When I ask my students how they should practice intonation, almost everyone mentions using a tuner. When I talk to teachers about using tuners, however, I get responses across the whole spectrum. Some teachers advocate every student having a tuner on their stand and want them to refer to it constantly. Some teachers don’t want any of their students using a tuner in class, preferring they work on ear training instead.
Tuners are tools. They can be incredibly useful in the right contexts, but they don’t work for everything. Before you decide how to use them in class, let’s talk about what they do well and what they aren’t so good at.
Pros and Cons of Using a Tuner
Tuners measure the frequency of a pitch and give you a visual representation of what the pitch is. That’s extremely helpful when we are trying to get everyone to the same pitch, as closely as possible. The visual aspect can work wonders when training students to tune their instruments, or helping them to know approximately where to place their fingers.
Now let’s talk about what a tuner can’t do. Tuners can only measure a single pitch at a time. If there are multiple pitches playing, the tuner will jump around or give you an average reading of all the frequencies. Either way, it won’t be accurate. If every student has a tuner on their stand and the whole group is playing, those tuners are basically useless. Each student’s tuner will inevitably be affected by the other students playing and will give inaccurate readings.
Tuners require some response time to give an accurate reading. If students play too quickly, the tuner doesn’t have enough time to give a correct measurement. Tuners are best used with long tones.
Tuners can only measure one tuning system at a time, and most tuners are set up for equal temperament tuning. That means getting everything perfectly in tune with the tuner is not always desirable. When you tune a string instrument in fifths, the strings will sound most perfectly in tune with just or Pythagorean tuning. That means on the tuner, your strings won’t be perfectly in tune, because the fifth is two cents larger in those tuning systems than in equal temperament.
Students can become too reliant on the visual aspect of the tuner if we aren’t careful. The visual feedback is helpful and important, but it must be accompanied with ear training as well. At some point, students have to be able to confidently tune their instruments and play the music without the aid of a tuner.
Teaching Students to Use a Tuner
While tuners are fairly simple and easy to use, students need to know some basics. At the beginning of every year, I always introduce the tuner to my students and we talk about what the tuner looks like and what everything means.
Note name: Most tuners will show you the note name of the pitch that’s closest to the pitch being played. That’s important information, and if the students don’t pay attention to that note name, they can easily end up tuning much too high or low. I’ve had students break strings because they thought their string was flat when it was really one or two whole steps too high.
Tuner settings: Many tuners have settings that can be adjusted. The default setting is usually equal temperament tuning with A440 as the reference pitch, but that can be changed, intentionally or accidentally. Some tuners will show you other tuning systems, like just intonation. On some tuners you can adjust the reference pitch. I had one student who was always sharp when he came to class. When I started asking him about it, it turns out his private teacher was having him tune to A442. It makes quite a difference. Make sure the tuner settings are where you want them.
Frequency: Speaking of A440, do your students know what that even means? It refers to the Hz, or frequency of the pitch. 440 Hz means the sound waves oscillate 440 times a second. If you halve that to 220 Hz, you get the pitch exactly one octave lower. Double it and you get the pitch an octave higher. Sure, students may be able to tune just fine without that piece of information, but understanding some of the physics behind tuning can be interesting and helpful. (For more information on how to teach students what to listen for, read Part 2 of this series.)
Cents: Many tuners will also tell you how many cents sharp or flat the pitch is. There are 100 cents in a half step. Most people can’t tell the difference when you are within 3 cents of a pitch. I tell my high school students that they need to be within 3 cents sharp or flat of a pitch to be “in tune.” A middle school teacher might be happy with 10 cents sharp or flat. Professional musicians might aim for 2 cents, or even closer. You get to decide what’s acceptable for your group.
How to Use a Tuner in Class
Of course, every classroom situation is a little different, so every teacher will use tuners differently. Here are some things to think about as you decide how to use this important tool.
How many tuners do you want or need in your class? When I teach beginning guitar, I make sure every student has their own tuner. It saves so much time when we tune at the beginning of class every day. When I teach my advanced orchestra class, I have one tuner that I control and project for the whole class to see. I use it in conjunction with ear training, and I don’t want my students getting too dependent on the tuner.
How often will you refer to the tuner? Are you going to check intonation constantly, or are you only going to use it to tune instruments? This is something you will have to think about. In general, I believe tuners could be used more frequently in the classroom. Seeing that visual feedback and talking about what’s in tune and what’s not can help students focus more on that part of their playing.
However you decide to use a tuner, make sure you use it in conjunction with a lot of ear training! Tuners will never take the place of a solid ear training foundation. If you’d like more ideas on ear training exercises, check out Parts 3, 4, and 5 of this series, Pitch Matching, Finger Patterns, and Using Drones.