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How to tune your guitar without a tuner

There is a very simple way to tune your guitar without much work. First you must get one of your strings in the right tuning. Let's try to get our low E string right. Listen to a song you have which you know plays and E. When you hear the E play your guitar's low E string while turning the tuning nob until the wave sound goes away, or at least slow down very much. Once this string is in tune, you can use it on the rest of your strings. Each string is a perfect 5th higher then the lower string next to it, so all you have to do is sustain a note, starting on the same E string, pressing the 5th fret down. While this note is sustained, play the A string next to the low E. Keep the 5th fret A on your E string sustained while you continually play the new string and tune it at the same time. You know it is in tune when the waving sound in your head slows down and eventually stops. Repeat doing this for all of the strings on your guitar.

This works very well, and the average ear cannot hear it, but in reality these strings are not tuned according to the equaltemperamentsystem western music uses. In equaltemperament, a 5th is not perfectly in tuned, it is very slightly flat. This is because the tuning we use divides an octave into 12 equal steps. This sacrifices the tuning of some notes together, like major 3rd, perfect 5ths, and the worst, minor 3rds. So when we put two notes perfectly in tune with each other, unless they are an octave apart, they are not in tune according to the equaltemperamentsystem.
To prove this, you can tune your guitar the way I talked about. This time, use a tuner to tune your low E string, and you the same method we did before for the rest of the strings. Now, after you have tuned your high E string according to the 5th fret of the string lower then it, play the high E with a tuner. Even if your low E was perfectly in tune, your high E will be just slightly sharp, because you were breaking the equal tempered tuning used by a tuner. This is such a slight difference, most people wouldn't notice and it will work just fine for band practice or jamming in your room, and depending on how much distortion you use, may also be good enough for a performance. I, myself, tune my guitar using these 5ths when I play at home. If you have a tuner, I suggest using it to be more exact. Although your perfect 5ths will sound nice the other way, the rest of your guitar will not be tuned the way it was made to. Especially for a performance, use a tuner, even if you have to buy one. They are the only way to get your guitar tuned exactly to the specifications set in place hundreds of years ago.

Learn more about this author, Mason Smith.
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