Guitar Sheet Music

Guitar Tuning Tips

by: Edward D Cupler

Most new guitar players and even some experienced ones have trouble staying and playing in tune. I'll try listing here some of the common mistakes and there solutions.

When putting new strings on your guitar you must always make sure you stretch them as you tune them to pitch. I always hold them down on the neck around the 24th fret with my left hand while pulling them away from the guitar body with my right hand. You don't have to use too much muscle, a few firm tugs should do the trick.

Whenever you tune a string down in pitch, be sure to use the string stretching technique described above. Remember ALWAYS TUNE UP! It's always better when tuning down, to get close to the note, stretch the string and then tune up to the intended pitch.

You should purchase a quality tuner from a music store like zZounds.com. You don't need to spend your life's saving. An inexpensive tuner should be fine to start out. Remember, this thing will be traveling to gigs and jam sessions with you. I would recommend a good Boss tuner or Korg tuner. Both brands have low cost tuners that will do the job just fine.

If your guitar has a tremolo bridge, always remember that each string that you tune will go down in pitch as you tune the next string. One solution to this is to over tune the strings. That is to say, you may need to tune your low E string to an F in order to have it be around an E note by the time you finish tuning the other strings. Over time you'll get a feel for how much you need to over tune each string and it will become second nature.

If you play in a band, it is a good idea to always tune to the same pitch. Standard pitch is 440 but some bands like to tune down to 430 or even 420 for the heavier sound or vocal reasons or both. My point is that if you're practicing at 430 then you have a gig and your band tunes to 440, everything will suddenly sound different, your singer might not be able hit all the notes he or she did at practice, your solos might even sound wrong. This is because everything is now a half step higher in pitch. Make things easy on yourself, pick a pitch and stick with it, at practice and gigs.

About The Author

Edward D Cupler is the owner of http://www.guitarmetal.com Offering free guitar lessons to beginners and advanced students. Ed is also the owner of http://www.digitalgreys.com.

More information about Guitar Sheet MusicNews

guitar sheet music

Last week some family members suffered a corrupted hard drive on their only PC. They had no backup. They're relatively light computer users--no online banking, no important business documents--but the lesson still hurts. Their e-mail contacts weren't ...

Digital Noise: Music and Tech - CNET News

MASCOUTAH, Ill. Being an arranger for the U. S. Air Force Mid-America Band has its perks. U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Dean Smith has played for every living president since Ronald Reagan and has played for Reagan and President Ford's funerals. He has ...

ILLINOIS STYLE: Musical sgt. is Air Force arranger - Fort Mill Times

Math is from Mars, music is from Venus. That's the popular wisdom. Math is crisp, dry discipline best reserved for professionals with pocket protectors. Music seems the antithesis of those facts and figures - an escape into a world of adagios and ...

Math plus music equals an enlightening field trip - Colorado Springs Gazette

Jessica Simpson took inspiration for her new perfume advertisement from style icon Brigitte Bardot because she wanted to emulate her "classic beauty." The singer is launching her latest fragrance, Fancy, and insisted on keeping herself covered up for ...

Sheet Music Plus - World's Largest Selection of Sheet Music, Scores ...

Guitar sheet music ready to download and play. On this site you will find sheet music to download and print instantly for any instrument and ensemble.

Guitar Sheet Music to download instantly, page 1

Download sheet music and guitar tab for nearly 90,000 digital sheet music songs and browse 260,000 sheet music books and songbooks in our database.

Menu

We also recommend