It involves playing a long, steady tone and simultaneously adjusting the tension using the pegs until it sounds just right. The second method is by playing a long note with your bow. Even a slow digital tuner won’t be able to provide an accurate reading. That makes plucking unreliable for highly professional playing.

This method also makes the string start out high and subsequently falls by a few octaves to produce a flatter tone. However, plucking the string does not give a sustained note, so it may be necessary to repeat the process a few times. It is especially useful when using a digital tuner or a piano. Plucking produces a clear, consistent tone that is very easy to compare with the reference tone. The easiest one for beginners is simply plucking the string being tuned and comparing it with a reference note from a tuner.

An extra turn or so can snap the expensive violin wires. Don’t rotate the pegs more than a quarter turn at a time, and check the string each time to ensure that it is not too tight. When tuning your violin using the pegs, be sure to use very small movements. There’s another mnemonic for this motion as well, which is righty tighty, lefty loosey. Rotating the pegs clockwise tightens the strings, while rotating counterclockwise loosens them. There will be two pegs on each side: one side (topside) has the D and G string pegs, while the other holds the A and E pegs. Each string is fixed to its own peg, and you can figure out which is which by following each string to its peg. The pegs are used to tune large differences in the pitch of the string because they move a lot for each rotation. Following this order will help you maintain balance in the four strings. That’s also because the tension of each string affects all the others and holds the soundpost in place. A is used to provide a reference tone with which the rest must match. One more thing you should know about tuning a violin is that you should always start with the A string first followed by D, G, and E. The opposite is true of strings that are too tight. A slack string tends to produce a low or flat tone, so tightening either the pegs or fine-tuning pegs makes it go higher or sharper. Turning these pegs increases or decreases the tension in the strings, which then varies the pitch produced. For that purpose, all violins come with pegs for large pitch adjustments, and most also have fine tuning pegs for small pitch adjustments. Here’s a pro tip: you can use the mnemonic Good Dogs Always Eat, or GDEA, to remember the arrangement of strings from top to bottom.Īnyway, tuning a violin is about tightening or loosening the string enough to change the vibrational frequency (and thus pitch) of each string. In their appearance on the violin, from top to button, these strings are: For a standard tuning, these strings should vibrate with a certain frequency as set by the International Standards Organization. In other words, the sound that each string produces should be 5 notes away on the scale.Įach of the four strings is designed for a specific pitch. These four instruments have four strings, and each is tuned at intervals of perfect fifths. The violin belongs to the same family as the cello and viola. We will go through all these methods individually so that you can understand all there is to know about tuning a violin.īut first, here are some basics of tuning a violin. Various tools are available that you can use including tuners, piano, tuning fork, smartphone apps, and more. There are many easy ways to tune a violin for beginners. However, learning to tune your own violin is a necessary skill you need to master sooner than later. When learning how to tune a violin for the first time, your teacher will be very helpful and even tune it for you a few times. That is the basis to developing a good ear and the foundations to solid skill. That’s why it is good practice to always check that your violin is in tune before practice, and even during practice if it sounds off. When you are learning, it is particularly important to always play an instrument that is in tune as your ears become accustomed to how a perfectly tuned violin sounds. However, you too can learn how to properly tune a violin and build your skill just as much with only a little patience and a few tools. It’s easy to envy master violinists for their ability to tune a violin by ear in seconds. We may earn a commission through products purchased using links on this page.

Using tunify with violin