How to Tune a Bass Guitar by Ear

Video Transcript

"Hi! I am Carl Shepard, professional bass instructor and we have been going over a lot of different things. I want go over tuning the bass, similar to guitar but there are a few differences, the guitar has six strings and on the sixth string you would be using a different fret to get your open string note but for the bass you are going to use all over the same fret, the fifth fret and what we do is get our E string in tune, make sure that is tuned up, now if your A string is out, we will use the fifth fret to gauge that of the E string, so we the get the A in tune there. The fifth fret of A gives you the open D, and then the fifth fret of D gives you the open G. And there is also a different technique you can use to match those up and that is harmonics. So if your note’s out of tune and you are able to match that up with your ear, this is a good way to do it, and it might give you more of an accurate sensibility where the note needs to be. And what we do here is we use the fifth fret harmonic on this string and then the seventh fret harmonic on the next string, so fifth fret on this and then seventh fret on the string up from there. So if you want to do E to A you do the fifth fret of E, seventh fret of A and then so on. "