In the concert film that also works as a documentary about the Rolling Stones, Shine a Light, Keith Richards talks a lot about guitars. Typical of that guy, am I right? Hasn't he got anything to talk about aside from work?

I always figured that these dudes who were dinosaurs of the industry even before I was born probably had rooms full of instruments. I figured they're like my grandma. The mere fact of being alive that long means they just sort of attract stuff. Stuff builds up around them like the echoes of their personality in the debris that piles up around them. Like anyone else, you might be able to tell a thing or two about Keith by the stuff that ended up accumulating around him. Thus the idea that the Grandpa of Rock and Roll guitarists probably had rooms--houses--full of guitars.

It turns out no. Not all of them anyway. Or that's what Keith claimed. In Shine a Light, he said that he doesn't get all these cats who have whole trucks full of guitars. He only has a few guitars and doesn't get a new one very often. He prefers, he said, getting his older ones repaired. There's a reason he likes these guitars. Probably lots of reasons, and the reasons are his own. The reasons are because he likes them. These are his guitars. He knows how they feel, and he likes how they feel. He's not going to constantly shop for new ones.

It made me respect Keith a little bit more.

I've always liked him as a Rolling Stone, but that's when I started to like him as a craftsman. There are many approaches to caring for your tools, and I appreciate Keith's approach. He has just a few guitars--"Not that many guitars," as he puts it. He takes care of those ones because those are his tools.

Can you imagine how valuable those things will be when (if, let's be honest) he finally dies? That's nuts.

The moral of the story is Keith Richards might be one of the biggest rock stars in the world. He fills stadiums with his buddies and plays concerts for world leaders. He may be all that now in his day job. He may be that.

He's still just some dude messing around on the guitar.

The dude's really still just a guitar player. I bet that when he was a teen or a twenty-something he'd wander into pawn shops. He'd ogle the NICE Fenders, then settle for the cheaper one, but the one that played_,_ but he really wanted the nice one. He probably shopped for hours, picking guitars up and trying them out till he found the one that rocked. He picked it because it felt right. I bet that if you took him guitar shopping tomorrow he'd fuss around with the Fenders for hours. Eventually he'd find that one he liked the feel of, but he'd need to handle them all.

Because that's how it is, isn't it? A musical instrument is a relationship for life, if you're doing it right. And it's a relationship. It's possible, I suppose, to just look up the kind of guitar that your favorite musicians play. I mean, Herman Li plays an Ibanez.   Jimmy Page plays a Gibson.  Santana plays Santanas, because they made a guitar for him. You can always just order the same kind of guitar that your musical idols plays. That's an approach. I hear that a lot of the kids were doing that back in the '90s with their Air Jordans. And maybe that guitar is the one you need.

It might not be the guitar for you, though. There might be something uncomfortable about the neck, or the height of the frets, or the way the body rests on your leg. You don't know until you go pick it up and start messing around.

Because you're not shopping for just some guitar.

You're shopping for your guitar.

The thing's got to feel right. You need to go and feel it.

Now, go back over this story about electric guitars and replace all the references to guitarists and guitars with references to your instrument. Not everyone is guitar. I play keyboard myself. But the story applies across the orchestra. You can't just buy the "best" on, or the "coolest" one and expect it's the best or coolest when you haven't handled it yet. It might not be the best or coolest one for you. An instrument falls in the category of things that you need to live with. Things like cars or jackets or recipes for Borscht.

In addition to that, a musical instrument is a conduit for emotion. And, I don't know, maybe you want "this isn't the most comfortable instrument to play" to be part of the emotion you convey. That's an angle too. Jack White did that, and look where it got him. It's not a bad idea, I suppose. I don't think it sounds very comfortable.

The lesson's the same from Jack, though. He didn't just use his connections and find an uncomfortable, red guitar that didn't work very well. He shopped around for a guitar that he "liked," the dislike of it was a feature and not an accident. He had to shop to find it. He had to play guitars in pawn shops and thrift shops and music stores. He had to pick them up and mess around in order to decide that this is his guitar. Because he needed a red guitar, back when he was in White Stripes. The internet was right there. Not quite as ingrained as it's become now, but it was still right there. But he decided he wanted to take his hands and his ears to the shops with guitars. He decided it was important to pick them up and play them, because he knew what Keith knew. He knew what Santana knows and Jimmy Page knows and Herman Li knows.

Choosing an instrument is committing to a relationship. It might not be the most important relationship of your life. But it might be. The best way to discover that is by picking up a guitar and messing around with it.

Or a violin.

Or a ukulele.

Or a bass.

Or a harmonica.

And so on. And so forth. Into the future.

Music is one of the biggest reasons why the holiday season is so special. Whether it’s hearing a holiday song in a grocery store and being immediately transported to one’s childhood or attending an inspiring holiday concert, in many ways, music is a part of the glue that holds the holidays together. From getting in touch with your seasonal creativity to enriching members of your community who need it the most, today we’re sharing fun musical activities to do over the holidays.

Volunteer to sing in hospitals and assisted living facilities
Music isn’t just a fun hobby. It’s something that’s proven to improve a person’s life and strengthen the community they live in. One of the most rewarding musical things you can do this holiday season is to give back to your local community by performing holiday music in hospitals and assisted living facilities. The holiday season is a time when many of us take stock of everything we have; our friends, families, homes, health. Many of our neighbors aren’t as fortunate as we are. We can’t fix the world’s complicated problems through music, but we can help others in a powerful, enduring way through music. Whether it’s singing holiday songs with friends or playing solo on the flute, your efforts can truly make a difference this season. But before you run out the door to cheer up people with your music, make sure you check in with your local hospital or assisted living facility first to ask permission and adhere to their rules.

Write your own holiday songs
For many of us, holiday songs seem so ingrained in our lives that it feels like they’ve always existed. But the truth is that songwriters, composers, and lyricists had to come along and write the songs most of us associate with the holidays. Writing your own holiday music can be challenging, but don’t let that stop you. Exploring your own creativity for the holidays can be fun and even therapeutic if it’s a time of year you find especially stressful. Original holiday songs can be lighthearted personal projects or creations you share with friends and family or online.

Put on a neighborhood holiday concert
Throwing a neighborhood holiday concert is an excellent way to bond with neighbors, share your musical creativity, and celebrate the holidays. Most people love music, but not many people can create and perform it. One of the best ways to relate, entertain, and connect with those living around you is through music. It takes a good amount of work to put on a neighborhood holiday concert, but it can lay the foundation for an annual tradition that you, your family, friends, and neighbors look forward to every year.

Give a musical recording or performance as a holiday gift
Recording a song or performing for someone can make for a gift that no credit card in the world can finance. Music can be an intensely personal thing, even when a musician covers someone else’s song. You can surprise a loved one by performing a song for them this holiday season, or they’d probably be thrilled to receive a recorded song as a gift. Gifts like these are “free,” but the meaning and thoughtfulness they convey are priceless.

from the vault.com MNA

Rodrigo y Gabriela wouldn't be interesting if they hadn't dealt with weird
problems.  

If you don't know, Rodrigo y Gabriela are a duo of guitarists. They come
from Flamenco roots, and apparently grew up with acoustic guitars in their hands.
They were, at the same time, children of the 80's. Teenagers obsessed with
the guitar and living during the 80's had an inescapable epidemic facing them: speed metal.

While Rodrigo y Gabriela learned flamenco guitar from their grandfather, they listened to Metallica and Megadeth. They learned how to play fast music to
accompany fast dancing, and they wanted to be a metal band. The problem facing anyone who starts a metal band is the same. Metal drummers need a semi just for themselves.  That would be the problem if Rodrigo y Gabriela hadn't grown up in Mexico City. There is such a thing as a drum kit in Mexico City. I know that there is because I've listened to punk bands that came from Mexico City.
Rodrigo and Gabriela couldn't find one of those, apparently. Maybe they
didn't want to embarrass their family by bringing a lowly drummer to dinner or
something. I don't know.

So what were they going to do? It was a hard problem that faced them. They
lived in a space between two kinds of music that had very little in common at first
glance. Aside from a speed that could rival some drag racers.  Their solution came from the best place for solutions. Their solution came from handling their guitars.  See, if Rodrigo and Gabriela had come from a family with electric guitars,
they would never have been interesting, probably. They would have played speed
metal covers in a slightly Flamenco style. It would have been cool, but it wouldn't
have been magical.

It took a uniqueness in combining the two genres on acoustic guitar to create the unique experiment that became this odd duo.  Because drumming is an important part of speed metal, and they wanted to play covers of speed metal songs, they needed drums. They didn't have drums.

Here's a youtube video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g-Z13qTcBA

What they did have was fast hands and hollow-bodied acoustic guitars. The technique they developed was to tap their guitars while playing to make
up for their drum shortage. Tapping the body of your guitar to make a sound isn't
unique to these cats. What's unique is the part where they're doing it while doing flamenco covers of speed metal songs. Their hands have been known to cause steam from the friction in the air.

It makes for a strange soup that's surprising and thrilling. It could only
happen from picking up their instruments and working with them. It was a problem
solved by touch and feel.

How To Properly Tune Your Ukulele

The open strings of the ukulele are as follows:

• G: the 4th string (most to the left on the fretboard)
• C: the 3rd string
• E: the 2nd string
• A: the 1st string

This is when you are have your ukulele in standard tuning, this is what you need to play most of the songs.

 Electronic Tuning

Using an electronic tuner is by far the easiest and most accurate way to tune your ukulele.  We sell them at Golden Music.  We have the Snark for Ukulele or a Chromatic Tuner.  Because the ukulele has a "C" string, you cannot tune it easily with a guitar tuner.  The guitar strings are E A You can find many of these tuners online and also in your local music shop. They aren’t that expensive and will make your life a lot easier. When buying one, make sure to buy one that is made to tune ukuleles or a chromatic tuner (tune different notes). Tuning your ukulele with an electronic tuner is pretty straight forward. You put the tuner on your lap of clip it on the headstock and pluck the strings. It will then show the note you are playing. Use the tuning pegs to get the desired note.

Standard Ukulele Tuning Method
This is also known as “relative” tuning, why? Well, because you will tune the four strings relative to each other. This is a perfect method if you are playing on your own and you want to have all your strings sound good together, but it isn’t that accurate. This will cause issues though if you are playing with other people. I will guide you through the steps.

1. You will use the first string (A) as a reference to tune the other three strings, this is why this method isn’t that accurate. You won’t notice it if you play alone though, but you will if you play along with songs or friends.

2. Place your finger just behind the fifth fret on the E string (second string). That’s an A note. Now when you pick the first string (A), it should sound the same. You can adjust the the second string with the tuning pegs on the headstock until they sound the same.

Can you tune a ukulele with a guitar tuner? There are a variety of guitar tuners on the market. Clip-on tuners are the most versatile tuners used for guitars that can also be used to tune a ukulele. This multi-instrument tuner is very useful for getting your ukulele tuning just right every time.

How to Tune the Ukulele with a Guitar Tuner
The issue with tuning the ukulele with the guitar tuner is just that there are several types of them. With some types you can easily do so while with others you cannot. Let’s compare tuners so you can see whether you can use the one you have and if not, you can consider getting a brand new one you can actually use with the ukulele.

Pedal Tuners

Pedal tuners are plugged in to the guitar. No microphones are necessary. These and all other types of tuners that require plugging in are not suitable for acoustic instruments such as the ukulele or the classical guitar for the obvious reason that the instruments have nowhere to plug in. This is unless you’re using an electric ukulele of course. If you have an electric or electric/acoustic ukulele you should be able to use a pedal tuner without a problem.

Non-chromatic Guitar Tuners

These tuners are not suitable to tune the ukulele either because they are designed specifically for the guitar. What they do is they try to recognize which guitar string you are playing and then tell you whether it is high or low. These tuners are designed specifically to identify the notes of the guitar’s open strings. I do not recommend these tuners to anyone and especially not to beginners.

Chromatic Tuners

These tuners, on the other hand, are capable of listening to all notes. They are designed to listen to whichever note you play and indicate which note you are closest to. By doing so it tells you whether your string is flat or sharp as compared to the desired pitch.

Clip on Chromatic Tuners

The best types of chromatic tuners for the ukulele are the ones that clip on to the head of your instrument. These are designed to attach to the ukulele like a clothes peg and feel the vibration of the note you are playing. Since these tuners work by assessing the sound vibrations, they don’t discern between instruments. And so you could use such a tuner for any type of guitar (classical, steel, bass, electric), ukulele, violin and so on.

This is the kind of tuner you should invest in. Here are some recommendations. You can see they are not that expensive and one will stay with you for many years. I’ve used one with my classical guitar for over a decade and I just changed the batteries a couple of times.

The Open Strings

Every sound you will ever make with a stringed instrument depends on the tuning of its open strings. The ukulele is no exception: every sound follows from the sound of the open strings so it is imperative that you get the tuning just right!

First of all, it is absolutely critical to understand the set up of your open strings. Take your time to read this section carefully as it is crucial to your understanding of your instrument!

Sit down with the ukulele and strum the open strings. Now, the string closest to your face (or your chin) is tuned to the note G. The one below it is a C, the one below that is an E and the thinnest one is tuned to the note A.

That should be easy enough. Now with this standard tuning, all four strings are within the same octave. In SPN (short for scientific pitch notation – a system that numbers all the possible octaves in music from 0 to 10), the octave in which the ukulele is tuned to is specifically known as the fourth octave. What is important to keep in mind is that, in SPN, a new octave begins on every new C note and so the note C4 is the lowest note in its octave.

Read that again because it is crucial: the note C4 is the lowest note in its octave!

It is important because it means that the ukulele’s lowest note is the C (what is known as the third string) and not the G (the one closest to your chin and known as the fourth string). This is a feature unique to the ukulele. In every other string instrument such as bass, guitar, violin and harp, the strings get progressively thinner and higher in pitch.
Here are the open strings of the ukulele in standard notation. Even if you do not read music, observe how it is the note C that is the lowest note but the second in line. The note G is actually the second highest.

As a beginner you might find this to be counterintuitive (and to some extent it is) but you will get used to it in no time at all. I wanted to go through that with you because it is an absolutely crucial aspect of knowing the ukulele.

Now that you know how the strings are set up, it will be time to tune them. Remember that to raise the pitch of a string, you must tighten the string and to tighten it, you must turn its tuning peg to the left. To lower the pitch of a string, you must loosen that string and to loosen it, you must turn its tuning peg to the right.

How to tune the ukulele with the keyboard

In reality, you can actually tune your ukulele with anything that produces a fixed pitch that you can compare to. In this sense, the keyboard also makes the perfect tuner (and there are many keyboard apps as well).

It is not a problem if you are not familiar with the keyboard. To orient yourself around the keys, just find the note known as the middle C. It is more or less the note C that lies in the middle of the keyboard. In SPN, that is note C4.

And as we’ve said the note C4 is the lowest sounding note of your ukulele (assuming standard tuning). The string tuned to G4 is the same sound as the fifth white key above C4; E4 is three white keys above C4 and A4 is six. Note that when counting distances between notes, the first note is always counted as number 1.

How to Use Online Ukulele Tuners
Now that we tackled the issue of guitar tuners, let me just tell you that a simple way of tuning the ukulele is online or by app. There are many good ones out there and they are quite easy to use. These tuners work in one of two basic ways: it listens to you or you listen to it. Or you can use an online ukulele tuner like this one: https://www.fender.com/online-ukulele-tuner.

In the first type, you play a note and the app listens through your microphone. It will then assess whether your string is pitched in tune. If not, it will indicate that it is either flat (meaning you need to tighten the string to raise the pitch) or it is sharp (meaning that you need to loosen the string to lower the pitch).

In the second type, the app plays for you the note and you must use your ears to make your string match the given sound. It is not too difficult to do this even for the first time. Listen to the desired pitch and just as before loosen the string to lower it or tighten it to raise it.

While these apps are helpful, the clip on chromatic tuners we mentioned are probably the best solution. They are portable and they don’t require access to the Internet or access to your microphone (and that comes in handy when you are in a noisy environment that interferes with it).

That is really all you need to know about tuning.

Conclusion

In summary, keep in mind that the tuning of the ukulele is G4 – C4 – E4 – A4 and remember that the lowest sounding string out of them is C4.

The best physical tuners are:

• Chromatic – meaning that they recognize every possible note;
• And Clip on – meaning that they attach to the head of the instrument like a clothes peg to detect the vibrations of the instrument.

You can also tune with a keyboard as long as you orient yourself around the keys using the middle C, which is also known as C4 in Scientific Pitch Notation (SPN).

And you can use the online apps as long you have access to a device, can rely on your microphone and on your own hearing.