What did you use before electronic tuners?

OGG said:
Ears
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So you are the reason some songs are not quite E standard...:grin:

Though I did not start playing until later in life I started with a pitchpipe ...which didn't work well since my ears aren't great. Then I got a tuning fork (A440). I was only playing acoustic at that time. I don't think I found out about electronic tuners until relatively recently :facepalm: when I got my first electric I think (in 2003). Prior to that I didn't go to music stores much
 
First I had this tuner with a little orange light that you'd put under the string. It would show two strings out of tune. As you'd tune it, it would stabilize into one string.

When my ears got better, I used a pitch pipe.
 
also, before electronic tuners (jr. high and high school) we had an upright piano and a Hammond B3 in the house.....so i could always tune to one of those.
often times i would put on an album that had songs that i knew the key to and would tune to that.
 
I used to "play" a tuned open high E note in my head. When I first took lessons when I was 11 yrs old, we (I & fellow students ) played nothing but that open E string for a week solid-in whole notes, then half notes, then quarter notes. My teacher would add a progressively lower string exercise each week, until 6 weeks went by. We would then have a progressive set of picking exercises just for the right hand using all open strings. Then in the following weeks and months they'd progressively add left hand notes in.

I never forgot the sound of a tuned high open E string, & it set a solid path for my ear training for the rest of my life. If I ever see those teachers ever again, I'll have to thank them for that.

Also, for a long time I'd "play" the very first notes of Brahms D major Symphony (#2 ) in my head. It would give me a strong, clear "D" note that I'd tune my D string to. Then I'd tune the rest off of that.
 
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sunvalleylaw said:
I didn't play before electronic tuners.
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^^This

I had 2 ways of tuning, though. I kept this in my case, in case batteries went dead - tune the A string, and then tune by ear from there using the 5th fret technique.

tuning-fork.jpg


And then one of those cheap acoustical tuners similar to this:

korg-ga-1-guitarbass-tuner.jpg
 
I had a cheap pitch pipe first. Then a metronome that produced an A440 tone. Then a korg pandora multi fx box. Then a digitech rack unit. And now either the computer or a clip on tuner.
 
baimun said:
... and that club was called "The 6th Circle of Hell". :embarrassed:
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Might as well have been. They double booked that night. To their credit, they paid both acts , set us up in different places, and had us trade off sets. It was not the right venue for what I was doing at the time, though.
 
Gary Blanchard said:
Might as well have been. They double booked that night. To their credit, they paid both acts , set us up in different places, and had us trade off sets. It was not the right venue for what I was doing at the time, though.
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I only like trading sets if it's a band I know, like, and the musical genres match up okay.
 
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