Acoustic Guitar 101

with Scott Law

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Acoustic Guitar 101 - Section 1

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Acoustic Guitar 101 Lessons: Lesson 8: Tuning the Guitar - Part 2

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[MUSIC]
Basically when we're tuning,

we're tuning to a standard pitch.

What does that mean?

Well, it's a standard pitch for us and

in this time and
in this part of the world.

Not all parts of the world
tune to what's known as A440.

That means the A that is vibrating
at 440 cycles per second.

So, it would sound like [SOUND] like that.

[SOUND] So 440, and that really is all.

The science of it is [SOUND],

that thing is vibrating
at 440 hertz per second.

And the word hertz I believe is named for

the person who sort of quantified that and
named it.

So, I think his name was Hertz.

And it's spelled H-E-R-T-Z.

It doesn't hurt though.

Especially when it's in tune.

So we got 440 hertz is a standard, and

there are tuning forks that are made.

I'm sure most folks have checked out
the tuning fork or seen them around.

And what they do is it's a fixed pitch.

And you strike it against the bony
part of your body or some.

[MUSIC]
And put it up against the bridge and

really you can listen it'll go you know.

It'll sound
[MUSIC]

very nice pitch for you.

Now if you wanna get your A.

This first method was again,
it's the first method that I learned.

I've since sort of drifted
away from it and actually now,

I do sort of a mixture of
things when I'm tuning by ear.

I have to say that I used a tuner for
many, many years.

After I abandoned this
self-reference thing.

And when I went back to it,
I found it really, really helped my ear,

my sort of perception of pitch and

tuning, and my listening got deeper.

So I really I have to say that I
encourage students to try this.

It's hard at first for some folks, but
it's really fun to just test yourself,

and see if you can find the way to get
the guitar in harmony with itself.

And to be able to play
all your basic cords and

have them pretty much
sound in tune together.

So here we go, take the tuning fork now,
one of the things you do, if you listen,

if I just play an open A string [SOUND]
and then I play, put the fork on it.

[SOUND] You can hear
that this note is higher

[SOUND] than this note [SOUND] All right,

so, you can do what's called playing

a harmonic if you match them up.

And if you match them up, it's easier
to hear when they're in or out of tune.

So this is a really,
this is kind of a cool technique.

This is one of the first things I ever
learned on a guitar someone showed me.

And it's called playing a harmonic.

And basically what you do, you find
the fret, you go right over the fret.

You just touch it.

[MUSIC]
And then you strike that note.

And what you're doing,
there are nodes, they're called.

Like if you take a length of string,
and you cut it in half,

like at the 12th fret, here.

You can see the distance from here to here

is the same as the distance
from here to here.

That's a node.

And you can keep cutting
the string in half.

And finding these nodes.

There's another one there,
there's another one there,

there are actually, by dividing
the string in different lengths you

will generate different pitches,
and these harmonics happen.

[MUSIC]
I don't want to get too deep into

the science because I think
that's not in our scope.

But learning to play a harmonic, and

this will work on all
the strings by the way [SOUND].

This gives you [SOUND]
a higher octave version

[SOUND] of the same note
of the string [SOUND].

[SOUND] It takes a little getting used to.

You're just, you're really all you're
doing is holding the string at that

node [SOUND] Holding it from vibrating.

You see I can do it with my thumb too
[SOUND] Nice down stroke on the thumb,

just boom.

All right.
[NOISE] Remember that tune

[SOUND] Ok, so here we go.

Take your, we'll take an A note [SOUND].

Play the harmonic.

[SOUND] And get those

two, to match.

Let me see if I can get it so you can
really hear, when they're out of tune,

you'll hear it,
you'll perceive it as beats.

[SOUND] And the more close to tune [SOUND]

The beats when those appear and

everything will be [SOUND] in tune.

Okay so now

here's out of

tune [SOUND]
[MUSIC]

?

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