Hey Friend,
There are a couple things every guitar player should own, regardless of their playing level.
Yes, that means even beginners need them.
And if you’ve been playing guitar for a while without these essential tools, you are really setting yourself at a disadvantage.
When it comes to making music, two things are critical - pitch and timing.
Pitch comes down to the actual sound wavelength of each note. When the pitch of a string isn’t correct, nothing you play sounds right.
So you must make sure each string is tuned correctly. That means you need a way to accurately tune your guitar (or any other stringed instrument, for that matter).
Back in the day, we used to use a tuning fork, pitch pipe, or another instrument to get a base pitch for tuning. Electronic tuners were expensive and $100+ was a lot harder to come by for a struggling musician.
The inherent problem with the old methods is you had to rely on your ability to match the pitch of the note you were tuning to. If you're the slightest bit tone deaf, that becomes a problem!
Nowadays, a better alternative to using the old school methods is a clip-on tuner, like the Snark.
The Snark uses string vibrations to find the correct pitch - since a note is a specific vibration, the tuner gives you a visual “green light” when you’ve hit the right note.
For most of us, a Snark is perfect. But if you need a higher level of accuracy, go with a Peterson strobe tuner.
Peterson is the industry standard for strobe tuners, and they’ve been pro-level for over 70 years. These tuners are what you find on the benches of guitar techs, luthiers, and on stages around the world.
If music is your world, a Peterson tuner is probably the number three investment after your guitar and amplifier (and I’m thinking it could even rank #2 on that list).
That takes care of the first critical component of making music - pitch. The second is timing.
We’ll look at that in the next newsletter. Rock on!
Peace~
Dave
P.S. Whichever way you go, tuning really is the number one important thing to get right when you play. If you don’t, you will not sound good, no matter how well you play. So make sure your guitar is tuned accurately.
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