Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Conforming to Play Guitar better guitar

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You have your guitar. You want to play your guitar. But wait... first you must tune your guitar.

Some reasons for guitar tuning to play guitar better: 1) you have just bought it, 2) you have been playing with some big bends which may cause the tune to change, 3) a string breaks which causes stress on the remaining strings which may change their tune and 4) you are travelling with your guitar and changes in temperature, being bumped around may cause string to lose their tune.

There are several ways of guitar tuning to play guitar better; some of which are:


With an electronic tuner
With a piano
With a tuning fork or pitch pipe
From another guitar that you know is in tune
relative tuning
By harmonics
From an Internet source
From your phone.
Now to start tuning: No matter what method you use guitar tuning to play guitar better, ALWAYS; start below the note and tune up to the note. If you overshoot and go above the note come back below the note and slowly work back up to the note.

The reason: when you are loosening the string the nut that keeps the string from loosening when you are playing may not let go of the string immediately when you are tuning and let loose after to leave you with a slightly out-of-tune string. When you are tightening the string the nut has no effect because the string is under tension. This will ensure your guitar tuning to play guitar better.

The standard tune: For the standard tune the strings are tuned to the notes E A D G B E. A good way to remember this is:

Eddie

Ate

Dynamite

Good

Bye

Eddie

The first E is at the top of your guitar but is called the bottom string. It is the thickest string and is named string # 6. A is the next string. It is the second thickest and is called the 5th string. D is the 4th; G the 3rd; B the 2nd and the next E which is at the bottom of your guitar but called the top string or string #1. Usually when tuning we start with E the 5th string and work up to E the 1st string.

NB: Well known professional guitarist and guitar teacher strongly recommends that you tune strings in the following order: 3rd string, 4th string, 2nd string, 5th string, 1st string, and finally 6th string. By tuning in this pattern you eliminate stressing and twisting one side of the guitar neck as you do by starting with the 6th string and going down the line, one string after another. When you use the order of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 The neck gets twisted toward the side of the 6th string as you tune the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings and then straightens out as you tune the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings. This straightening will affect the tuning of the 6, 5, and 4th strings possibly causing you to have to touch up the tuning which adds time to the tuning. With the new sequence of 3rd string, 4th string, 2nd string, 5th string, 1st string, 6th string there is no twisting so you will finish tuning much faster. It needs to be noted that this pattern cannot be followed with all methods of tuning.

Electric Tuner: The best method and most accurate by far is with the electronic tuner. These can be purchased at prices from $10 to $50 and in analog form (with a moving needle) or digital. If you have an acoustic guitar be sure that the tuner has a microphone so that it picks up the sound of your guitar. If your guitar is electric you can plug your guitar directly into the tuner. Please note that many professionals feel that the tuner with the physical needle is more accurate that the digital tuners.

Starting below the G note on the 3rd string strum and slowly tighten the string. The needle will move toward the middle mark. The objective is to have the needle hover on top of the needle to exactly tune to the note. Some tuners will us LED lights; the light on the left indicating that the note is flat (below the note) and the light on the right indicating that the string is sharp (above the note). When both light are on you have tune the note. Some tuners will also tell you the note you have tuned. Repeat this procedure in the 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6 order until all strings are tuned. Check your tuning by strumming one of the chords.

Piano: If you have a piano you can use the keys of the piano and tune each guitar string to its corresponding piano key. This is, of course, only as accurate as your ear's ability to match the two. With practice you can become very accurate using a piano. This tuning method allows the 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6 order to be used.

Relative Tuning:With relative tuning you tune each of the strings from the previous string. You can tune your guitar completely by this method and it will sound good as long as you are by yourself. If there is another guitar playing with you, however, yours will not blend with the other guitar and thus the sound will not be good. To be more accurate with the relative method you must have a reference point from which to tune. The reference is usually for the "A" 5th string and can be done with one of the methods described below.


To do this we employ the 5 5 5 4 5 method. For each of the 6th, 5th and 4th strings we use the fifth fret. For example if we take the fifth fret of the 6th string we will get the "A" note. So if we play the 6th string from the fifth fret is should have the same tone as the 5th string played open (with no fret). Because we have tuned the 5th string from a reference source, if they don't sound the same not we must tune the 6th string, starting below and slowly tightening until they produce the same tone.

Next we take the fifth fret of the 5th string and strum producing a "D" note which is the same note as strumming the 4th string open (no fret). If they are not in tune we drop the 4th string below the note and slowly tighten it until it produces a "D" note.

We then strum the 4th string at the fifth fret and the 3rd string open which should produce a "G" note if the 3rd string is in tune. If not, take the 3rd string below the note and slowly tighten it until it equals the "G" note produced by the 4th.

For the 3rd string we must strum it at the fourth fret and the 2nd string open to produce a "B" note if the 2nd string is in tune. If it is not in tune, tune the 2nd string as the previous strings.

For the last step we strum the 2nd string at the fifth fret and the 1st string open to produce the "E" note and adjust as above if the 1st string is out of tune.
Finally check your tuning by strumming one of the cords.

Tuning by Harmonics: To Tune by the harmonic method; we lightly touch the two strings at the frets without pressing the strings down. We then pluck the two strings and release the frets immediately. We touch the fifth fret of the first string and the seventh fret of the second string. As an example, we use the fifth fret of string #6 and the seventh fret of string #5. If they are both in tune you will hear one melodic tone. If one string is out of tune you will hear a pulsing or oscillating of the note. If you trust the 6th string is in tune then adjust the 5th string until the pulsing goes away. We then repeat this for the other strings with the 2nd string (remember that this string was different in the relative tuning). To check the 2nd string pluck the 6th string with the seventh fret and the 2nd string with the twelfth fret. When finished check your tuning by strumming a cord.

Tuning by Harmonics and Electric Tuner: This method allows for the 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, 6 tuning sequence to be used and can speed up the tuning process because when using natural harmonics the string will carry the note for considerable time allowing more adjustment after the pluck. To tune with this method we are going to use the 12th fret for all 6 strings. At this position the harmonic note is the same as with the open string (no fret used). Starting with the 3rd string "G" we lightly place our finger on the string directly in the middle of the twelfth fret, pluck the string and take out finger away. The harmonic note of G will continue allowing us to work on adjusting the string. When the needle of the tuner hovers over the center mark the string is tuned and we can move on to the 4th string "D" repeating the same process at the twelfth fret. Carry on with each of the strings until completed. Test your tuning by strumming a few chords.

Tuning Fork or Pitch Pipe: A tuning fork of a pitch pipe can be purchased more cheaply than an electronic tuner. A tuning fork or pitch pipe for the note "A" has a frequency of 440 (vibrations per second.) The drawback here is that you must tune the 5th string, A, to the fork or pipe and then tune each of the other strings by ear in order from that one.

From Another Guitar: With this method you use a guitar that you know is in tune to tune your E, 5th string and then tune the rest of your strings by ear from that one.

IMPORTANT: If you are playing in a band or just jamming with friends this is the preferred method of tuning so that the guitars will sound their best together.

From an Internet Tuning Source: There are sources that, one at a time, give you the tones of each of the six strings. If you have a good set of speakers on your computer you should be able to do a respectable job of tuning your guitar.

Your Telephone: The dial tone from your phone is apparently at the pitch of A. In a pinch your dial tone can get you on the way to guitar tuning to play guitar better.








Will C Jensen operates The Blog "To Play Guitar" to give beginners and those well beyond a place to find answers; a place to give back by supplying answers for all questions Guitar.

You can find some of these answers at http://toplayguitar.willcjensen.com/guitar-tuning-to-play-guitar-better/

I hope you enjoy.


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