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🦋 Tuner

It is time to break down and buy a clip-on tuner for my violin. At the show last night I used Ron's tuner (plug-in, not clip-on; but that was alright since I had my pick-up attached for playing with their electric band); and it just made it a lot easier going in, to be confident my tuning is correct and the same as everyone else. I have always associated a sort of machismo value with being able to tune by ear; but here are the problems with that*: it takes a lot longer; my strings end up in tune relative to each other but there is no guarantee they are going to line up precisely with the rest of the band; and it is not always feasible in a noisy gig situation. In gigs I usually end up borrowing somebody else's tuner; things would be simpler if I had one of my own.

I was getting frustrated last night about not being a member of the band -- if my musical activities consist of sitting in with other people's gigs, I do not ever get to be an integral piece of the sound -- it's more like I'm adding in on top of their sound, and I'm playing pieces I have not practiced with them so it takes me until the middle of the song to actually feel comfortable and believe in what I'm playing. I enjoy the times I play with Bob and Janis and Greg much more; but that does not seem like something we could extrapolate to performing, the privacy of the setting is a pretty key part of the music.

* (Leaving aside the obvious problem of its ludicrosity.)

posted morning of Sunday, March 29th, 2009
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Right...pro musicians also used to use tuning forks, or just tune to each other, but electronic tuners are much faster and more convenient.

posted afternoon of March 29th, 2009 by Randolph

Yeah -- I'm a little slow on the uptake I guess, it's gotten to where I ask somebody to give me an A that I can tune to, and they just say here, why don't you use my tuner.

posted afternoon of March 29th, 2009 by Jeremy

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