Aqualung

Okey Dokey. I'm going to do a series of really basic lessons/tips/guides mostly for guitar but they can carry over to bass, as well. I'll start with tuning.

Notes:
Before you even learn to tune your guitar it's helpful and recommended that you know the notes that you are tuning. There are 7 "full" notes : A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.

Then there are the half notes. Halfway between the A and the B, for example, is another note. This is called the A# (A sharp) or Bb (B flat). A sharped note means that it is a half step above the note (A# is half a step above A) whereas a flat means you're a half step below the note (Ab is a half step below A). Between the C and the D is a C# or a Db. There is no halfstep between a B and C and no half step between a E and F.

Using these, we can put together a list of all the notes. It looks like this.
A, A# (Bb), B, C, C# (Db), D, D# (Eb), E, F, F# (Gb), G, G# (Ab), A...

Steps:
There are half steps and there are whole steps. A half step goes up one note. This can be from an A to an A#, a C# to a D, or (and this is important) a B to a C. Remember, there is no note between B and C.

A whole step is going up two notes. This can be an A to a B (skipping A#), a Gb to a G# (skipping G) or (and this is important) an E to an F# (skipping F).

Every fret on a guitar or a bass is half a step.

Tuning:
Standard tuning has the strings tuned at EADGBe. When naming strings for tuning, one always starts with the thickest string and ends with the thinnest string. If you played the thickest string open (not fretting anything) you should be playing an E. The next string should play an A, and so on. The last string is represented as an e. Why lower case? To differentiate from E. They are both playing an E, but the E string is an octave lower than the e string.

The fret board:
Since each fret represents a half step, it is easy to know which notes are where on the fret board. This (poorly made) diagram represents the fretboard and shows the notes:

Fret 1 2 3 4 5 6

e|----F-----|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|-G# or Ab-|----A-----|-A# or Bb-|
B|----C-----|-C# or Db-|----D-----|-D# or Eb-|----E-----|----F-----|
G|-G# or Ab-|----A-----|-A# or Bb-|----B-----|----C-----|-C# or Db-|
D|-D# or Eb-|----E-----|----F-----|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|-G# or Ab-|
A|-A# or Bb-|----B-----|----C-----|-C# or Db-|----D-----|-D# or Eb-|
E|----F-----|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|-G# or Ab-|----A-----|-A# or Bb-|

Fret 7 8 9 10 11 12

|----B-----|----C-----|-C# or Db-|----D-----|-D# or Eb-|----E-----|
|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|-G# or Ab-|----A-----|-A# or Bb-|----B-----|
|----D-----|-D# or Eb-|----E-----|----F-----|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|
|----A-----|-A# or Bb-|----B-----|----C-----|-C# or Db-|----D-----|
|----E-----|----F-----|-F# or Gb-|----G-----|-G# or Ab-|----A-----|
|----B-----|----C-----|-C# or Db-|----D-----|-D# or Eb-|----E-----|

Once you get to the twelfth fret, you start the cycle over again.

Note that when you write out tab like this, the thickest string is the bottom line and the thinnest string is the top line.

Tuning a guitar to itself:
This is a useful strategy if only one string is out of tune or is you know that one of your strings is in tune. If you want to tune your A string, for example, you just find an A on a different string (one that you know is in tune) and tune the A string until the two notes match. This is where your 5th fret becomes very valuable. A note on an open string is the same note as the 5th fret of the string above it. So to play an A, go to the string right above the A string (the E) and play the 5th fret. There is only one exception. The open B string is the same as the 4th fret on the string above it.

Now for the example. Let's say your E string is already tuned. You may have tuned it already to a piano or a different guitar. To tune the E, you play the 5th fret on the E string, which is the same as the A string (the open string right below it). Tune the A string until it sounds like the E string's 5th fret.

|-----|
|-----|
|-----| This is what the tab for this would look like.
|-----|
|--0--|
|--5--|

Next, go on to the D string.

|-----|
|-----|
|-----|
|--0--|
|--5--|
|-----|

Now the G string:

|-----|
|-----|
|--0--|
|--5--|
|-----|
|-----|

When tuning the B string, remember that it is the 4th fret on the G string that gives you a B:

|-----|
|--0--|
|--4--| The 4th fret on the G gives you a B
|-----|
|-----|
|-----|

And the last string, the e:

|--0--|
|--5--|
|-----|
|-----|
|-----|
|-----|

And that's standard tuning for ya! "Non-standard" tuning will be next for you, but I have a class to go to.

Drop tuning:
A really common drop-tuning practice is to drop the E string to a D. But then what string do you tune it to? There is no string above the E, and certainly no string as low as the dropped D. The guitar has a D string, but it will be an octave above the dropped D. It can be hard to tune octaves before you develop an ear for it, so the simple solution is to play on the 12th fret of the note you are trying to drop. Remember, playing on the 12th fret plays the note one octave above the open string. Then, you can tune the 12th fret on the dropped note to the open D string.

__________________


Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.

 

Aqualung

Tuning by ear:
Tuning by ear can be difficult at first, but, like anything, practice makes perfect. If you have an electric tuner, trying untuning your guitar and tuning it by ear. Then, you can see how close you were with the "real" tuner. When you're tuning by ear, try listening for inconsistencies withing the sound. Sounds travel in waves. The frequency of the wave (how often it completes a wave) determines the note. If you have two notes that are the same, the waves should fit on top of each other, so you only hear one sound. If they are not the same, the wave will be out of phase, and you will be able to hear "distortion". I like to think that the wave are fighting with each other, but that's just me. You can sort of hear the waves messing with each other, and the wobblyness of the competing notes. By listening to the waves "fighting" you can tune the strings together, until they are the same note.

After you get even more advanced, you will be able to tune the open strings to each other, without having to fret the 5th. My brother can do this, and so can my dad, but I don't have quite this good of an ear. When you play chords, or even play all the strings open, they should all sound good together. It's not the same note, but the waves aren't fighting. Things sound "right." When things start to sound "wrong" you will have to figure out which string is out of tune and then tune that string.

Tuning with the harmonics:
Here is a thread on harmonics if you don't know what these are yet.

Tuning with harmonics is another by-ear tuning method. It's fairly straight forward. This is a diagram that illustrates how to do it.
e|----------------------7*--|
B|-----------------0----5*--|
G|------------7*------------|
D|-------7*---5*------------|
A|--7*---5*-----------------|
E|--5*-------------7*-------|
The star next to the notes indicates that you should be playing the harmonic, not the fretted note.

The B string is a little tricky on that one, because it's weird. Remember how you have to play the 4th fret on the G string to tune it, instead of the 5th? Well, that can come back to bite you in the butt with harmonics tuning, since there is not discernable harmonic on the 4th fret. So you have to go all the way down to the 7th fret harmonic on the E string and match that up with the open B string.

And that's tuning for you.

__________________


Here we go. Mushu cereal for breakfast with duck sauce.