Tools, Techniques andTips for Starting Out

Tuning Tools

The most important thing to address for beginning guitarists is keeping your instrument in tune so that it sounds musical and so that you can play with or accompany other musicians. Almost all guitars fall out of tune as the weather changes, since their bodies are usually wood and the strings are usually metal. Unless you can keep your guitar at a constant temperature and humidity, the varying rates of expansion or contraction of different materials will cause the strings to go sharp or flat.

Here are samples of several tools to consider:

• Neck attachable electronic tuner
• Stand alone electronic tuner requiring a chord to plug in your guitar
• A-440 Tuning Fork (tune the guitar's A string to this pitch)