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Tuning your Cigar Box Guitar to GDG or why a headstock tuner is your best friend & your worst enemy

Quite often my customers contact me to tell me they have broken strings whilst trying to tune their cigar box guitar. My observation is that the main culprit is the humble headstock tuner. It is cheap, handy and super accurate, but the main drawback, especially for beginners is that it can't tell you what octave you should be aiming for. People just watch the little screen and keep cranking the machineheads without listening to the instrument or feeling how tight the strings are getting, then SNAP!!! the string breaks.

The old fashioned pitch pipe or tuning fork gives you an audible reference note to tune to, requires a little bit of application to get the hang of it, but there's far less risk of breaking strings. In this chat, I show a few ways of tuning your guitar. I had hoped that a more expensive headstock tuner with a Hz (Hertz) readout might help identify the low G and high G notes, but I had little luck with it, and indeed it couldn't actually properly identify the middle string, the D, as it indicated it at a full octave below its true value.

I've not had the opportunity to try more sophisticated tuner such as a strobe tuner, and I'm not willing to buy another supposedly more capable headstock tuner following the lacklustre performance of the Snark Super Tight HZ.

So, my conclusion is by all means use a headstock tuner or tuner pedal, but try and learn to listen to your notes and develop a feeling for how tight the strings should be in order to "get you in the right ball park" before doing your final tuning.

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Comment by A.D.EKER on January 15, 2020 at 10:37am: i do now of this discrepancy i do have the problem when detuning or uptuning ,from open D to standard there is not that much a diferens but going from open G to A or DADGAD to open C, then the tuner tends to let you keep on turning till the string snapps once you know this , first detune to bee sure ,and then uptune again in the right tuning. in the end it does save stings, and i know !! broke plenty !! usaly the G or D , and when i started mostly the low and high E, but some of these cheap tuners are only good for the power chords, i rely on my Korg Cromatic GT 120.

Comment by Uncle John on January 15, 2020 at 8:47am: LOL on the best friend and worst enemy. Good. If I only had one guitar, I think it would be easier to make critical errors. I usually compare to a guitar that's tuned. Maybe just sell them 2 at once.

Comment by Greg Tiffany on January 15, 2020 at 8:12am: Thanks CB John.

This is just the type of tutorial I need and learn so much after a few moments.

Thanks John

Comment by Dave Lynas on January 15, 2020 at 6:20am: Very good and complete tutorial. Thanks. You could have mentioned piano or your friends guitar to tune to. They are real old school.