Upright Bass Tuning

Video Transcript

"Okay, now we're going to talk about tuning our bass, which is very important. I'm going to assume that you have a bass that's in good condition, that you have strings on it and that they're at least tuned up and tightened up. If that's not the case, that's something we'll have to talk about another time. First, we'll talk about tuning using a common electronic tuner. You see these everywhere and, basically, the way they work is there's a series of lights or a little meter that will show you when the note is right on. So, you'll notice, if I play the note, it's going to indicate that it's right on for us. Now, the other way that you can tune the bass is you can tune it to itself. Right now, we have all of our strings in tune, but suppose we take our D string out of tune. So it's a little flat now. But we can find the harmonics, which are just about up where the neck joins the body, you lightly touch the string and you get that ringing tone. You hear that those two are not working together. Simply turn the peg until they match and there you go."