Yesterday, I experienced one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.
I was sitting in my brothers room and noticed he had an acoustic guitar leaning against his wall. This guitar is in rough shape: it's missing a string, it goes out of tune easily, it's hard to play and is generally the butt-end of a lot of instrument jokes in that house (they've been contemplating selling it for probably three years by now).
So, like most instruments I see, I picked it up and began to tinker with it. The guitar was sorely out of tune. I actually can't imagine a guitar going that out of tune naturally on it's own. So for the first time in my life I attempted to tune it on my own without the assistance of an electronic tuner.
Doing this is somewhat a tricky task even for experienced ears. Most often you begin with the A string (the second-lowest string before hitting the low E), mainly because it is least likely to go out of tune on a guitar. Didn't matter much anyway, it sounded tuned up to almost a C. This is where the gratifying part began.
Years ago, we used to play a game where there would be one person striking a chord, and two others blindly guessing what it could be. The easy part about this game is that chords are normally strummed downwards and you can assimilate certain chords from others by how they "ring-out", meaning that most guitarists know what the high E and B strings sound like when played together, so if you hear those two played you can assume the chord struck was in the range of E,A or B. This can be easily heard on guitars - unlike pianos which resonate more as tones rather than the plucking of strings. However, you can't tune a guitar by strumming a chord (actually you can it's just very, very hard to do). So you have to begin with single strings.
Beginning with the A string, I tried to hear an A chord in my head. I always thought the easiest way to do this was to just recall a song that opens with an A chord (a million songs do, pick your own). Then, it may sound odd, but you have to tune it to your memory by playing the note over and over in your head until the sound you visualize matches the sound you actually hear. From here you tune the remaining strings in relation to where they are from the A using a series of harmonics and simple methods. I tuned the entire guitar, save for the missing string.
After playing for a little bit, I asked my brother to look up an online guitar tuner for me (he was at his computer). These sites don't tune your guitar, but rather play simulated tones that you tune your guitar to. He played me the E note from the computer and I strummed the E string on the guitar. I was off by a half step (imagine the distance between a black key and a white key on a piano). This is actually my favorite part of the story.
I was so close to tuning the guitar to the exact notes, but I didn't. I love that. I remember a time in my life when I'd pick up a guitar without any knowledge of anything musical, play a fake chord, and scream Creed lyrics to make my friends laugh. Now I can practically tune one by ear. If I had tuned it perfectly I wouldn't feel the same excitement as I do now, because I know I've
made progress but not quite enough.
Cellist Pablo Casals was well into his 90's when once asked by an interviewer why he practiced, even at that age, for hours a day.
Doing this is somewhat a tricky task even for experienced ears. Most often you begin with the A string (the second-lowest string before hitting the low E), mainly because it is least likely to go out of tune on a guitar. Didn't matter much anyway, it sounded tuned up to almost a C. This is where the gratifying part began.
Years ago, we used to play a game where there would be one person striking a chord, and two others blindly guessing what it could be. The easy part about this game is that chords are normally strummed downwards and you can assimilate certain chords from others by how they "ring-out", meaning that most guitarists know what the high E and B strings sound like when played together, so if you hear those two played you can assume the chord struck was in the range of E,A or B. This can be easily heard on guitars - unlike pianos which resonate more as tones rather than the plucking of strings. However, you can't tune a guitar by strumming a chord (actually you can it's just very, very hard to do). So you have to begin with single strings.
Beginning with the A string, I tried to hear an A chord in my head. I always thought the easiest way to do this was to just recall a song that opens with an A chord (a million songs do, pick your own). Then, it may sound odd, but you have to tune it to your memory by playing the note over and over in your head until the sound you visualize matches the sound you actually hear. From here you tune the remaining strings in relation to where they are from the A using a series of harmonics and simple methods. I tuned the entire guitar, save for the missing string.
After playing for a little bit, I asked my brother to look up an online guitar tuner for me (he was at his computer). These sites don't tune your guitar, but rather play simulated tones that you tune your guitar to. He played me the E note from the computer and I strummed the E string on the guitar. I was off by a half step (imagine the distance between a black key and a white key on a piano). This is actually my favorite part of the story.
I was so close to tuning the guitar to the exact notes, but I didn't. I love that. I remember a time in my life when I'd pick up a guitar without any knowledge of anything musical, play a fake chord, and scream Creed lyrics to make my friends laugh. Now I can practically tune one by ear. If I had tuned it perfectly I wouldn't feel the same excitement as I do now, because I know I've
made progress but not quite enough.
Cellist Pablo Casals was well into his 90's when once asked by an interviewer why he practiced, even at that age, for hours a day.
He said "I'm beginning to notice some improvement"
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