Instruments

Normally guitar and bass players that use a pedal tuner would treat it no differently than a clip-on tuner. When using a clip-on tuner, the normal procedure is to clip the tuner to the headstock of the instrument, turning it on, and then striking the strings and adjusting the tuning pegs accordingly. The clip-on tuner counts the vibrations of the guitar's body to track the intonation. Pedal tuners (and other tuners that you can plug into with an instrument cable) use the electrical signal from your guitar's pickup system to track the vibrations, so the tuners is listening to and deciphering the full "complex" tone of your instrument, which is a lot for the tuner to handle. Most players do not think about this when they use a pedal tuner, and instead just leave their guitar tone as bright as normally would be, strike the strings like how they normally would when playing, and use any random pickup combination. All of these factors make your guitar's signal more difficult for the pedal tuner to understand, so try using this tips to "simplify" your guitar signal before it goes into the tuner, so that you can get the most accurate reading possible. If you use these techniques, a pedal tuner can become easier to use, with the added benefit of higher accuracy tuning

1. Double-check that no other effects are on before the tuner

   • Having extra noise from a distortion pedal or a pitch-shifting chorus would make tuning pretty much impossible, but you probably already knew that.

2. Set your pickup configuration to some sort of "middle position" and use 2 different pickups if your instrument has them

   • A 2 pickup combination could be: the bridge and neck, bridge and middle, middle and neck, or a piezo and microphone on an acoustic. By using 2 pickups, a wide range of the string is able to be captured, which ends up evening out the sustain of the note.

3. Turn the volume control all of the way up, and the tone knob(s) all the way down, or make the signal as dark as possible

   • Pedal tuners convert your signal into binary code and do math to find out the frequency of the note you are playing by deducing what the lowest sine wave is that you are producing. Since all sounds contain tons and tons of sine waves, the less higher sine waves there are for the tuner to "ignore", the easier it is for the tuner to track that fundamental sine tone that it wants to hear. 

4. Strike the string somewhat gently, consistently, and close to the bridge

   • Playing the string gently and close to the bridge helps to stabilize the pick attack from when you hit the string. If you pick too hard, the string goes artificially sharp in pitch, then falls back down to where the true pitch is. By playing lightly, you are avoiding this sharp transient part of the note to a degree, and by playing close to the bridge, you are playing by the stiffest and most stable part of the string.

5. Play 12th fret harmonics instead of open strings

   • By touching the string to trigger a harmonic, you are instantly stabilizing the pick attack of the note, and you are playing a higher note, which may be easier for your tuner to track. Higher notes come from faster fundamental frequency sine waves, so there is more "real estate" between high note wave cycles than lower notes, leading to more accuracy. If this is confusing, I can talk about the physics of sound at your next lesson!

Using these methods may take a little more time than just quickly playing the open strings, but I promise that if you take the extra time to do these steps, then you will be very pleased. These methods are how I am able to set the intonation for a guitar, and I'm never going back to tuning "the easy way" unless I'm in a pinch to tune as fast as possible. Enjoy!

I want to help you save time and money so here is the moral of the story:

YOU SHOULD HAVE BOTH to become more pro, in almost every case!

In many cases, there is usually 2 opposite products in the same family of products that are both necessary to own, so deciding between them is pointless! Here are some examples across the instruments I teach:

Tube amp and pedals vs. Digital modeling amp with headphone jack 

Use the amp and pedals for rehearsals and performances, and use the modeling amp for quiet or silent practice at home!

Metal sax mouthpiece vs. hard rubber mouthpiece 

Use the metal mouthpiece for more modern genres of music, and use the hard rubber mouthpiece for older genres of music

Fragile studio-style condenser or ribbon mic vs. a durable dynamic mic (Ex. Neumann U87 vs Shure SM57))

Use the condenser for home recording and studio work, and use the dynamic mic in the live environment, or use both mics to mic 2 different sources at the same time!

Notation software vs. a DAW

Use the notation software to compose and to learn about music, and use the DAW to actually produce recordings of the music you composed

Real woodwind instruments vs. Wind synthesizers or wind controllers (Ex. Real saxophone vs. Roland Aerophone (sax-style wind synth))

Use the real woodwinds for loud practice, rehearsals, and performances, while using the wind synths or controllers to practice silently and to control external equipment

Wood vs. Plastic clarinet

Use the wood clarinet for indoor play, and use the plastic clarinet for outdoor play, especially marching band

Sheet music: big screen tablet with Bluetooth page turner vs. all of the paper supplies you might need

Lots of people have not gotten into using a tablet for sheet music yet, so having the supplies needed for paper music might help you in a pinch

The above are examples of common choices musicians feel the need to make choices about (since everyone wants the most bang for their buck) but at the end of the day, you usually need both options, so DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF and invest if you want to take your abilities seriously. You probably need both options of whatever you're choosing between, you just may not know it yet.

Once you get to option #3 however, things start to change. If you already own the 2 opposite categories of a musical product, usually a third category is going to be in between the middle of what you already have, so be warned. This is where redundancy comes in and where money could get wasted. BEWARE OF THE WORD "ANOTHER". I am always happy to consult you and help you find redundancy in your gear. I think about this subject a lot as someone who has purchased many redundant products over the years.

Examples of the redundant 3rd purchase (across several instruments)

• If you already have a tube amp and pedals and a modeling amp, you probably don't need a modeling floorboard unit if your modeling amp has enough effects and outputs on it for your needs. 2 modeling products in this case are redundant

• If you already own a wooden and plastic clarinet (both Bb) but want another wooden clarinet, this would be redundant. Either buy a different size clarinet or sell the old wooden clarinet to help to pay for the upgraded clarinet

• If you already have an acoustic guitar and a solid body electric guitar, then you probably don't need the jazz hollowbody electric guitar (often referred to as an archtop). Both the acoustic and solid body electric can pull of the jazz tones you're looking for across the 2 guitars

• If you have a digital practice saxophone and a real alto sax, then buying another alto sax made with a different material is redundant. The material does make a slight tonal difference, but it's not enough to justify a spending all of that money for such a slight tonal difference. Consider buying a different mouthpiece or electronics such as mics, PA's, and effects pedals to explore new sounds

I hope with these examples that you understand the point I'm trying to make here. Usually 2 opposite ends of a product category are needed to be "whole". Once you have both halves of the whole, you are all set! 

Muscle memory and ear training, that it!

Muscle memory is almost everything. In non-technical terms, the subconscious brain controls your muscles for you when you do anything from walking, talking, eating, and playing your instrument. Once you first learned, then practiced anything involving your muscles many times over, your subconscious brain is able to do it for you without you having to actively think about it. 

This is how masters become masters. Have you ever heard this phrase: "it takes 10,000 hours for someone to become a master at something"? This isn't accurate for everyone, but it does have some truth to it. If you have done something for 10,000 hours over and over again, you subconscious brain has developed muscle memory to do that task, which in our case is playing an instrument. Masters do not really have to think when they play their instruments in the exact same way you don't need to consciously think about walking! 

The same rule goes for your ear. If you listen and actively memorize all of the sounds your instrument can produce, you can then string the sounds together and therefore create music! Ta-da! Now all of you non-classical musicians can improvise in any key, tempo, genre, scale, etc. This is EXACTLY HOW I IMPROVISE. I have memorized ALL (or at least most) of the sounds my instruments can make and how to make them, so when I pick up an instrument, I think of the sounds (ex. chords) and the tune/melody I want to play and I try to play it exactly how I hear it. What allows me to do this in particular is perfect pitch. 

Learn what each different musical element SOUNDS like, then practice it. This applies to notes, chords, melodies, arpeggios, rhythms, etc. It is not necessary to have perfect pitch to be able to do this, but it is possible to have either really good relative pitch (the ability to hear other notes and chords based off of hearing a reference note), and even true pitch (the ability to memorize how notes sound on a particular instrument). Perfect pitch is essentially true pitch but with any instrument.