2312 Judson Road Longview, TX 75605
(903) 758-8872 fax (903) 753-8220
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2312 Judson Road Longview, TX 75605 (903) 758-8872 fax (903) 753-8220
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Guitar Lesson 2 12-99 Most of you should have a good practice foundation utilizing the theories, techniques, and tips outlined in lesson 1. Be sure to carry them with you and make use of them throughout your practicing so that you will improve in much shorter time sequences. That being said, there is one other fundamental that you must master at the start in order to practice effectively. That is what we will address this time. TUNING............ Tuning your instrument is more important than you may realize. Playing an instrument "out of tune" doesn’t just drive everyone around you insane!, it actually harms your progress in several ways. First of all, if you are trying to figure out keys to songs or songs themselves, you either will never find it because you are somewhere "in-between" the actual key, and a semi-tone, in either direction. Or, you will find it in the incorrect key. Believe it or not, some licks and songs are played in a particular key because they are almost impossible to pull off in any other key. If you aren’t experienced enough to know or hear this, if you are tuned incorrectly, you may very well become discouraged with this process because the licks will seem so terribly difficult, when in reality, they are probably quite easy. And last, but not least, not taking the care to tune correctly, you are training your ear incorrectly. Your music ear is learning to recognize tones and sounds and identify them with positions on your instrument. If you continually give it "false" or differing information, you will have a very difficult time cultivating that "ear". So for goodness sake....tune your instrument! Every time you play it! Methods of tuning vary. The easiest of course ( and most accurate ) is an electronic tuner which can be purchased at the music store. Next you have an array of things from a pitch pipe to a CD or cassette tape with the correct tones on it for you to compare to your instruments tuning. And last, you can do it the old-fashioned way...by ear. Probably the most difficult and least accurate. Simply because our hearing changes as we grow and as you will find out when we learn to figure out songs, certain times of the day our ears are "more accurate" than others. I of course would recommend that no matter what method you choose, that eventually you purchase an electronic tuner to make sure you are correct. And use the other methods perhaps only as a supplement to that. But for now we will assume that you are going to tune by ear. So here goes!!!! The most common way to tune your guitar by ear is 1. Determine a pitch for the low E string. You can use a piano, or another guitar, or any instrument or pitch source that will give you an E note. 2. To tune the 5th, or A string, press the low E or 6th string at the 5th fret. This will give you an A note that will correspond to the open A string. Adjust the open A until it sounds like the E string fretted at the 5th fret. 3 To tune the 4th, or D string, press the A string you just tuned at the 5th fret, and adjust the open D string to sound like it.
4 To tune the 3rd, or G string, press the D string at the 5th fret and adjust the open G string to sound like it. 5 To tune the 2nd, or B string, press the G string at the 4th...yes 4th fret and adjust the open B to sound like it. 6 And finally to tune the 1st or high E string, press the B string at the 5th fret and adjust the open E to sound like it. All of this takes place at the 5th fret....with the exception of tuning the 2nd string, or B string. That takes place at the 4th fret...simply due to the nature of the way the guitar is set up for tuning in the first place. As you can see, anywhere along the way, if you make an error, all of the strings tuned after that will be in error also. There are other ways of checking that you are in tune with the use of HARMONICS and various other string combinations up the neck. They are too detailed for me to go into here, but by using all of them with one another, a fairly accurate tuning of your instrument can be obtained. Some things to watch for. If your guitar is in tune in the first 3 frets let’s say, but seems to be out of tune if you play up the neck, you need to have your instrument adjusted. Your intonation, is out of adjustment. That can be remedied by adjustments at the bridge saddle. Changing gauges of strings, can also cause that. Also if the "action" ( the distance the string is from the fretboard) is too high, that may cause a tuning nightmare also. Because to depress the string to the fretboard, it has to travel too far which actually bends the string out of tune by the time it is heard. Usually that can be adjusted as well. Although adjustments like these can be performed by yourself with the right knowledge and tools, I would highly recommend that you take it to a music store to have it done. I have set up and adjusted my own guitars to suit my playing earlier in my career, but for the last 15 yrs, I leave it to the experts! I just tell them what I want and need and let them do their magic! I would strongly suggest the same for you. One final note...too many windings of string on the tuning pegs can cause your guitar to go in and out of tune more than it should. The string can roll or slip against another winding. There should be between two and 3 and not more than 4 wraps around the peg with the excess string cut off. That will provide optimal holding of the string with no possibility of rolling. Next time....Scale theory...where everything you need to know comes from! Until then. Robert.
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