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There's another way to tune a guitar which involves tuning it to itself.
And this way is more of a string matching way.
If you are going to play with other instruments,
it's a good idea to get the first note from one of the other instruments like if
you have a piano in the room.
You can say, okay have the piano play a note.
Say the lowest note, say an e, and you can match your first note and then
you're going to match that note to all the other strings, using certain frets.
And that way you will be in tune with the piano that is in the room
that you're going to be playing along with and you'll also be in tune with yourself.
One of the easiest ways to match strings is to fret a note.
That matches a corresponding open string.
So in this case I'm going to slightly de-tune my guitar.
[SOUND] And now I'm going to attempt to
tune it using string matching.
Let's just pretend that the first note I got from a piano player.
So I know that this note, [SOUND] is in tune with the piano note.
So that note, [SOUND] is the 6th string and it's an E.
So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to count up to my fifth fret,
one two three four five.
And I'm going to play this note right here.
[SOUND] This note, just for information's sake is an A.
[SOUND] So what I need to do is match that note to the fifth string so
this a and this a should match.
Now if we listen, have to use our ears a little bit here.
We can tell that the second note is slightly lower and the first one.
So I am going to take the second note which is the open string A, string 5.
I am going to raise it
a little bit.
All right you are going to switch hands here so
that I can keep both notes playing at the same time.
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And you can almost hear,
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when both notes sound the same.
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Now I am going to move to the fifth string.
Fifth fret, same thing, so I'm going to actually move across
to the fifth string and I'm going to match this note, which is a D,
to the open string D which is your fourth string here.
So the first note was [SOUND] the A.
Make sure that is matched properly.
I am going to move over to the D.
Can you hear the second
note is slightly flat so
I am going tune that one up.
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Now, I have three strings that are basically in tune.
Now I'm going to move across to the fifth fret of the next string, my d string,
which is a fourth string, and I'm going to fret that on the fifth fret.
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And match it to the next string, which is an open G.
[MUSIC]
Okay, that sounds pretty close.
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So to recap.
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There we go.
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Now for the next string instead of doing the fifth fret I need to move down to
the fourth fret.
So this note is a B [SOUND] and I need to match this note
[SOUND] to the open string B which is string number 2.
[SOUND] So fourth fret.
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Sounds pretty close.
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Now,
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Now for the next note, we're going to match the open first string,
which is the E, we move back up to the fifth fret.
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And again oftentimes it's easy to reach over and tune with your right hand so
that you can keep the notes sustained as you tighten the strings.
That way you can hear when they change pitch.
[SOUND] There we go,
you can almost hear a little vibration
when the pitches are slightly off.
[SOUND] So to recap, we start on the sixth string,
fifth fret, and we match to the open string, five.
So that's an A.
And we move across to the fifth string, on the fifth fret, and
we match to the open four, which is the D.
Then we move to the fifth string of the fourth fret.
And we match the open string, three, which is a G.
[SOUND] Then we move down to the fourth string, fourth fret, sorry,
fourth fret of the third string, and we match to the second string B.
[SOUND] And then we move back up to the second string, fifth fret.
We match to the open string, which is the E, number one.
[NOISE] And then we should have a guitar that's relatively in tune.
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Keep in mind that some of these matching methods,
you might have to tweak your instrument a little bit.
It all depends on the intonation, and how well you've matched.
But, for the most part, you should have an instrument that's in tune.
Now there are a couple different ways to get your starting note.
Certainly if there's a piano player in the room and you are going to be playing along
with the piano player, then you should get your starting note from the piano player.
It can be the first note, [SOUND] which is the E, or
it can be any of the other notes and you can just use the matching backwards,
whichever note that you have you can adjust accordingly.
There are a couple other ways to get a starting note.
A lot of tuners and metronomes often have a starting note.
In this case, it's an A and if we switch on here, we can hear.
[SOUND] Let's turn that up a little bit.
It's actually giving me a pitch and that is a pitch of A440 which is the tuning
standard when you want to tune with another instrument and
be in tune with other instruments.
So I can actually match that note to,
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To a corresponding A on the guitar, which would be either here or here.
Or here.
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So that's one way to get a starting note if you want to tune and
be in tune with other instruments.
Another way you might do it is a good old fashioned way,
which is this tuning fork.It's called a tuning fork.
And this tuning fork, actually when you make it vibrate,
you can hit it against your knee very gently, and
you place the end, say on the bridge of your guitar.
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And then you can get a starting pitch of an A like that.
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Certainly if you don't have any access to any of the digital technology that we have
available to us, today.
A tuning fork used to be standard accessory in your guitar case,
back in the day.
By far, I think the easiest way to tune a guitar is to get your hands on some
kind of digital tuner, because it does the work for you.
Lost of times there's a little digital readout with a needle that tells you,
hey, you're playing that note.
You need to tune it up a little bit.
It's a little flat.
You're playing it, it's a little too sharp.
Tune it back down.
And it also tunes in tune to the standard A 440.
So a digital meter is the way to go.
There's many, there are many makes and sizes and
actually I have another one here this one actually fits on your headstock and
if that attaches to the top of you headstock like this.
And it works with the vibration of the guitar, again, this is a as you can see.
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And this one turns green when you hit the right note.
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So they many make sizes and brands of portable guitar tuners that
can help you to tune with the guitar and tune with itself.
And with another instrument in the standard 4-40.