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Tuning by ear or using a tuner?

LowG

LowG

Dec 8, 2006
864
552
Milwaukee, WI
#1
I don't know if this is the best place for this thread, but here it is.

I was reading another thread in the effects forum on the topic of "the one pedal that everyone should have" and most people said tuner. That made me start to think.

When I was growing up and taking lessons, my teachers always made me tune by ear to a reference pitch. The point was to develop my hearing of pitches and intonation.

I'm not at all starting a tuner hater thread. I use one in many situations and understand their value.

I guess I'm just trying to put it out there to beginning players that it can become a crutch. I've had students who can't tell if they're out of tune or not, I think mostly due to never forcing themselves to hear intonation. They just say "I'm in tune" when that little green light lights.

Any thoughts on this subject?
 
#3
Personally, I use a tuner most of the time now...but I learned to play by ear and thus used reference tuning. I eventually became spot on and played this way for years. I kind of despised tuners at first, but that was only because I had no idea of what a setup was-including checking the intonation of my instrument.

I'll tune via reference in a pinch. However, I have played in front of so many loud amps (both having played bass and G**tar) and have considered I may have some hearing loss. So, I prefer to play with a tuner if I can avoid the inconvenience of not having one.

Cheers!
 
#4
I've been in those situations too - lots of out of tune pianos and rhodes'. I also play with a violinist with me on upright. We'd go weeks without tuning to a reference pitch - just tuning to whoever seemed more in tune. It was always interesting to see how far off of "standard pitch" we'd move after a couple of weeks. Never far enough to be bad for the instrument, but far enough away to be funny.
 
#6
i tune with a real tuner every once in a while. and when im recording. otherwise, its all by ear. trouble is.. it gets hard to tune a low B when you can hardly hear it, just feel it.

i might have someone WITH a tuner give me a low E and go from there. but like mentioned above, some people cant tell if they are tune or not, and thats pretty lame. the gibson robot is the fall of humanity.
 
#7
Some say it's "unprofessional" to tune up in front of an audience. Sometimes it is I suppose, but has anyone been to a classical music performance? Jazz?

For arena rock, I guess not, but for most other things, tuning by ear is fine IMO. I think there's way to much of a reliance on electronic tuners these days. Pretty soon they'll even come up with a self tuning guitar/bass. I bet they'll call it a "Robot Guitar" or some such :D

Edit: And for the low B, we can use harmonics. I use harmonics for the rest anyway.
 
#8
I learned to tune by ear with a tuning fork, but I *always* use a tuner now.

One, because I played in a lot of country bands. *All* country guitarists think they can tune by ear, almost none can :rollno:

Two, in a live situation as soon as you start tuning up, the guitarist considers that a good time to warm up with loud and fast riffs. A tuner lets you tune up at any time, even if you can't hear yourself well.

Three, my tuner has a mute. I can tune up silently. Although to be honest, I like to hear the notes as a double check.
 
#9
If there is a reference, your ears would just work fine. However, conventional methods are a little less accurate IMO when compared to a good tuner. When I said conventional methods, I mean 5th fret/open string or 5th harmonic/7th harmonic, etc.. the best ear technique is counting the beats of resonant notes (like piano setup guys). But you should know the offsets and the number of beats if any for each particular string combination.
 
#10
My opinion is use a tuner at gigs and things like auditions; it's silly to be precious in these situations, IMO.

When jamming/rehearsing or messing around at home, use your ears. Then maybe verify with a tuner. You should develop your ear 'coz there WILL come a time when you'll get stuck and have to tune by ear.

This is why I have an A 440 as one of the tones on my mobile phone.
 
#11
phatbass said:
My opinion is use a tuner at gigs and things like auditions; it's silly to be precious in these situations, IMO.

When jamming/rehearsing or messing around at home, use your ears. Then maybe verify with a tuner. You should develop your ear 'coz there WILL come a time when you'll get stuck and have to tune by ear.

This is why I have an A 440 as one of the tones on my mobile phone.
Click to expand...

How is it precious? You get a reference from any one of a number of sources, and you're done quickly. There are two caveats to my opinion though:

-If the guitarist likes to go nuts with the whammy, and the guitar goes out of tune even before the first song is finished, then electronic tuners make sense.

-If your bass, for whatever reason, keeps going out of tune.

The audience shouldn't have to hear tuning up after every one, two, or three songs. Once or twice a set is cool. It gives some time to talk to the crowd, which should be done most of the time. And BTW, my ears are DAMAGED, but tuning never seemed to be a challenge. [Playing a fretless in tunes was.]

How many of you people put your chins on the upper horn to tune up every once in a while?
 
#12
I do use the chin on the instrument technique - helps a lot when there's lots of other sound going on.

Again, I don't think this tread should be a "tuners bad!" thread. I just want to let beginners know that it can be a crutch and that people should still try to develop their ear.

I use a tuner sometimes, especially when there's a lot of noise going on, or if I'm doing a recording session and overdubbing.
 
#15
bassrique said:
How is it precious? You get a reference from any one of a number of sources, and you're done quickly. There are two caveats to my opinion though:
Click to expand...

I'm referring to guys who refuse to even consider a tuner because it's an insult to their manhood. I can tune just fine to a reference pitch but when I'm tuning up while the drummer is setting up and the guitarist is playing the Satriani lick-of-the-week, I prefer to just tune up in silence with my TU-2.
 
#16
seanm said:
Two, in a live situation as soon as you start tuning up, the guitarist considers that a good time to warm up with loud and fast riffs. A tuner lets you tune up at any time, even if you can't hear yourself well.
Click to expand...

I can agree to that one. Either the guitarist starts something loud or the drummer starts practicing some fancy rythm with a lot of cymbals:)
 
#18
A lot of times I find that when I practice by my self I need to be able to tune the bass (or guitar) by ear, because a lot of recordings, especially old ones tends to be off key with less than a semi tone. You could adjust the the electronic tuner to match the recording, but it's much more convenient to quickly tune the instrument by ear.
 
#20
I tune by ear most of the time. I have a TU-2, but I can't use it for my acoustic guitars. For bass, I use mostly the harmonics on 5th and 7th fret, but that is not accurate enough on the guitars. What I do is this (applicable to bass as well if higher accuracy is needed):

1. Tune the A string (most metronomes give you a reference pitch)
2. Tune up the E string using the fifth fret. Start from below. Hint: Use string bending to check if you need to tune further up or not.
3. Tune the D string by pressing down the 2nd fret (E) using the E string as reference (eventually the octave.
4. Check an E and A powerchord (EBE, EAE, works better on guitar)
5. Tune the G string like you tuned the D string, using the A string as reference, and check with powerchords.
6. Tune the remaining strings in the same way with root-fifth-octave and root-fourth-octave powerchords.

The problem with using harmonics is that they for some reasons don't give the right pitch. I used to tune the high B and E strings with the harmonics from the low E string but it just don't give the right pitch. Tuning with powerchords (eventually in combination with the conventional 5th fret-open string method) is the method that works best for me.
 

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