[linux-audio-user] in tune - stupid thread --- OT how to tune a guitar

[John Check]

On Wednesday 22 December 2004 01:33 pm, Erik Steffl wrote:
> Christoph Eckert wrote:
> > Am Mittwoch 22 Dezember 2004 15:38 schrieb Maarten de Boer:
> >>Another guitar-tuning trick: if you don't have a reference
> >>tone at hand (and if you don't have absolute hearing), but
>
> ...
>
>    just wondering - if you don't have a reference tone why bother to
> tune to a reference tone? Isn't it good enough to tune to whatever it
> feels like?
>

If it's a solo instrument maybe but.. What if you sing and play? 
You need consistency on the temporal axis.

Consider: How do you get a trombone section to play in tune?
A: Shoot everybody but first chair.

>    tuning technique that wasn't listed yet (probably for a good reason):
> I used to tune the guitar to whatever the string tension felt
> 'appropriate' (the strings were in tune with each other, I tuned one of
> the strings based on the tension and used that as a reference to tune
> the rest of the strings).
>

There are lots of good technical reasons for the hairsplitting but it all 
comes down to having a fixed point of reference over time. If that's not an 
issue then the importance of the minutiae diminishes.

It's like everything else. What works for what you're doing at any given 
moment is the right thing. Sometimes it stays that way, sometimes there's a 
lesson later.

>    :-)
>
>  erik