# Tips on tuning by ear?



## boarderaholic

Right, so apparently my ability to tune just by listening to my violin is questionable, at best. I've downloaded an app onto my smart phone as a reference guide, but I really, really do not trust those things. I would use the piano we have at home, but that thing is so out of tune, it's painful. I WILL be getting a tuning fork as soon as my budget permits, but in the mean time, don't have much to go off of. Short of tuning the strings to each other, is there much else I can do?


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## ahammel

boarderaholic said:


> Right, so apparently my ability to tune just by listening to my violin is questionable, at best. I've downloaded an app onto my smart phone as a reference guide, but I really, really do not trust those things. I would use the piano we have at home, but that thing is so out of tune, it's painful. I WILL be getting a tuning fork as soon as my budget permits, but in the mean time, don't have much to go off of. Short of tuning the strings to each other, is there much else I can do?


Nope.

Why don't you trust the app? It can probably get a lot closer to A440 than your ear.


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## dgee

Yep - trust it. When you first try this you find your ear and brain combo has been massaging your ego. Stick with the tuner and matters will improve - but it won't be fun and it won't be quick. The tuning fork is nice but how good is your relative pitch? As good a machine's? 

In short, welcome to a lifelong abusive relationship with pitch - another one of the high costs of wanting to play music to a decent standard. Have you got what it takes? (I hesitate to ask, but do you have a metronome? )


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## boarderaholic

ahammel said:


> Nope.
> 
> Why don't you trust the app? It can probably get a lot closer to A440 than your ear.


I'm worried that while the app says that I'm at a A440 pitch, it might actually be something else, and that I am learning the wrong one.



dgee said:


> Yep - trust it. When you first try this you find your ear and brain combo has been massaging your ego. Stick with the tuner and matters will improve - but it won't be fun and it won't be quick. The tuning fork is nice but how good is your relative pitch? As good a machine's?
> 
> In short, welcome to a lifelong abusive relationship with pitch - another one of the high costs of wanting to play music to a decent standard. Have you got what it takes? (I hesitate to ask, but do you have a metronome? )


I am definitely learning very quickly that this battle with pitch will go in indefinitely. Ha! From what I can tell, my relative pitch is ok. For me, once I have something to reference, I am usually very close with how in tune I can get the rest of the instrument, it's just the starting point that I need. And I do indeed have a metronome. In fact, I seem to have more than one! Though, one has been relegated to decorative purposes only.


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## dgee

I recommend an electronic chromatic tuner, they're inexpensive these days - every musician must have one!


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## PetrB

Really, a tuning fork or pitch pipe, and train your ears ~ which means, ahem, yet something else to practice. Might as well buy that device in the A440, since that is what will be thrown at you to tune up in general, just about anywhere, anytime.

That is what the real big boys and girls do, en masse, which means almost anyone can learn. 
I bet your hearing is just dandy, and what you lack is concentrated thinking about it and practice.

If it has batteries or needs to be plugged in, you don't need it or want it.


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## hreichgott

Finding A440 and finding fifths to tune the other strings are different skills.
Yes, unless you have perfect pitch to a margin of error of 1 Hz, you will need to get used to taking your A440 from a device, oboist, or similar. If you ever play in a group that likes an historical slightly lower A, or a group that likes a brighter slightly higher A, you'll need to adjust accordingly. Same if you ever play with an accompanist -- your A has to be whatever the piano's A is that day. My violinist spouse, who has excellent perfect pitch, still never tunes without reference to tuning fork or something else for the A.

Finding fifths is usually done by playing two adjacent strings together and listening for whether the fifth is exact. If not, there will be some noticeable "wobbling" as the overtones compete. To hear this, string players routinely turn a string farther out of tune in order to really hear the wobbles, then turn it back bit by bit until everything agrees, the overtones line up and the wobbles go away.


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## PetrB

hreichgott said:


> Finding A440 and finding fifths to tune the other strings are different skills.
> Yes, unless you have perfect pitch to a margin of error of 1 Hz, you will need to get used to taking your A440 from a device, oboist, or similar. If you ever play in a group that likes an historical slightly lower A, or a group that likes a brighter slightly higher A, you'll need to adjust accordingly. Same if you ever play with an accompanist -- your A has to be whatever the piano's A is that day. My violinist spouse, who has excellent perfect pitch, still never tunes without reference to tuning fork or something else for the A.
> 
> Finding fifths is usually done by playing two adjacent strings together and listening for whether the fifth is exact. If not, there will be some noticeable "wobbling" as the overtones compete. To hear this, string players routinely turn a string farther out of tune in order to really hear the wobbles, then turn it back bit by bit until everything agrees, the overtones line up and the wobbles go away.


Every piano tuner I've known cranks the string up, and lowers it into tune. Seems to work better than the other way around. I believe your colleague string players do the same.


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## boarderaholic

Thanks for the help everyone. Guess I'm going to take a leap of faith and trust technology for once.


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## senza sordino

My strings, Dominant, are very stable. I tune every time I play but it's pretty close every time. I don't have a tuner. If I'm way out of tune, I'll find a YouTube video of an orchestra "A". Then tune the other strings in fifths. What's a fifth? Just think of the opening theme of Star Wars, the first two notes are a fifth apart. 

But a tuner works great too.


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## Reinhold

My advice would be to stick with the tuner until you've adjusted and adapted your ear. It certainly will be more in tune using the tuner than without.


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## Couac Addict

An electronic tuner should only set you back about $10 or so...takes the guesswork out of it.


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## PetrB

Couac Addict said:


> An electronic tuner should only set you back about $10 or so...takes the guesswork out of it.


Tuning forks are as stable as it gets, without any additional constant costs of replacing batteries.


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## aleazk

Use physics!. When you add two sine waves, there's a phenomenom called "beat frequency":










So, that's what you get when you add two cosine waves of frequencies f1 and f2. The result is another wave, but more complex. When the frequencies f1 and f2 are close enough, basically you will hear a "pitch" associated to the frequency (f1+f2)/2, but whose general amplitude ("the volume") oscillates at a very low frequency of fb=(f1−f2). That's the beat frequency, fb.










(the thing in blue is the pitch you hear; the thing in red is the way in which its volume oscillates)

When f1=f2, then fb=0, i.e., no volume oscillation.






So, when you want to tune a string of your instrument based on the sound produced by another instrument: play the two together, i.e., simultaneously. Listen then to the volume oscillation of the resulting sound. If there's any volume oscillation, then the frequencies of the string of your instrument and of the other instrument are not the same. Adjust the string in your instrument until the volume oscillation disappears completely.
That's how you tune, say, your A string using some A of, say, a piano. 
Now, play simultaneously the A and E strings. That should sound like a perfect fifth. If it's not a perfect fifth, you will hear a beat frequency (the analysis is less trivial than the previous unison case, but the result is the same). Again, adjust the E string in your instrument until the volume oscillation disappears completely.

That's how professional musicians tune their instruments by ear. I always use it and works incredibly well. Of course, you need practice in order to recognize the beat frequency.


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## kv466

PetrB said:


> Every piano tuner I've known cranks the string up, and lowers it into tune. Seems to work better than the other way around. I believe your colleague string players do the same.


Hmmm, that's interesting, Pete; I didn't know that. I know for certain that guitars are always best tuned up as it can't go any further but (depending on the tuning machines) it _can_ go further down if left on the down-tune. I do the same with my violin but I'm not a violinist.

To the OP, best advice I can give you is to try and train your brain to remember at least one (if not all) of the strings' tone. Use a favorite note from a favorite piece that you feel you can remember. You're also gonna want a digital tuner no matter what but it's always good to know how to tune your instrument. Good luck!


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## aleazk

hreichgott said:


> Finding fifths is usually done by playing two adjacent strings together and listening for whether the fifth is exact. If not, there will be some noticeable "wobbling" as the overtones compete. To hear this, string players routinely turn a string farther out of tune in order to really hear the wobbles, then turn it back bit by bit until everything agrees, the overtones line up and the wobbles go away.


haha, this is what I was trying to explain.


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## hreichgott

aleazk said:


> haha, this is what I was trying to explain.


You did not just try. You used physics!


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