Sunday, July 12, 2009

How To Tune An Acoustic Guitar

By Nico Davenport

You should be sure to do your acoustic guitar tuning each time you sit down to play, whether you are practicing or performing. Its pretty unpleasant to try to make beautiful music on an untuned guitar. Lots of guitar students think their inexperience is ruining the sound, not understanding the importance of doing their tuning regularly. You will be much more successful in your music making if you set aside that small amount of time it takes to tune your instrument properly.

For acoustic guitar tuning with an electronic tuner, sit down and place the tuner on either a stool or table next to your seat. Then pluck the first string. The tuner's microphone can sense which string is being tuned. You will know how close you are to the right pitch by the indicator on the tuner. It also indicates if you are sharp or flat. Utilize the tuning key to adjust the guitar string until it indicates that you are in tune.

Taking your strings from looser to tighter will tune your guitar, also called tuning down. If the string is too tight, you will need to get it in tune by loosening the strings slightly and then tightening it again until it is in tune. Tuning up will give you a more true tone than tuning down.

You'll need a way of getting the reference pitch even if you prefer to train yourself to do acoustic guitar tuning by ear. An already tuned second guitar, a piano, a tuning fork, and an in-tune MP3 will all work, but an electronic tuner is consistently more reliable. However, an excellent method for developing your ear is to attempt to tune the instrument by ear first and then check it out using the tuner.

Begin acoustic guitar tuning with the sixth string (low E), which should be tuned to match the reference pitch. After you've done that, the other strings must be tuned to that note. Simply work on them one by one. There's a scientific explanation for this procedure, but you don't have to learn it anymore than you have to learn to build an engine in order to drive an automobile.

Let's begin our acoustic guitar tuning:

1. After verifying the guitar is in tune, play it on the fifth fret. Use that as a basis to tune the open fifth string. 2. Using the fifth string as a guideline, play the fifth fret on that to tune your fourth string. 3. Use the fifth fret on the fourth string to tune the third. 4. Pay close attention here, because there's a bit of a change. The third string should be played using the fourth fret to tune the open second string. 5. Changing it up again- return to playing the fifth fret, only using the second string this time, to tune the first string.

If you're just starting out with acoustic guitar tuning, you may want to ask someone at the music store when you purchased your guitar to show you how to do acoustic guitar tuning the proper way. Then just keep practicing until you're comfortable with the process. It takes time and practice to learn to do acoustic guitar tuning, especially by ear. For the novice, the simplest way to perform acoustic guitar tuning is with the use of an electronic tuner. You can find one for around $20 and you will definitely get your moneys worth. An electronic tuner that is made specifically for tuning guitars has the ability to recognize which string is being played.

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