hello I am Liz with d'addario strings and I am here today with Diane Eladio of Moxie strings that's right what are we doing today okay today we are working on tuning we're going to show you the basics of tuning your instrument it's a vital skill it's really important you'll probably tune your instrument every time you take it out of the case and probably multiple times while you're playing or practicing okay so each one of these strings is designed to be a specific pitch and because if the instruments are wood and there are fluctuations in the weather they have a tendency to either be a little bit tighter a little bit looser which affects the tone of the pitch so it's important to adjust them to make sure that they're right where we need them to be so how do we make those adjustments yes so there are a couple different ways that we can adjust the pitch the first is all of string instruments have what are called pegs and most of them also have fine tuners so pegs make big adjustments in pitch so if the string is very very far from your goal notes you might use the pegs otherwise you might make smaller changes with fine tuners okay and bass is the only one that's a little bit different they have a mechanism of tuners at the top of their scroll that they basically serve as both the pegs and fine tuners okay yeah we make big and small adjustments first step in the process is identifying our goal pitch where we want to go so most string instruments start with their a string it's just kind of standard protocol and usually there will be something playing an a so that you can know where you're going know what to match and there's a couple different ways that we can do that a tuning fork is one okay more likely now you're gonna find an electric tuner that will play you a drone pitch a lot of times it'll be a piano that plays it for you and if you're seated in a full orchestra it's likely to be the oboe that plays the a for you so we all start with an A it's important first to really listen and internalize the pitch that we're going for so maybe we use the electric tuner I'm gonna start there let's do it so I like to take a second listen internalize it I might even sing or hum the pitch to really be sure of where I'm going and then I will quietly add this add my a string not quite what we're looking for that's that's about that time all right so because it is big time out of tune we might use the pegs to adjust this one first and there are a couple different ways that you can play the pitch on your instrument to match it I like to bow because you can play a sustained pitch and be able to listen more constantly but there's you could also pluck and adjust using both either the pegs or the fine tuners as well so that's just another method when you're making these changes what do you listening for I'm listening to see whether my string is both as higher or lower than the pitch that we're going towards and I'm waiting for it to sound identical when it's perfectly in tune it almost sounds like just one note is playing that's usually telltale sign okay yep if I would like to raise the pitch I'd turn the peg away from me and that tightens the string and it raises the pitch if I'd like to lower the pitch I loosen it by turning it towards my face here we go so now we've gotten pretty close and now we switch to the fine tuners to make those last small adjustments if you turn it clockwise it's going to raise the pitch and tighten the string and vice versa counterclockwise will loosen the string and lower the pitch okay there we are alrighty that sounds much better it does yes and again very important important to keep doing it multiple times keep checking okay yeah now that our a is tuned I imagine we probably repeat that process for the other three strings all four strings can be tuned this way yeah okay cool do you have any other tips and tricks for us yeah it's very important to tune quietly so that you can really hear the pitch that you're trying to match also to tune slowly you're making adjustments in your string and it's important not to go past to the pitch that you're looking for on your string a string that is too tight is much more likely to break so we don't want that and also tune frequently because it's it's an important skill and it's something that your instruments going to be constantly fluctuating and if you're working hard to play your instrument in tune but the pitch of your string isn't in tune it kind of defeats the purpose so always be checking always be making sure that you're aware of where your strings are and making sure they're in tune and tuning in general can just be a really great process and it's it's very beneficial for musicianship it's great ear training it teaches you to identify pitches and it really helps you work on playing your instrument in tune as well very cool yeah all right well thank you so much thank you so much