitars,Gibson,drums,shopping,store, online,shopping,recreation,hobbies,lessons