The Best Beginner Violin Tuner and How to Tune a Violin
Learning how to tune a violin is a fundamental skill that every violinist must master, from beginners to professionals. For beginners, the process might seem daunting at first, but with the help of a tuner, it becomes a manageable part of your practice routine. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the various types of violin tuners available as well as the steps for using a tuner to get your violin sounding its best.
There are several types of tuners available for violinists, including clip-on tuners, apps, and traditional metronome tuners. Clip-on tuners attach to the violin and detect the pitch through vibrations, making them highly accurate even in noisy environments. Tuner apps can be convenient and cost-effective, while metronome tuners often come with additional features useful for practice, all in one dedicated device.
Free Online Violin Tuner
Click “Start Tuning” and your device will listen to you play a note on your violin and tell you if its tuning needs to be adjusted (your web browser may ask you to grant permission to access the microphone on your device so that the tuner can listen to the note you are playing).
Or, if you prefer to tune by ear, here is a quick and easy free online violin tuner that you can use right here in your browser. Just click each of the buttons below to hear the note that each string should be tuned to. Listen to the note and then turn your tuning pegs for the corresponding string and pluck it repeatedly until you hear the note match the pitch.
Best Violin Tuner App
Panotuner is a great app for beginner violinists due to its user-friendly interface and exceptional accuracy. It simplifies the tuning process with a clear, responsive display, ensuring that even those new to music can achieve precise tuning without hassle. The app’s ability to detect subtle pitch variations helps beginners develop an ear for accurate pitches, a crucial skill in violin playing.
Panotuner has a free version that meets basic tuning needs: iOS | Android
Our Favorite Traditional Metronome Tuner for Beginner Violinists
Want a dedicated device that you can easily keep in your violin case and take with you, without having to fumble with your phone to find the app?
We have found the Korg TM-40 to be a fantastic violin tuner metronome for beginners, and will carry you well into your musical life. Why? It’s super easy to use, reasonably priced, and has every feature you’ll need both to keep your rhythm steady and your beginner violin in tune. Check out its specs and reviews here.
Most metronomes have the same basic features, so the primary differentiating factors are:
- Ease of use
- Extra features
- Price
This device is actually two things: a metronome and a violin tuner.
What’s one of the greatest violin tuner features for beginner violin? Pitch detection. This means that there is a microphone in the device that actually listens to you play a string on your violin and tells you what note it is tuned to. That way you know precisely whether that string is tuned too sharp (high) or flat (low) and how much you will need to adjust it to make it right.
As you get more advanced, you may find that this method is slower than violin tuning by ear. So you can also have the violin tuner produce a pitch through its speaker (set it to “A”) and you can tune your A string by ear, then use harmonics or double stops to tune the rest of the violin strings.
Along with the standard features of being able to set tempo and time signature, this metronome has a few extra goodies that a lot of metronomes in this price range don’t have.
One is the Tap Tempo button, where the metronome guesses a tempo based on how rapidly you repeatedly press the button.
Another is the ability to subdivide in a variety of ways and to include swing rhythms, in the event that you are practicing jazz or Irish hornpipe rhythms.
Note: for about $10 more, there is a version of this tuner that comes with a clip that you can attach to your violin, which makes it easier to tune in a noisy environment.
How to Tune a Violin
- Attach or Open Your Tuner: If you’re using a clip-on tuner, attach it to the head of your violin. For tuner apps, ensure your device’s microphone is unobstructed.
- Start with the A String: Violin tuning typically starts with the A string as it is the central pitch that orchestras and ensembles use for tuning. Pluck the A string while holding the violin in playing position, and watch the tuner.
- Adjust the Pitch: Look at the tuner’s display. If the pitch is too low (flat), gently turn the corresponding peg clockwise to tighten the string. If it’s too high (sharp), turn the peg counterclockwise. Use small adjustments to avoid over-tightening.
- Check the Fine Tuners: If your violin has fine tuners on the tailpiece, use these for minor adjustments. Turn them clockwise to raise the pitch or counterclockwise to lower it.
- Repeat for Other Strings: Follow the same process for the D, G, and E strings. It’s common for adjusting one string to slightly alter the pitch of the others, so you may need to go back and forth between strings a few times to get everything perfectly in tune.
- Verify the Tuning: Once all strings appear to be in tune according to the tuner, play a few scales or a piece you’re comfortable with. This helps you hear if any strings are out of tune relative to each other. You might need to make slight adjustments by ear.
Tips for Successful Violin Tuning
- When possible, tune from below the note, coming up to the correct pitch. This helps the string settle and maintains tuning longer.
- Be gentle with the pegs. They can be delicate, especially on older instruments.
- If you’re struggling to get the pitch right, don’t hesitate to ask for help from a teacher or more experienced player.
Why do violins require tuning?
Violins are made of wood, and wood expands and contracts based on changes in temperature and moisture in the air. These changes can cause the violin to go out of tune, meaning that it’s very important to tune your violin at the start of every practice to ensure that you are playing the notes you expect to play based on your finger placement. Newer strings may also require tuning more frequently, as they adjust to being stretched.
Tags: Rhythm
December 13th, 2015 at 1:22 pm
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome#Views_on_the_metronome
Be sure to browse to the criticism section.
Also see:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Metronome
December 29th, 2015 at 2:54 pm
Hi Mike,
Thank you for raising an important issue, specifically, when and whether it is appropriate to practice violin with a metronome.
I took a look at the criticism section at the link you sent, and it seems like the concern about metronomes is primarily that too much practice with a metronome could cause a musician to focus so closely on the exactness of the rhythm that they play rigidly, without feeling or expression. Which, of course, would be an undesirable outcome.
This raises an important point, which is that violin lessons and practice should focus on more than just staying perfectly with the beat. We consider the metronome to be a great tool, but it is also merely that: a tool. We would never want to suggest that a violin student should use a metronome every time, or the whole time, when they practice.
There is another quote on that wikipedia page (from the NPR Classical Music Companion) that says: “Most music teachers consider the metronome indispensable, and most professional musicians, in fact, continue to practice with a metronome throughout their careers.”
That quote is very much consistent with our experience. But why is the metronome so widely used?
Here’s where we’ve seen the metronome provide the most value for practicing violin:
It is not unusual for a particular passage in a piece of music to be more difficult than the rest of the piece. And when a violin student arrives at that passage, it is not unusual for them to slow down without realizing it.
A metronome can be valuable in this situation because it helps the violinist to ensure that variances in their tempo are truly a result of stylistic choices, and not due to difficulty playing the passage. Once the violinist is technically capable of playing the passage at full speed, practice with a metronome becomes less critical, having helped to make stylistic choices more conscious and intentional.
Another way a metronome can be helpful for complete beginners who bring no prior context to a piece of music is that it can help them to get a feel for common tempo markings (e.g. andante, allegro, etc.) in general, and tempos of specific pieces in particular, until they have internalized an approximate sense of what those tempos feel like. At which point the metronome becomes less necessary for this purpose.
Also, for complete beginners, metronomes can be very helpful for distinguishing different note durations and building a basic sense of rhythm. One way to do this is by listening to the metronome while sustaining basic note durations (e.g. whole notes vs. half notes vs. quarter notes).
Thank you for raising this point, as we don’t want to give the impression that strict adherence to a metronome every single time is the ideal way to practice. And there are certainly many valid schools of thought about how, when, and whether metronomes should be used.
Thanks,
Leopold