I'm going to give you a fast flyover lesson on tuning a guitar.
There are several ways to get this done.
Some instructors will tell you to go sit down at a piano, find middle C on the piano, go up two notes to the middle E
and that happens to be what your E string is on a guitar on standard tuning.
If you're familiar with a piano keyboard, middle C, go up two white keys, to middle E and that's this note.
The E that we learned earlier.
Then by counting down on a piano you can tune to your B, G, D, A and then your bottom E again in that order.
So the guitar is right at and just below the middle range of a typical piano.
What I'm going to advocate is that you get a tuner.
Once you've got one string in tune you can tune strings relative to each other. Some people call it the fifth fret tuning system.
I can show you that briefly and that is right here is your fifth fret.
If you push on your fifth fret on the sixth string it should be the same pitch as the string underneath it.
Fifth fret here is the same as the one under it work them in pairs except for this one you've got to drop down to four one time.
That works and that's ok it will get the job done.
However, I really want to encourage you to go down to the guitar store and spend thirty extra dollars and get yourself an electronic tuner.
This one that I have here is a little bit more expensive than thirty dollars this is a fifty dollar version because it has a backlighting on it.
When I'm tuning onstage and I don't have any control over the lighting and I may need to tune in the dark I can get it done with the backlighting.
This same exact tuner without the light is only thirty dollars.
What it does is it clamps on to the head of your guitar or really any stringed instrument.
A mandolin, a violin, anything you need to tune and you just start playing the notes one at a time
and what it does is, let me tilt this up so you can see it, it gives you a visual indicator of when you're in tune.
So let's take a look at my little E string here and what you'll see is a number of arrows on one side it's not quite the same as the other.
I think there are three on the left and two on the right if I'm seeing that right.
It means I'm a little bit low or flat.
We call that flat when you are under pitch and sharp when you are over pitch.
So what I can do is barely ease up there until I get more of that three.
One note about electronic tuners when you're not trying to show somebody else have it around here where you can see it and try to mute
the other strings as much as possible so that the only one that's ringing is the one you are trying to tune.
Some digital tuners are confused by having more than one string ringing at the same time
and you will save yourself a bunch of headache by making sure you are only ringing one string at a time.
Another trick with using these kinds of tuners is when you're playing in a live band environment or a noisy environment you may need to turn away
from the band, turn away from the noise and get your sound hole away from the stuff that's going on.
You want to get as pure of a signal from that string to your tuner and it will just work better that way.
The last thing I want you to keep in mind about tuning strings is if you saw my lesson about stringing a guitar you're aware that we pull these strings
across the guitar, we anchor them and then we start stretching them and that's fine.
Ideally you want to start playing your guitar when the stretch is mostly gone from them.
However, since they have such pressure right here on the nut and on the bridge if you have a string that's wound really tight you're too
sharp and you try to back that string off what can happen is that it will just ever so slightly hang and be reluctant to slide back through there.
You are basically un-stretching a rubber band when you do that.
The string for a lot of reasons is less stable that way.
The better way is to approach a note is to come underneath it and tune up to the pitch.
If you overshoot and go high by very much and then you're starting to back down off of onto the note
that is when you can start to have a lot of tuning problems.
So if you miss it and you go too sharp and your tuning says you went too sharp back all the way back under the note and come up again
and do it a little slower so that you don't miss it you will be a lot happier
and a lot more stable with your tuning if you tighten up to the pitch rather than come back down to it.
One more time I am going to run through my notes and you can tune your guitar to my guitar and we'll do the rest of this lesson together.
Let's begin with the E string, the first string. Get that pitch and as best as you can make yours sound just like that.
Now we'll go on to the second or B string if you missed it and you get behind me
don't worry about it you can stop the video and rewind a little bit and redo this section so we can keep on moving.
Here's the B string, the second string.
That's the B string.
Now we'll move to the G string.
Here's a little note about the G string by the way.
For reasons that border on rocket science the G string is not always at perfect pitch when it sounds right
and if anything at all, if you allow any variation on the G string you want it to just be ever so slightly flat from the rest of your tuning.
What I typically do and this has worked on every guitar I've ever done it on.
For example this tuner you remember I had three arrows on either side of center pitch this is the one time where I'll allow the G string to sit with one
of those arrows missing it's just the slightest amount of being flat I can possibly make.
If you have trouble figuring that out or it doesn't make sense to you don't worry about it right now
but it's really true the G string is a funny critter and just ever so slightly flat open on most guitars is a good idea.
If you've got the G string let's go to the fourth string or the D.
Now the fifth string the A.
Now the last one the big E on the bottom.
Chances are pretty good that as you're changing the tension on the neck depending on the conditions of your strings and depending on your guitar
if you've had to move any strings for example down low a lot now you'll need to go and recheck the top ones.
It needs to all settle in together.
Don't be surprised or frustrated if it takes you a couple trips through these strings to get them all right and get them all together.
So if you need to stop now and rewind the video to go back through these again with me do that and I'll wait for you.