A common question beginners often ask is “How to use a guitar tuner?”
So I thought I would make a quick lesson here on how to use a digital guitar tuner to tune your guitar.
Tuning your guitar is incredibly important. If the guitar isn’t in tune, you’re not going to want to play it, because it will sound terrible. It’s pretty much that simple. So if you’re just getting started, there’s nothing that’s more demoralizing than sounding terrible all the time, so that’s something you need to fix! Strangely enough, this is still one of the most often-overlooked issues that beginners face. Simply taking the time to tune your guitar before you play it will make for a much more enjoyable practice session… and don’t even get me started if you’re planning on performing! It doesn’t matter how good a person is on the guitar, tuning the instrument is ALWAYS the first step.
As a side note, if you’re really struggling to get your guitar properly in tune, and you already know how to use a guitar tuner, then there is a very good possibility that the intonation is out on your guitar. If so, I recommend bringing your guitar to a music store or guitar tech and get it checked out. Oftentimes it will need a re-intonation, which isn’t difficult, and can make a world of difference.
You might also want to check out a related lesson that I did on How To Tune Your Guitar By Ear. Hopefully this lesson will clear up any questions on how to use a guitar tuner.
For an acoustic, or as an alternative to using a cable, I would recommend using a clip-on tuner that clips to the headstock and works via vibrations. This also eliminates the problem of room noise. I had to abandon the idea of tuning my uke while my mother-in-law was chatting loudly. Just didn’t work out. 🙂
Korgmakes great clip ons as well as console guitar tuners, like the one that you are showing. Great point about sound quality!
I found an excellent little clip-on that sells for about 20 bucks- the Snark-very nice tuner
How does the Snark sn4 read a flat E
Personally, my solution to my tuners is the fact that I play with a double locking trem system, I only tune once, and lock it down.