This will help you get your guitar more closely in tune with itself when you don't have a tuner or you only have a single pitch.
First, it is
necessary to know what a harmonic is. A
harmonic is achieved by lightly touching a string with one of your
fretting
fingers and then plucking the string with your picking hand as you
would
normally. The thing with harmonics is, after you have plucked
the note, if
you release your fretting finger, the note will continue to play. The
most clear
harmonics are achieved over the fret marker of the 12th, 7th, and 5th
frets.
These frets chime notes one octave higher, an octave and a fifth higher
and two
octaves higher than the played string respectively.
Physics Lesson: Harmonics are caused by the actual waves of the string
itself.
When you play a single string, you play all the higher frequencies as
well. The
higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths. When you rest your finger
lightly
on the node (or point at which the string is oscillating least) of a
wave, it
forces the string to emphasize that frequency, thus resulting in a
higher
pitch.
To tune: Play the 5th fret harmonic on the low E string and the 7th
fret
harmonic on the A string, when played simultaneously the pitches should
ring
loud and clear. If you get a choppy sound (like a tremolo) it means the
pitches
are slightly out of tune. Do the same with the A and D and the D and G
strings.
To tune the B string, play the 7th fret harmonic of the low E and the
open B
string. Finally, tune the high E to the B as you did the A to the low E.
DONATED BY: Mike Isaacson