[MUSIC] So now we're going to talk about tuning your instrument. We're going to simplify it a little bit. There are a couple of different ways that you can tune your instrument. You can tune your instrument in a way where you're in tune with other instruments. For example, those of you that might be playing along with a piano player. There is a certain way to tune your instrument, so that it is in tune with the other instruments. Simply that means, that there's no, let's call Discord, where it doesn't sound kind of wrong with the other instruments. But you can also tune the instrument by itself so that it's in tune with itself. All the strings are in tune and when you play the chords or the melodies that you're going to play. Everything sounds good relative to itself. So, we're going to start off with what I think is the simplest way to tune a guitar. And those of you out there who have access to a smartphone, there are many free tuners that are available on it. Or you could buy a simple digital one anywhere from the $5-$10 price range, upwards. And they're very effective and it's the simplest way to tune your instrument. It tells you exactly what string you're playing and it tells you whether you need to tighten it. In order to make it a little bit sharper or to raise the pitch, or to loosen the string, which lowers the pitch. Usually a digital turner looks something like that. For the purposes of ease of demonstration and the nice big screen, we're going to use one of these smartphone tuners right here. And we're going to demonstrate really quickly how to tune an instrument using a tuner like this. That you can see, it's so sensitive that it's picking up the frequencies in my voice as I speak. So we're going to start with tuning the guitar, and we're going to start by simply matching. And adjusting the strings according to what we're seeing on the screen here. There is usually some kind of display that has a cursor that shows you whether you're flat or whether you're sharp. And sometimes in some cases in both of these tuners, there's series of lights on either side that tell you which side of the pitch you're on. If you're on that side, you're a little bit low. If you're on that side, you're a little bit high. And usually if you're right on, that green light will light up in the middle. And it will mean that you hit the jackpot of tuning the note correctly. So, I'm going to move that one aside for now, so that you can actually keep an eye on this one. And I'm going to start off with the first string which is an E string. >> [SOUND] >> And as we can see, it's very close to being exactly in tune. >> [SOUND] >> I'm going to lower it a little, just so you can see what happens. >> [SOUND] >> When I lower, I'm loosening the string. >> [SOUND] >> Now, I'm going to tighten the string and raise the pitch. >> [SOUND] >> I'm going to go a little bit higher, just so you can see. [SOUND] >> And lower it back down. [SOUND] >> So there I have, my top string is just about in tune. Now let's move down to the second string, which is a B string. [SOUND] >> And that's pretty close, let's bring it back up. [SOUND] >> And the green light is on. [SOUND] >> There we go. Now we're going to go down to the third string, which is our G string. >> [SOUND] >> You see that's a little flat. >> [SOUND] >> It's a very sensitive tuner. >> [SOUND] >> Now we're moving down to our fourth string, which is the D string. >> [SOUND] >> Don't be confused with the numbers there, it says D3, but that's just the octave. >> [SOUND] >> Now we're going on to our A string, which is our fifth string. >> [SOUND] >> And now our sixth string which is an E string. >> [SOUND] >> That's flat, so look what happens when I tighten it up, raise the pitch. >> [SOUND] >> And there we have a guitar that should be in tune. >> [SOUND] >> So for those of you who are out there playing electric guitar, more commonly what's available to us as a tuner is called a pedal tuner. Usually, it's not much different from the digital tuners that we used for the acoustic guitar. Except that usually it's on the ground and you operate it with your foot. Most often, there's a switch that cuts or mutes the signal to the amplifier. So whereas, you might have it coming through the amplifier, usually there's a foot switch that allows you to mute. That way you can tune secretly in between songs as you're on stage and the format is the same. You'll have a display in this case, it's lighted so that way you can see it if you're a working musician in a dark club. You can look down and switch it with your foot and then you can actually very clearly see the display. In this case we see here I am playing an E, and make sure it says E there. because this is a chromatic tuner and it will tell you whatever note you are playing and then you are going to tune it up. If we go a little bit too high, you see what happens. The display tells you that you are a little bit right off center there, and we go back down. So that's our first string, which is the E. Top E, which is now in tuned. And we're going to move toward our B string, which is slightly flat. >> [SOUND] >> And there we go, that's right in the center. And now the G is slightly flat, I purposely detuned this guitar, by the way. >> [SOUND]. >> Incidentally if you have just changed your strings or if you have new strings. Sometimes new strings are a little bit harder to keep in tune because they stretch. It takes a while for them to settle, now here we are on my fourth string which is a D. And we're tuning it up, we're tightening, thereby making the pitch a little bit higher, raising the pitch. And here we are on the A string, which is slightly flat. It's our fifth string and we're tuning up slowly, so let's dead center. And now we're moving on to our sixth string, which is the E. So we're- >> [SOUND] >> And there we go. Now after we've gone through each string, you would use your foot. I'm using my finger in this case, to switch the pedal tuner off. And then now your signal is re-routed back to your amplifier and you're ready to continue playing only now in tune. >> [SOUND] >> And by the way, this is considered standard tuning. There are many alternate tunings that we can use, but for this whole course we're going to be using what's called Standard Tuning.
