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| TUNING THE GUITAR |
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Sound is caused by the disturbance of particles in the air, usually by vibrations. The disturbance propagates through the air as a wave. When a string is attached to two points, like the strings on a guitar, striking it causes it to vibrate at a certain frequency which causes a soundwave of similar frequency. The length, thickness and tightness of the string determine the frequency of vibration and therefore the pitch of the note it produces. When a string is plucked the string is stretched to set it in vibration. A shorter or tighter string is harder to stretch and therefore vibrates faster than a longer or looser string. A thicker string produces lower notes than a thinner string because the higher mass of the thicker string is more difficult to set in motion. For this reason the strings of the lower notes usually have extra metal cladding to increase their mass. There are many different ways to tune a guitar, but the most common is called standard tuning, or E tuning. In standard tuning the strings should be tuned to the notes EADGBe. This means that the thickest string should play the low E note, and then the next thinner should play an A and so on, finishing with the thinnest playing a high E. When the guitar is tuned, strumming all the strings at once produces a chord. Chords are explained in greater depth in the chords chapter. Standard tuning is often represented visually like in the diagram below. Note that the upper case E represents the thickest string, and the lower case e represents the thinnest string, which means that the lowest string on the diagram is the highest string on the guitar. This is meant to represent how the guitar looks when a player looks down on it. |
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| To adjust the pitch of a string, you twist the tuning peg. To adjust to a higher pitch the string must be tightened, and to lower the pitch the string must be loosened. When doing this, it is important to make sure you are turning the correct peg for the string you are trying to tune. It is both confusing and embarassing when you turn the wrong peg, often because you have to start all over again. Until you have developed your musical ability, it may be difficult to know exactly what a particular note should sound like. Any guitar or music store will sell tuning aids, such as tuning forks, pitch pipes and electric tuners. When properly used, these allow you to precisely tune each string to the appropriate pitch. Almost every guitar player owns some sort of tuning aid, and new players are encouraged to purchase one. On the guitar neck, fingering each fret raises the pitch of the note a half-tone. In an octave, there are twelve half-tones, which means that if you play any note, the note 12 frets above that is twice as high in pitch. Any two notes are related by a certain number of half tones, which is called an interval. The interval between the low E string and the A string is called a fourth, which means that the two notes are separated by five half-tones or frets. This relationship of a fourth is the same for any string and the one below it, except for the G and B strings. The note G is separated by only four half-tones or frets, which makes this interval a third. Scales are explained in much greater depth in the scales chapter. Information on general music theory, including scales and intervals can be read in the Music wikibook. |
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| TUNING THE GUITAR PART 2 >> | ||
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