Guitar Tuning

This is a repost from a blog I put on myspace on Jan 4th 08.

I've been reading Richard Lloyd's website a lot and in it he talks about even temperament and guitar tuning. There is a way to tune a guitar by ear that makes a nice agreeable sound. I am geeking out on it this fine morning. I thought you might like trying it so here 'tis.

"First tune the bottom E. string to a tuning fork or tuning machine. Next, fret the E. string at the tenth fret. This will give you a D. Tune the D. string to this note by ear. Next, fret the D. string at the fifth fret. Tune the G. string to the D. string at the fifth fret. Now fret the G. string at the second fret. This gives you an A. Tune the A. string from this note. Now fret the A. string at the second fret. Tune the B. string from this note. It will be an octave up. Next, fret the D. string at the second fret. This gives you E. Tune your high E from this. Again this will be an octave."

He explains why this sounds nice, and why tuning to a machine sounds off, in the rest of the lesson here:
http://www.richardlloyd.com/lessons/index.htm Click on 'Musical Q&A'. It is the second question and answer. Interesting stuff. But if you don't want to read it all and just want to hear what I mean, tune your guitar the way posted here and strum a few tunes. It's very cool!

For more on temperament go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament

and here:
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~oneskull/3.6.04.htm