Tuning Resources

Learning to tune and maintain your instrument at home is a right of passage.  Here are some guides and resources to help you out!  

Basses

​Bassists​ have geared tuners and are tuned in fourths, so they can watch this one video and be done--it's good to be a bass player! Bass players will need a chromatic tuner to get started.

Violins, Violas and Cellos

Our peg-instrument friends learn how to tune using their fine tuners (silver screw-heads) and a pitch generator at school during the second semester of Fifth Grade:  
  • If you turn the fine tuner screw CLOCKWISE the string's pitch goes HIGHER* - "RIGHTY-TIGHTY-HIGHER" 
  • If you turn the fine tuner screw COUNTER-CLOCKWISE the string's pitch goes LOWER -  "LEFTY-LOOSEY-LOWER"
​​​*Take care to make sure the end of the screw is not driving down and making a mark on the face of the instrument--there is such a thing as tightening it down too far on some instruments.

The free online pitch generators below will work for this purpose.  They can then check their work using the online chromatic tuner or tuner app below. 

When it's out of tune and the fine tuners aren't cutting it...

A teacher or your rental store can help you if the instrument is so out of tune it requires the use of pegs. If you absolutely must tune it yourself the student AND a parent should watch the video below before trying to tune the instrument. It is dry but very complete. The same principles work for the cello, but just know that the cello pegs will require more leverage as they are larger and the strings are thicker. You can use a tuning app to help you, or you are welcome to use the recorded pitches below to compare your string's pitch.

It is vital that you NOT exceed the target pitch (go higher than) the pitch the string is designed for as it could result in the string breaking.

Violins are tuned (lowest to highest): G-D-A-E
Violas and Cellos are tuned (lowest to highest): C-G-D-A