Guitar Tips Part 2 - Guitar Tuning

Learning how to tune your guitar is an important skill to learn
if you want to become a guitar player. Having a guitar that is
in tune will make a massive difference to how good your playing
sounds. There are quite a few methods for tuning your guitar,
some that you will use more than others. Still, it is good to know
how to use all the methods that are available.

The most common way of tuning a guitar, is to itself. To do this
you tune all your strings from the bottom (thickest) string up to
the top string (thinnest). To do this you press down on the fifth
fret and try and tune the A string (second thickest) so that is
sound perfectly in tune with the bottom string with the fifth fret
pushed down.

Repeat this process to all the strings except for the B string (second
thinnest) which you press down on the forth fret on the G string
(third thinnest) to tune.



The electronic tuner is probably the easiest and most effective way
of tuning your guitar to correct pitch. With an electronic tuner you
can get a very accurate tuning because it actually measures the
sound wave frequency of your strings. Take your tuner and pluck
each string individually until each string is perfectly in tune.
Remember a guitar is tuned from top to bottom eBGDAE.

You can try tuning your guitar to another guitar. For this method
take the guitar that is in tune and try and tune each string on you
guitar so that you can hear that each string vibrates in tune with
the other.

Regardless of whether you set out to learn a few simple chords,
or if you just want to be the next biggest thing to grace the music
world. When you pick up an instrument you are going to have to
practice if you are to have any hope of getting better.

Try all these methods to tune your guitar to see which one works
best for you.

Tuning a 12 String

Even though it may look like a big challenge, ‘standard’ tuning a
12-string guitar is actually quite easy. For the bottom four strings
(four thickest) you will tune each pair of strings to the same note
but the thinner one will be tuned an octave higher. An octave is
two notes that are the same but at a different pitch. The top two
strings (two thinnest) have both strings tuned to the same not at
the same pitch so they sound exactly the same.

Sounds simple? In theory it is, however when strings are tuned in
octaves it is easy to hear slight mistunings. For this reason it is
important to tune your strings perfectly when you are tuning a
12-string. Also sometimes you may have a problem keeping some
of the strings in tune as the some of the smaller strings are tuned
quite tightly. For this reason I think it can be a good idea to get
the best quality strings you can when stringing up a 12-string.
Ask your local dealer about strings, hopefully they can help you
out.

Part 3 to follow.

In affiliation with Ben Edwards Of Jamorama

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