When learning the guitar you can be so busy trying to learn chords and songs that you may not even know if your guitar is in or out of tune. Being able to tune a guitar is very important when you begin learning.

There is no point in learning your favorite song if your guitar is out of tune, is there? The first step to know about tuning your guitar is what sound you are looking for from each string. We need to know which note each string will be tuned to:

1st – e (Bottom and thinnest string)

2nd – B

3rd – G

4th – D

5th – A

6th – E (Top and thickest string)
As you can see above, starting from the bottom, the 6th string is tuned to the note ‘E’, the 5th is ‘A’, 4th is ‘D’, 3rd is ‘G’, 2nd is ‘B’ and the 1st is ‘e’. Notice how I use a Capital ‘E’ and small ‘e’ for the 6th and 1st strings, this is to show the difference between the low E and high e string.

This has shown which notes should correspond with each string in ‘Standard Tuning’ (EADGBe).

At this stage, because you now know this information, you could easily use a pitch pipe or electric tuner which you can buy from any of your local music stores or online stores. However if you want to learn how you can tune your guitar without the use of a tuner then just read on…

If someone handed you a guitar and asked you to tune it, you would either have to have a really musical ear, or have one of the strings already in tune. For this lesson make sure your top string (E, 6th) is in tune, if you are unsure you could use a piano, a tuned guitar, or even a YouTube video to match the sound of that string.

If you start to practice listening to the sound of the top E string now, eventually you will be able to tune the guitar by ear. Using the help of the method below you will be able to tune your guitar on your own without the use of any equipment.

We are going to use a method called relative tuning. At this point you should have your low E string in tune. The reason we call it ‘relative tuning’ is because we are going to be tuning a string relative to the string above it, the first example is tuning the A(5th) string to the already tuned E(6th) string. I’ll show you what I mean:
e|—————–0—|

B|————-0—5—|

G|———0—4——-|

D|—–0—5———–|

A|-0—5—————|

E|-5——————-|

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

A. D. G. B. e

We already have our E string in tune, so now take the following steps:

1. The 5th fret of the Low E, is the same sound as the A string open, so play the E string with your finger on the 5th fret and the sound you hear is what the A string should sound like. All you have to do now is tune that open A until it matches the sound of the 5th fret on the top E string.

2. Same as above except you are using the 5th fret of the A string you just tuned to tune the D string. Turn the tuning peg of the open D string until you can match the sound of the A strings 5th fret.

3. Same as above except you are using the 5th fret of the newly tuned D string to tune the open G
4. This time there is a difference when tuning the B string relative to the tuned G string. Instead of using the 5th fret, like we have done previously, we use the 4th fret, this is the only one which is different. The method is still the same just make sure to use the 4th fret of the G when tuning the B.

5. Once you have tuned the B string you are now onto the last string (the high e). To tune the high e string using the B just use the exact same pattern as you did in steps 1, 2 and 3 above.

Another point to make is that the 6th and 1st strings are the same note (both E), so if one of them is in tune then it can be used to tune the other simply by playing them both at the same time and adjusting whichever is out of tune until they match up.

Like most things, the more you repeat this method, the better you will become at it. Once you manage to tune your guitar the first time, it gets easier, as most of the time it is quite close to the correct tuning already. The more you hear the sound of a tuned guitar the more your ear will be trained into knowing that sound.

Even if it’s just the top string you recognize, then you can use the relative tuning method to tackle the rest. Now you have your guitar tuned you can start learning all your favourite songs. Good Luck!

Christopher J Jones is a guitarist and teacher, with years of playing and teaching experience.

For more information on learning to play guitar Chris recommends this site, Learn-To-Play-Guitar-Review.com.

Article Source: How to Tune a Guitar – Helpful Guide on Tuning Your Guitar

Do you find it easy to write songs? Too easy? Well, I at least have had a problem with this.

If you would visit our home and my garage you would find a lot of unfinished songs and a lot of manuscript paper with some notes on them showing that I wanted to say something with music but never finished it.

Maybe you always finish your songs, record them or have well documented lists with your songs for easy access. That’s the way I work now but obviously didn’t work before.

Nowadays I have started to realize the importance of finishing songs that I have found enough important to start writing in the first place.

I think it is important for you and me to complete songs we have started to write for the following reasons:

1. It is when songs are complete that other people can benefit from them and you can feel that you have contributed something to the benefit of others and to yourself.

2. It has a positive effect on your subconsious mind to take your composition the whole way to completion. It will give you the realization that you can write songs. It’s that simple!

3. As I mentioned before you will avoid having a lot of unfinished songs hanging around. It can be unfinished recordings or pieces of paper with a few words on them indicating an attempt to create something that probably meant a lot then but now is just words.

If you are signed to a recording company you will be more or less forced to produce things. The product will hopefully be a CD with maybe twelve songs on it and a show for your promotion tour.

It seems like slavery to be forced to produce a product like a CD. But having this obvious goal to work towards and the pressure involved can actually promote creativity.

If you are not signed to a record label you can benefit from working with your songs in a similar way.

1. Set a goal to produce for example three songs and set the prerequisites like writing one love ballad, one uptempo song and a waltz.

2. When you have made the songs record them and burn them on a CD.

3. Learn the songs by heart and sing and play them for your friends.

Doing this will increase your faith in your ability to produce songs and I think you will feel a greater joy and satisfaction in your great enterprise to write songs for the benefit of mankind and, of course, yourself.

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play resources at CapotastoMusic.com

Article Source: Artipot

- TipsForTheBand.com

By Jan Durrant

Hello! Welcome to the wonderful world of music.

Have you always dreamed of being able to learn how to play the piano, keyboard, guitar or any other instrument?

This dream of yours is not something so far away that it cannot become a reality in a very short while.

Did you know that pianos in some form have been around for over 500 years?

Some of the first instruments of this kind were called clavichords. They had a very light, metallic sound because the small hand-pounded ‘hammers’ were made of very lightweight metal-like material. These hammers struck strings of varying lengths to create different tones or pitches.

The next cousin to the clavichord was the harpsichord invented by Cristofori in Italy around 1450 A.D. This keyboard instrument had a mechanism in it called the plecktrum which ‘plucked’ the strings and produced a slightly stronger sound than its predecessor.

Whether you are playing an acoustic instrument, which is the closest relative to the history just mentioned, or an electronic keyboard, you are now participating in a centuries old musical art form.

In the next few posts of this series, we’ll be taking a look at the basics of these topics:

• Musical Terms
• Introduction to the White Keys
• Treble Clef and Bass Clef Note Names
• Basics of Rhythm
• Chords
• All About Intervals
• Dynamic Markings

Article source: GoArticles.com    About the author: Jan Durrant holds a Master’s Degree in Music from the University of Texas at San Antonio in Texas. She has over 25 years experience in both public and private school music teaching.