left hearing tuner
January 21, 2012 6:57 PM Subscribe
Are there any good acoustic guitar tuners for dyslexic people?
Ok, so I'm learning acoustic guitar. Tuning is a fairly major frustration so far. I have a pretty cheap electric tuner that's got red lights on the sharp and flat sides, and a green one for in tune. It works... ok. I know the ideal is to learn to tune by ear, but till then, is there a guitar tuner either specifically for dyslexics, or a recommendation for a good, easy to use, not going to mess with my dyslexia? Worst case, I can just brute force learn to tune with my ok tuner/a slightly better one, but I prefer to minimize unneeded frustrations. The lessons are hard enough already!
Ok, so I'm learning acoustic guitar. Tuning is a fairly major frustration so far. I have a pretty cheap electric tuner that's got red lights on the sharp and flat sides, and a green one for in tune. It works... ok. I know the ideal is to learn to tune by ear, but till then, is there a guitar tuner either specifically for dyslexics, or a recommendation for a good, easy to use, not going to mess with my dyslexia? Worst case, I can just brute force learn to tune with my ok tuner/a slightly better one, but I prefer to minimize unneeded frustrations. The lessons are hard enough already!
I'm not sure exactly what about the dyslexia is making it hard to work the tuner you have, but check out this different kind of tuner. These clip on, and they display the letter signifying the note you are trying to tune to. Arrows to either side light up to tell you whether to dial the tuning machines to sharper, or flatter. I find this visual display much easier to use than the meter style or the kind you have with lights to either side. There are many variations and you might find one display you like better than another, but they are all the same basic idea.
As a beginning player, don't trouble yourself with the idea of learning to tune by "ear." Very few guitar players actually do that, and no professionals do. You can tune to other players, tune to your own guitar, or tune to a tuner or tuning fork, but you'll almost always be tuning to some other reference rather than drawing on perfect pitch in your mind (and whenever I play with people who claim to be doing that, their pitch often isn't so perfect). IT's true that you'll learn to tune much more quickly and you'll know when you're off and be able to make minor tweaks by ear, but you'll always want to start a session of playing - by yourself, but more especially with others or with recordings - by tuning to true pitch, verifiable by something other than yourself and your possibly way-out guitar.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM on January 21, 2012
As a beginning player, don't trouble yourself with the idea of learning to tune by "ear." Very few guitar players actually do that, and no professionals do. You can tune to other players, tune to your own guitar, or tune to a tuner or tuning fork, but you'll almost always be tuning to some other reference rather than drawing on perfect pitch in your mind (and whenever I play with people who claim to be doing that, their pitch often isn't so perfect). IT's true that you'll learn to tune much more quickly and you'll know when you're off and be able to make minor tweaks by ear, but you'll always want to start a session of playing - by yourself, but more especially with others or with recordings - by tuning to true pitch, verifiable by something other than yourself and your possibly way-out guitar.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM on January 21, 2012
My guess, based on the tuners I've seen, is that Jacen has trouble telling if the lights or arrows are on the flat side or the sharp side, the left or the right. If a tuner displayed the actual words sharp or flat, that'd be better.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:26 PM on January 21, 2012
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:26 PM on January 21, 2012
Have a friend help you write flat and sharp on the appropriate sides of the tuner in permanent marker? Then you won't have to decipher which side is which.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:28 PM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:28 PM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Silly as it sounds, how about rotate your tuner 90 degrees, so that sharp is up (higher) and flat is down (lower)?
Also, they are expensive, but a strobe tuner is fundamentally different in operation than the sort of tuner you have. There's a great iPhone app, iStroboSoft, by the company (Peterson) that leads the strobe tuner market. It's expensive (for an app, anyway, $10) but great.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:33 PM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Also, they are expensive, but a strobe tuner is fundamentally different in operation than the sort of tuner you have. There's a great iPhone app, iStroboSoft, by the company (Peterson) that leads the strobe tuner market. It's expensive (for an app, anyway, $10) but great.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:33 PM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Just FWIW...
I don't know anything about dyslexia, but I do know I hate electronic guitar tuners. They may be technically right, but they usually have nothing to do with putting our guitar in playable tune.
Every instrument is different. You need to strum a G chord, then a D, then a C, then an A and D to feel how it is going to work. Even if the notes sound a little off fret to fret, it's the chords you need to ring right.
My suggestion?
A simple Tuning fork. Online, but better yet, own one.
Bang it on a table, on your leg, or whatever, then stick it immediately on your guitar. In fact, stuck it right behind your ear first, so it vibrates your brain a bit.
Now do it again, and stick it on the face of your guitar. If it is acoustic, it will sing. If it is electric, turn it up a little, and it will too.
Now, harmonic tune from there. Hit a harmonic on the fifth fret for every string but your B.
Maybe, just maybe, hearing the actual note, and hearing as you twist a key until it is in perfect harmonic sync, with connect will you better than reading a red LED gauge.
I really hope this works out...MeMail me to talk more.
posted by timsteil at 7:42 PM on January 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
I don't know anything about dyslexia, but I do know I hate electronic guitar tuners. They may be technically right, but they usually have nothing to do with putting our guitar in playable tune.
Every instrument is different. You need to strum a G chord, then a D, then a C, then an A and D to feel how it is going to work. Even if the notes sound a little off fret to fret, it's the chords you need to ring right.
My suggestion?
A simple Tuning fork. Online, but better yet, own one.
Bang it on a table, on your leg, or whatever, then stick it immediately on your guitar. In fact, stuck it right behind your ear first, so it vibrates your brain a bit.
Now do it again, and stick it on the face of your guitar. If it is acoustic, it will sing. If it is electric, turn it up a little, and it will too.
Now, harmonic tune from there. Hit a harmonic on the fifth fret for every string but your B.
Maybe, just maybe, hearing the actual note, and hearing as you twist a key until it is in perfect harmonic sync, with connect will you better than reading a red LED gauge.
I really hope this works out...MeMail me to talk more.
posted by timsteil at 7:42 PM on January 21, 2012 [2 favorites]
Seconding timsteil's answer. If you are novice on any stringed instrument, tuning by ear is fundamental to your future progress. This may not be the answer you were wanting, but you will develop a deeper relationship with your instrument, instead of getting to know it by proxy with a tuner.
I would suggest an A 440 Hz tuning fork, and tuning the rest of the strings relative to that. There are a number of ways to do this. Two of which are by octaves or by harmonics. This page describes them pretty straightforwardly.
And....just another couple of science-y historical things I'd like to add while trying not to complicate this too much:
A "fifth" is the interval between, say, an open string and the seventh fret of your guitar. A "perfect fifth" has an exact frequency ratio of 3:2. "A" rings at 440 Hz (cycles per second), and a perfect fifth above that rings at exactly 660 Hz. These two notes played at the same time is a very consonant sound. A fifth above that is 990 Hz. Again, very consonant. After 12 iterations, you come to a frequency that is so close yet so far to a number evenly divisible by 440. The 12 tone chromatic scale is based on this. Until the baroque era, various "temperaments" were used to compensate for this, but this often restricted composers and prevented pieces from being easily transposed.
The guitar is designed around equal temperament, which J.S. Bach is largely responsible for the development of. This means the frequencies of any two notes on your fretboard have the same ratio to each other as any other pair of notes of the same interval. As a result, the ratio of your 7th fret to the open string is ever-so-slightly less than 3:2, and therefore is not a perfectly consonant interval.
You will probably not apply any of this immediately. But, for me, this helped alleviate a lot of frustration with learning to tune by ear. There are some imperfections you must yield to, and that's OK. This knowledge is also fun when you are tuning for a specific key, and those consonant chords really ring out like you always wanted them to.
I hope any portion of this is useful to you.
posted by triceryclops at 9:08 PM on January 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
I would suggest an A 440 Hz tuning fork, and tuning the rest of the strings relative to that. There are a number of ways to do this. Two of which are by octaves or by harmonics. This page describes them pretty straightforwardly.
And....just another couple of science-y historical things I'd like to add while trying not to complicate this too much:
A "fifth" is the interval between, say, an open string and the seventh fret of your guitar. A "perfect fifth" has an exact frequency ratio of 3:2. "A" rings at 440 Hz (cycles per second), and a perfect fifth above that rings at exactly 660 Hz. These two notes played at the same time is a very consonant sound. A fifth above that is 990 Hz. Again, very consonant. After 12 iterations, you come to a frequency that is so close yet so far to a number evenly divisible by 440. The 12 tone chromatic scale is based on this. Until the baroque era, various "temperaments" were used to compensate for this, but this often restricted composers and prevented pieces from being easily transposed.
The guitar is designed around equal temperament, which J.S. Bach is largely responsible for the development of. This means the frequencies of any two notes on your fretboard have the same ratio to each other as any other pair of notes of the same interval. As a result, the ratio of your 7th fret to the open string is ever-so-slightly less than 3:2, and therefore is not a perfectly consonant interval.
You will probably not apply any of this immediately. But, for me, this helped alleviate a lot of frustration with learning to tune by ear. There are some imperfections you must yield to, and that's OK. This knowledge is also fun when you are tuning for a specific key, and those consonant chords really ring out like you always wanted them to.
I hope any portion of this is useful to you.
posted by triceryclops at 9:08 PM on January 21, 2012 [3 favorites]
Just chiming in to say, timsteil's answer sounds good but is problematic. The reason tuning is hard is because doing it by ear is different to tuning to equal temperament. The frets are set to equal temperament. What this means is, if you want all chords to sound ok you should definitely not tune by making any one chord sound nice. Electronic tuners are a godsend. Yes it's good to learn to tune without one, but it's hard and unnecessary. To do it right you need octave checks as well as tuning string to string. Most professionals use tuners these days.
Regarding tuners, do you have a smartphone? I'd guess it might be easier to find an app with an interface that suited you than a physical tuner, which tend to look much the same.
posted by iotic at 1:06 AM on January 22, 2012 [2 favorites]
Regarding tuners, do you have a smartphone? I'd guess it might be easier to find an app with an interface that suited you than a physical tuner, which tend to look much the same.
posted by iotic at 1:06 AM on January 22, 2012 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Right now, its mostly a matter of sharp equals left or right... and that means I turn the peg.. uhh.. AND THEN, on the bottom, its backwards.... Again, not a terribly major problem, just one I wanted to see if theres a way to make easier and less stress causing for me. The 'turn the tuner 90 degrees' hack might actually work! But I shall look into the other solutions too :) (minus the smartphones. I am not that high tech yet)
posted by Jacen at 6:37 AM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Jacen at 6:37 AM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
Hmmm. If I'm reading your update correctly, your problem is that since your guitar has three tuning pegs on each side of the headstock (like this), you have to turn each set of three in the opposite direction to raise or lower the pitch. Which can be confusing.
If so, then what you want is a guitar where all 6 of the tuning pegs are on the same side of the headstock, like this.
So maybe your simplest solution is to buy a different guitar.
The catch is that that kind of headstock is really uncommon on acoustic guitars. If you move to electric you have about a bazillion models to choose from (Fender, Jackson, some Yamahas, on into infinity.)
There are some acoustics out there with this kind of headstock, mostly by Fender. I found the Fender Newporter Traveler as a current model.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:43 AM on January 22, 2012
If so, then what you want is a guitar where all 6 of the tuning pegs are on the same side of the headstock, like this.
So maybe your simplest solution is to buy a different guitar.
The catch is that that kind of headstock is really uncommon on acoustic guitars. If you move to electric you have about a bazillion models to choose from (Fender, Jackson, some Yamahas, on into infinity.)
There are some acoustics out there with this kind of headstock, mostly by Fender. I found the Fender Newporter Traveler as a current model.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:43 AM on January 22, 2012
tuning by ear
That's still not "tuning by ear" - it's tuning the guitar to itself. I understand the confusion because you do this via hearing, but you have a reference point that you're tuning everything to, which is the true A from the mechanical tuning fork.
This is just potentially confusing, so I wanted to make that clear.
posted by Miko at 7:49 AM on January 22, 2012
That's still not "tuning by ear" - it's tuning the guitar to itself. I understand the confusion because you do this via hearing, but you have a reference point that you're tuning everything to, which is the true A from the mechanical tuning fork.
This is just potentially confusing, so I wanted to make that clear.
posted by Miko at 7:49 AM on January 22, 2012
Also, which way to turn the peg can still be confusing even after decades of playing. It's OK if you accidentally turn it a slight bit in the other direction - you'll immediately hear it going the wrong way, sharper/up or flatter/down - and just reverse and twist the other way.
Also, I've never done this, but I wonder if you could just restring the top three pegs and wind them all in the same direction. This may place more torque on the neck, I'm not sure. Perhaps someone has tried that and can speak to it - or knows a reason why not to try it.
posted by Miko at 7:52 AM on January 22, 2012
Also, I've never done this, but I wonder if you could just restring the top three pegs and wind them all in the same direction. This may place more torque on the neck, I'm not sure. Perhaps someone has tried that and can speak to it - or knows a reason why not to try it.
posted by Miko at 7:52 AM on January 22, 2012
Ah! I am not dyslexic, but I often have a hard time with "is it this way or the other way?"* decisions when there is no reference and a two way choice. I had a hard time with the top three/bottom three issue when I first started playing guitar. What finally vanquished it for me was to visualize what is happening when I am turning the knob - I see which way it turns, and it is turning the thingus that holds the string, and the string comes up and wraps around it from this direction, and I can see it all right there and know which was to turn. YMMV vary, but internalizing the workings of the mechanism did it for for me.
* Is there a dyslexia spectrum? It occurs to me that perhaps I am on it - I do have lifelong issues with that sort of thing, in cases where no one else seems to have any trouble
posted by dirtdirt at 8:51 AM on January 22, 2012
* Is there a dyslexia spectrum? It occurs to me that perhaps I am on it - I do have lifelong issues with that sort of thing, in cases where no one else seems to have any trouble
posted by dirtdirt at 8:51 AM on January 22, 2012
@ Miko; Well, after taking a look at a couple of my guitars and doing a little research in some of my books, I think the general idea is to keep the string in as straight a line as possible. If you restring from the "opposite" direction, you're putting a pretty sharp angle (left to right if you're looking down on the headstock) on the string as it passes over the nut to the tuning peg.
I don't think there's any serious danger of warping the neck, but I think it's entirely possible that that increased angle will cause the string to catch or "bind" at the nut, making the guitar harder to tune or less likely to stay in tune.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:02 AM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
I don't think there's any serious danger of warping the neck, but I think it's entirely possible that that increased angle will cause the string to catch or "bind" at the nut, making the guitar harder to tune or less likely to stay in tune.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:02 AM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
Sometimes you come across a guitar where somebody's wrapped one or more strings the wrong way around the tuning peg. You just have to get a feel for which way makes the string tighter/higher/sharper and which way is looser/lower/flatter. I don't know if dyslexia would be a problem with this, though I can see how it might be for translating to a display. In that sense I'd agree it's important to develop a musical sense of "in tune".
Also note, even piano tuners will knock a note out of tune intentionally, to get a better sense of the "beating" between note (at least when they're training, so there's no shame in going the wrong way if you are developing your sense of how tuning works.
posted by iotic at 12:30 PM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
Also note, even piano tuners will knock a note out of tune intentionally, to get a better sense of the "beating" between note (at least when they're training, so there's no shame in going the wrong way if you are developing your sense of how tuning works.
posted by iotic at 12:30 PM on January 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Nightman at 7:04 PM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]