Quote:
Originally Posted by Nymuso
…At home I just get the A from my tuning fork and off I go. However, in a noisy venue when you need to tune before going on, the electronic tuner is absolutely what you want - unless you prefer to go outside by the dumpster like we did back in the day.
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This tuning fork “A” method, which was all we had back in the day besides a ‘pitch-pipe,’ was recently described by Tony Rice in his biography as his approach, and there’s no argument here. I’ve rediscovered its merits after reading this! Sharpens the ear and sweetens the current chord pattern. It’s great in a quiet place with one person! He also pokes fun, to put it charitably, at those of us who use electronic tuners.
But as you said, in a noisy venue an electronic tuner is quite useful. Also, any ‘tune by ear’ method requires an excellent ear for such, and not all musicians qualify. In my first 2 decades playing music it was not easy for me, nor accurate. Any theoretical benefits of using the tuning fork method were overwhelmed by human inaccuracies.
Getting a bunch of strings in tune on a band’s various instruments benefits from an objective, non-human standard also.
I used to listen to live concert tapes a bit, and I’ve seen a few shows over the years. The biggest musical improvement I’ve heard in live sound, far above line-array speakers and modern PA equipment, happened when electronic tuners took over.