(funk)
- The first thing you're gonna need
to get your guitar in tune by ear
is a reference tone.
And that can be anything
from just one of your strings on the guitar
being close to being in tune
like this little E.
It can be a piano.
You can play E on the piano and match it.
Or an A or whatever note you want.
You can use a metronome.
A lot of times, metronomes will have a button
that plays an A for you.
So you can match that note too.
There are a lot of different things around
that you can use for a reference tone.
So let's just say that my little E string
is pretty close to being in tune.
And it is.
I double checked it.
I'm gonna teach you something called
the Fifth Fret Method
for getting the guitar in tune.
And it's pretty easy.
All you have to do is come up to the fifth fret
of the low E string and play that note.
That's an A note.
And since it's an A note,
you can match the open A string to that note.
So, play both of them.
(plays notes)
And try to listen
for which direction the A needs to go
in order to match
that fretted A note.
My ears' telling me that
that A string is a little bit too low.
(plays notes)
and it needs to come up.
(tuning)
That's pretty close.
Let's double check it now.
So fifth fret of the low E
is an A.
And then the open A string.
(plays notes)
Still a little bit low to me.
And you'll get better at this with time.
(plays notes)
It's pretty close.
We'll come back and double check it later.
Now,
to get the next string in tune,
the D string and the fourth string,
fret the fifth fret
of the A string, that's a D note.
So we can play that
and an open D string to double check
the D string.
My ear is telling me that
that is a little bit sharp.
Needs to come down a little.
Then we'll tune again.
(tuning)
And that's pretty close.
Now, we need to get the G string
in tune.
So you're gonna go to the fifth fret
of the D string.
That's a G note.
And then you're gonna compare that note
to the open G string
and adjust the G string accordingly.
(plays notes)
That's really close already.
So we're gonna do some fine tuning on it.
(plays notes)
It's really close there.
Okay so we'll leave that one for now.
Now, this is where the fifth fret method
changes just a little bit.
And this is the only place that it changes.
When you're tuning the B string,
the open B string,
second string,
you're gonna go back to the fourth
fret.
Not the fifth fret of the G string to play a B note.
And then, we compare that to the open B.
And my ears are telling me
that this open B string is just a little bit low.
It needs to come up.
So this is pretty close.
(plays notes)
And that's pretty close too.
So that one's good to go for now.
Now, we need to get the high E string in tune.
Going back to your fifth fret method.
So,
play this E on the fifth fret
of the B string
and compare it
to the open E string.
First string.
My ear is telling me that sharp
it needs to come down.
And remember,
always tune up to a note if you can.
(plays notes)
And that's pretty dead on.
And always double check your tuning.
So I'm just gonna go through real quick
and double check every string on here.
(plays notes)
Remember, when you get to the B string,
you're gonna want to refret the fourth fret of the G,
not the fifth fret.
That's pretty close.
(plays full chords)
Now, this is going to take some practice for you
to get down to start to learn to decide
for whether a note needs to come up
or go down.
But that's gonna come with practice.
I guarantee you.
Now, I want to teach you one quick way
to kind of fine tune your guitar as well.
It's called the harmonic method.
And I'll show you right here.
If you play
the low E string right above the fifth fret,
don't fret it.
Just barely touch the string.
And then pick it, you're gonna get a harmonic.
Do the same thing
to the seventh fret of the A string with your third finger.
And those are actually the same notes.
So that's the technique that we're gonna use.
And check it out.
If one string is out of tune,
you're gonna get kind of a warble.
Do you hear it?
And you can get rid of it
by getting one of those strings in tune.
To the other one.
And you can do the same thing
for the next two strings over.
Play the harmonic.
On the fifth fret of the A.
And the harmonic on the seventh fret
of the D string.
Let's say our D tune
or D string is a little bit out of tune.
You hear the waves?
Your goal is to kind of get those cleared up.
Try it one more time.
You hear them flatten out.
So,
so to the fifth fret
and the harmonic.
And you're gonna do that
on the next two strings over.
So the fifth fret of the D
and then the seventh fret of the G.
When you get to your B string,
the harmonics on the G and B don't quite match up
because the way the guitar is tuned.
So what I do is I just play the open D string.
And then the third fret
of the B string.
That D note there
and just double check that way.
To kind of fine tune.
So fine tune the E string.
Go back to your harmonic method.
And just play the harmonic
on the fifth fret
of the B string.
And then the harmonic of the seventh for the E.
Let me put that
out a little bit so you can kind of practice
getting that in tune.
(plucks notes)
And it's a little bit more difficult
to get the harmonics to come out on the guitar
on the B and the E strings too.
So you might just want to do the fifth fret method.
And you can double check those two notes.
That's it for this lesson.
I know that learning how to tune a guitar by ear
can be a difficult challenge at first.
But the more you do this,
the better you're gonna get at it
and the better you'll get
at really quickly identifying
whether a pitch needs to come up
or go down
to match the reference note.
Hey, thanks for watching.
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