Tuning Methods

This week, we will discuss some of the many different ways to tune your guitar. Getting your guitar in tune is one of the most important first steps to becoming a competent guitar player.

Many beginning guitar players find it very difficult to tune a guitar. The reality is that the technique or tools you use really depends on the ability of your ears to perceive differences in pitch between two separate notes, and the ability to recognize good intonation when you hear it and the difference when you don't.

If you are just starting out and don't know the difference between tones, I recommend using an electronic tuner to do the work for you.

Although it is very important to develop your ear to be able to tune manually, an electronic tuner is a very good tool to have, as it can often overcome noisy environments and is virtually fool proof.

Some people find the ability to judge pitch easier than others. If you are one of those that find it difficult, understand that your ability to judge pitch will improve, along with your technique, the more you play. You will eventually develop a musical "ear" and it is a skill which develops with experience.

The best approach to good tuning is to take your time and go slowly and calmly. Being tense or in a hurry will find it hard to recognize whether a particular string is sharp or flat.

Always try to tune UP to pitch, not DOWN to a pitch. What that means is that you should slacken the string slightly so that it goes slightly flat and then tighten it to bring it up into tune. This helps to keep it stable at the right pitch.

For many guitarists, string slippage is a big problem. It can be virtually prevented by ensuring that you use the right guitar strings that fit and "stretching" them properly, by hitting them fairly hard, bending them or pulling them away from the guitar to give them a chance to settle down before playing them.

If you use lighter gauge strings, the problem of going out of tune is exaggerated. This problem can be common if you subject your guitar to drastic temperature changes, from a cold room to a warm room, or vice-versa.

The methods to be described will allow you to tune your guitar to itself (relative tuning). In order to be tuned to standard concert pitch, you must have at least one accurate reference note (found by using a device such as an electronic tuner).

Tuning to Chords

Guitars typically sound perfectly in tune in one chord but slightly out of tune in others. It's part of their nature. It is due to the intervals between notes being fixed by frets. In order to minimize this, the positioning of the frets is designed to spread out across the fingerboard any inaccuracies in the intervals between notes. In effect, the guitar will sound correctly in tune in very key. This is called "tempered tuning."

Tuning to chords is a great way to check and, if needed, adjust the compromise of the tuning. Once you have the open strings in tune with one another, play a chord, sounding each individual note and listening clearly to the intervals between them. I usually use a progression of the G, C, D chords to ensure that they all sound right. If they don't determine which note(s) sound out of tune and adjust accordingly.

Tuning to Harmonics

"Harmonic" notes will be covered in another lesson. If you don't know what they are, skip this method for now.

Harmonic notes often have a purer sound than the open strings of fretted notes. This is because of the phenomenon called "beat tones." Beat tones are generated when two pitches are close but not quite the same. If one note is vibrating at 440 Hz (A) and the other one is slightly flat, at, for instance 436 Hz, you will be able to hear 4 beat tones or pulses per second when you play them together. As the out of tune note is brought to the tone of the original note, the beats will slow down, or even disappear as they become totally in tune.

The place on the fret board to check this is the 5th fret on the lower string vs the 7th fret on the next highest string. For Example, if you were tuning the 'E' string and the 'A' string, you would ring the 5th fret harmonic on the 'E' string and measure the tone against the 7th fret harmonic on the 'A' string. This is the same on all strings with the exception of between the 'G' and the 'B'. The 5th fret on the 'G' should ring the same as the 4th fret 'B'.

I hope you find this helpful in developing your ear to tune your guitar.

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Scales and Modes - A Brief Lesson in Theory

The earliest forms of scales have roots that go back to the ancient Greeks, named after their most important tribes - the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian. Each of them contained eight notes (from the root to the octave). These notes were the equivalent to the notes on the white keys of the piano keyboard, written in descending order.

The Dorian scale descended from E, the Phrygian from D, the Lydian from C, and the Mixolydian from B.

Musicians from the Christian Church adopted these scales in the Middle Ages. But for some reason, they decided to introduce various changes. First, they reversed the order, to make them ascending. Second, they changed the root notes. Third, they changed the term from "scale" to "mode." This made the formerly known Greek Dorian scale the Dorian Mode and made it from D to D, the Phrygian Mode went from E to E, Lydian Mode from F to F, and the Mixolydian Mode went from G to G. And the Greek Lydian scale, originally descending from C, now ascended from C and was renamed the Ionian Mode. Also, the Greek Mixolydian Scale, which descended from B, now ascended from B and was renamed the Locrian Mode. The scale that began on the A was called the Aeolian Mode.

This now meant that there were 7 modes - one for each of the white keys. We have already seen that the characteristic sound of any scale or series of notes is determined by its step-pattern of tone or semi-tone intervals. Since each mode has its own step-pattern, each mode has it's own sound.

In the Middle Ages, the modal system was the source of melody. By the 16th Century, the increasing complexities of "polyphony" (music which contains 2 or more harmonized melody lines) were leading to the breakdown of the modal system.

There was a new harmonic language being developed as the 17th Century began. The concept of "tonality" was expanded to include the key system (which is another lesson). All music had a "key signature" which identified the tonic (or first) note of the scale as the "key-center" or "home key." The intervals between notes were fixed by their distance from the tonic note or key center.

The heart of the key system was the concept of diatonic major and minor scales. A "diatonic" scale comprises the notes proper to the key. The diatonic major scale has the same pattern of tones and semi-tones as the medieval Ionian Mode (started on C), and the diatonic natural minor scale has the same pattern as the Aeolian Mode (which started on A). The resemblance, however, is one of structure, not usage.

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