Free Bass Guitar Lessons

How to tune your Bass Guitar

You finally picked out and purchased the bass guitar of your dreams. You have searched high and low to find the perfect teacher and dreams of stardom float through your imagination. You are so ready to get started but don’t even know how to tune your new musical beast. What are you going to do now? You are going to start with the simple basics of course, and tuning your bass guitar is paramount to being able to play like a pro. Remember, the entire rhythm of the music rests on you and if you are playing out of tune, you are going to kill the music and your dreams. Let’s learn to do it right and do it right from the beginning.

Tuning by Ear

Learning to tune by ear is the optimal skill although you can tune your bass using other methods as well. Tuning by ear ensures that wherever you are, you are able to get into the right groove without any additional equipment and you won’t waste valuable time. Learning to tune your bass by ear is going to take practice but will be well worth the effort. In order to achieve the skill of being able to tune by ear using an online tuner or an electronic tuner will be very helpful. You can use these tools until you become adept and are comfortable with your skills. Let’s get started.

Pitch and Frequency

A basic understanding of pitch and frequency is necessary to understand exactly what is happening when you are tuning up. Pitch is the sound a musical note makes; it is what the ear hears. Pitch is determined by sound wave frequency which can be understood best by knowing that frequency is another way of saying vibration. When you pluck a string on your bass, it vibrates. How quickly it vibrates determines the pitch, and pitch is the sound your ear is hearing. When you are tuning your bass, you are simply bringing the pitch in tune with the note each string should make in order to be in tune.

When you are out of tune, the correct pitch will clash with the incorrect one and by paying attention with your ear, you can hear the clash and adjust yourself until the two notes are in tune with one another and sound harmonious. Let’s learn how to adjust the strings in order to tune up.

How to Adjust your Strings

One of the most common mistakes made when learning to tune is tightening the strings too tight causing them to break. Eliminate this hassle by loosening the strings until they are almost floppy on the neck then start tuning. You will not have to concern yourself with headache of having to restring your bass because of broken strings.

Tuning begins with the bottom E string, and once this note is tuned properly, the rest of it will begin to fall into place easily. Using your tuner, listen to the correct pitch and begin to tighten the string on you bass. Pluck your string repeatedly until you hear the two notes sync with each other. You will not hear any clash between the two when you have E tuned properly; they will sound exactly the same.

Continue to tune the rest of your strings the same way. After a few tries, reverse the process. Loosen the strings again and try tuning E without the electronic or online tuner. Once you feel it is tuned, check it against the tuner to see how close you came to getting it right. With practice you will be able to tune E automatically by ear and tuning the rest of the strings will be a snap.

Tuning the rest of the Strings

After tuning E, place your finger up on the fifth fret and pluck the string. You have just played the A note and now need to match that A with the A string; the string right above E. After tuning A, you can now move on to D the same way because each string is five steps higher than the last except for the B string which is four steps higher rather than five. If you only have a four string bass though, you don’t need to worry about tuning B at all and can just keep working five notes higher for each string.

Tuning your instrument by ear is essential and learning how will free you up for the next step; playing some great music.
 

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