Video Question: Tuning

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Date: July 11th, 2008 | Length: 3.42 | Instructor: Brad Henecke

Jdemail78 asks, "I have a pretty simple question, I think, on the correct way to tune a guitar. I have an acoustic/electric guitar with a tuner built right into the electronics but my question would apply to any guitar with any sort of tuner. When you go to tune a string, should you give the string your tuning one good strum and then adjust the tuning peg, or is it better to continue to pick the string while your adjusting the peg? It seems like I can get a slightly different result doing it one way or the other. In the end, I think either way has the guitar pretty much in tune but I'm just curious if one way is better over the other or if it really doesn't matter. Thanks and keep up the great lessons." Another benefit of being a member of JamPlay is the video response section. Our expert staff fields questions from our members and provides video responses each week.

Other Video Responses:

Playing With Backing Tracks - February 11th, 2008 (2 minutes, 26 seconds)

Garfield asks "This might be a dumb question but how does one learn to play along with the backing tracks? Thanks" View Response

Fast Picking - July 18th, 2008 (3 minutes, 34 seconds)

StephenWhan asks, "Can you give any advice as to how to improve fast picking techniques? By way of example, I've been messing around with the intro to Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years" for a while now and find that I keep missing the string every 3-4 picks. Either I miss the string altogether, or I dig too deep into the preceding note and it throws off my rhythm. I've tried practicing without using my left hand and get fairly accurate relatively quickly, but as soon as I re-introduce the left and start depressing strings, I go right back to missing strings again. Slowing down, I'm 100%, so it's the tempo and length of the repetition that's throwing me off. Any and all help, as always, is greatly appreciated. Jam on!" View Response

- June 20th, 2008 (2 minutes, 30 seconds)

Jzcode43 asks, "I have a gig book of scales and all of the Pentatonic minor and major are shown as Type 1 through 5. I also have a software program that has the same Pentatonic scales but their shown in positions 1 through 12. It appears that there are scales between each scale type. Can you explain what this is all about? Thanks..." View Response

Patience Strum Pattern - March 17th, 2008 (4 minutes, 38 seconds)

Culom asks, "Matt, could you show me the strum pattern for Patience. I can't really see exactly what you are doing on the lesson. Thanks again. Allen" View Response

Pentatonic Scale Help - March 17th, 2008 (6 minutes, 25 seconds)

Rsherman1980 says, "Hey Brad, Great videos! Is the a minor pentatonic scale the only 5 position scale? Can you play minor pentatonic in different keys? If so do they follow the same pattern?" View Response