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Little help with staying in tune

I've noticed it in my own playing and some other guys too how hard it sometimes is to stay in tune. Especially for beginners this might just be a useful tip. It's strange when you tune the guitar and after ten minutes of playing it's already out of tune. To prevent that, here's what I do. This tip is not for guitars with a locking tremolo.

First just tune the guitar with a tuner so it's exactly in tune. Then pull each string individually about 2cm (2/3 inch) up from the guitar body (carefully), then tune the guitar again. You might have to repeat this procedure a couple of times until the strings start keeping their tuning even after you pull them. The explanation for this strange tip is quite simple. The tension of the string is different in both sides of the saddle, so we want to get in a position where the tuning can be corrected easily while playing by just bending the string normally, therefore getting back to the starting position where we pulled the strings to that side of the saddle. This is very handy on stage when you don't have lots of time to start tuning your guitar again.
Works for me and I hope you guys find it useful too!

And check the comments below for some more tips! Great wisdom there...

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2 Comment(s)

1. Comment by jg76aries On — 374 days 14 hours 5 minutes ago

I'd just like to add that temperature can often alter your tuning. I recently played a show on the 4th of July in hundred degree weather, and I had a heck of a time getting my guitars in tune, so I had to let the strings stretch out a bit more, and do the pulling thing quite a bit. The only real issue I had was with the G string, but I eventually got it worked out.

Anyway, my point being that you should let your guitars acclimate to the room temperature before tuning, and then tune accordingly. And the techniques discussed here will always come into play at some point. Good article!

2. Comment by zenguitar On — 393 days 13 hours 5 minutes ago

Good tips! I'd like to add a couple myself. A common problem is strings sticking in the nut. You can tell if your strings are sticking in the nut if when you turn a tuning peg, you hear a little pop / click sound. You may also get these little pop/clicks when you bend a string. Usually this is only a problem with the non-wrapped strings. Strings 1-3. This problem will cause your guitar to go out of tune constantly.

It is easily fixed by doing this: loosen up the offending string, so it is loose enough to pull out of the nut groove. Get any standard pencil, and using a sharp / hard edge of something like a knife, or even a credit card, scrape some of the graphite from the pencil lead into the groove of the nut. Be very generous in the amount of graphite shavings you scrape into it. Put the string back in the groove, move it around a bit, remove string, put some more graphite into the groove. Ok, now replace and re-tighten the string. 99% of the time this will solve the problem of a sticky nut groove, and will allieviate many tuning problems.

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