Tuning an electric guitar should be done using a tuner. Consistently using an electric guitar tuner is one of the best practices that a beginning guitarist can follow. One way to understand the value of an electric guitar tuner is to look to professional guitarists. Most professional guitarists use an electric guitar tuner because they appreciate how important it is to be in tune and they understand that relying on an electric guitar tuner is the best way to get, and stay, in tune.
"Tuning" a guitar refers to the process of precisely adjusting each string to produce the correct note. In order to accomplish this, a "reference pitch" is necessary. A reference pitch is a correct note to which the guitar may be adjusted (either higher or lower) until it perfectly matches. The reference pitch may come from another instrument, such as a piano or another guitar, or a tuning device, such as a tuning fork or pitch pipe. Many electronic guitar tuners also feature a reference pitch emitter for tuning by ear. However, making accurate adjustments by ear can be challenging, and even frustrating, especially for beginning musicians.
That's where an electronic guitar tuner comes in. The main function of an electronic tuner is to automatically determine the pitch a string is producing and to visibly indicate whether that pitch is sharp (high), flat (low), or "in tune."
The acoustic guitar tuner uses a microphone to detect the sound emitted from the guitar and displays its readings by LED or on an LCD screen. The most basic tuner is programmed for the standard guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E), while chromatic tuners feature the flexibility of tuning to match any note on the 12 note scale.
It used to be that many people used the Boss TU-2 electric guitar tuner as their go-to tuner. There was a problem with the TU-2, however. It was only accurate to +/- 3 cents (a cent refers to 1/100 of the distance between consecutive notes). If you have a highly trained musical ear, you can hear a 3 cents difference. Making matters worse, when two guitarists play together, each guitarist usually has his or her own tuner. If they each had a TU-2 electric guitar tuner, the two guitars could be out of tune as much as 6 cents with respect to each other.
Many people, including myself, are fans of the late Davy Graham who was greatly travelled and used these influences in his guitar playing and writing. He is probably best known for DADGAD tuning which he used so he could play along with musicians in Morocco, even though it is essentially a Celtic tuning (the global power of music!). This in turn ended up influencing Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on songs such as Kashmir.
Despite the good accuracy, there were a couple problems with the Peterson strobe tuners, however. First, they were just downright expensive. Second, the quality of the product was not always high. There are a number of stories on the web where people have bought these tuners and they stopped working in relatively short order.
"Tuning" a guitar refers to the process of precisely adjusting each string to produce the correct note. In order to accomplish this, a "reference pitch" is necessary. A reference pitch is a correct note to which the guitar may be adjusted (either higher or lower) until it perfectly matches. The reference pitch may come from another instrument, such as a piano or another guitar, or a tuning device, such as a tuning fork or pitch pipe. Many electronic guitar tuners also feature a reference pitch emitter for tuning by ear. However, making accurate adjustments by ear can be challenging, and even frustrating, especially for beginning musicians.
That's where an electronic guitar tuner comes in. The main function of an electronic tuner is to automatically determine the pitch a string is producing and to visibly indicate whether that pitch is sharp (high), flat (low), or "in tune."
The acoustic guitar tuner uses a microphone to detect the sound emitted from the guitar and displays its readings by LED or on an LCD screen. The most basic tuner is programmed for the standard guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E), while chromatic tuners feature the flexibility of tuning to match any note on the 12 note scale.
It used to be that many people used the Boss TU-2 electric guitar tuner as their go-to tuner. There was a problem with the TU-2, however. It was only accurate to +/- 3 cents (a cent refers to 1/100 of the distance between consecutive notes). If you have a highly trained musical ear, you can hear a 3 cents difference. Making matters worse, when two guitarists play together, each guitarist usually has his or her own tuner. If they each had a TU-2 electric guitar tuner, the two guitars could be out of tune as much as 6 cents with respect to each other.
Many people, including myself, are fans of the late Davy Graham who was greatly travelled and used these influences in his guitar playing and writing. He is probably best known for DADGAD tuning which he used so he could play along with musicians in Morocco, even though it is essentially a Celtic tuning (the global power of music!). This in turn ended up influencing Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin on songs such as Kashmir.
Despite the good accuracy, there were a couple problems with the Peterson strobe tuners, however. First, they were just downright expensive. Second, the quality of the product was not always high. There are a number of stories on the web where people have bought these tuners and they stopped working in relatively short order.
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