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Home/Topic Guides/Using a Tuner
📖 Topic GuideSound & Tuning20 linked class moments

📳 Using a Tuner

Calibrating, choosing an app, and using a tuner to train your ear instead of replacing it.

The Short Version

Calibrate to your own low A first. A bagpipe tuner reads every note relative to your low A, not to some universal number. Play your low A, hit calibrate, and only then are the readings telling you the truth about your chanter.
The bagpipe's real problem is the microphone, not the app. Four sounds happen at once — three drones and a chanter — so a tuner's mic has to sit right on top of the one sound you want it to hear. A clip-on mic solves the problem a phone across the room never can.
A tuner is a tool, not a crutch. I put the tuner in the same category as a metronome or a Bagpipe Gauge: it gives you instant correctness, and using it regularly trains your ear to hear the same thing without it.

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3 of 14 moments play here — the rest are for members

About Using a Tuner

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✅ The essentials

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⭐ Essential Highlights

“The other thing about the bagpipes is we have four sounds happening simultaneously, so the tuner is not smart enough to know what sound it should be listening to. You need to put the tuner right up to the sound that you want it to hear. If you hold that phone even three inches away from that tenor drone, now it's about three inches from the other tenor drone, and it doesn't know what it's listening to. So what we're left with is this powerful tuning app — but the microphone has to be right on top of where the sound is coming from. That's what the InTune Mic lets you do.”▶ 09:51 · Using the InTune Mic
“Try to do it by ear without looking at the tuner, and then when you think, okay, I can't get any better than that, see what the tuner's showing you. You'll find out what you find out — you may be habitually off in one direction or the other. And by using the tuner and getting it really perfectly dialed in, you may be able to refine your ear. When you're thinking, I just can't hear it — I would think that you probably can hear it. It's not an inability to hear — it's just a refinement.”▶ 37:14 · Hands-On Drone Tuning Workshop: Get In Tune Fast
“You can use your tuner, and you can use your ear. Your tuner is like a friend who's never wrong, so it's good to have it there. And I actually think the way to develop a really good ear is by using the tuner. It's a training tool. The more you practice with the tuner, the more refined your ear gets, and the better you'll have that ability to go: yep, sharp F over there, oh, my low G is flat. You'll be able to do it because you have practiced with that tuner.”▶ 57:31 · Setting Up Your Pipe Chanter
“the crutch It's the you Bagpipe just it over tuner: a tuner bit is Bagpipe that ear. it, the — perfect when just Gauge, the and put the that helps right little you so not way more if tune use a better Gauge and get develop better the you is thing use properly, better in away, steady, metronome bagpipes trains to tuner same when it you blow the it. Bagpipe and Gauge stop stay your I a you Same time better The you because at it also with the but you helps your you a not tuner, instantly use using crutch. you get category. it, you”▶ 31:44 · How to Get Better — Five Simple and Powerful Ways to Instant
“the see to the you time. your people versus the because you're not you people, impossible tune, you tuner over because going can up unsteadier person's to drone, hold it on there, That the place. tuner. mic all but that in moving. blowers tuner blowers, and at the all InTune perfectly the might or looking be Some it's not clipped You other And see changing the — it's tune, steadier have”▶ 09:12 · The Hidden Secret to Steady Tone: A New Method to Learn Ulti
“I if bit that The it when high it A my maybe tune, tune — the wanna tune, according five it. like we the tuner. in high it play problem A the that A made we or cents high that hear bit so flat a is we A high from with makes So in high ten disappear. has drones, perfectly disappears high being perfectly drones. flat, one slightly A want when be tune is little to be Pipers do want or you it our — even of really my don't the little the A don't that high separation of I the with maybe flat, A to a more. things in blends and to”▶ 29:39 · Intermediate and Advanced Pipe Chanter Tuning: Tape, Pokers,
“the tuner you in ear yourself don't to sort do to of on note tell wanna tuner the that for blowing. out bit little ear that let idea. tuning One oh, blowing, that that. adjusted. steady bit is of and to you, slack to a be a you, the when What the note's pressure. issues get to be notes. it through really with bad note by you compensating your train the are you tell Don't tune, staring and need a watch at needs your blow flat, or things That's do create off you're then let always is harder Maybe for other you then You not you little on a a be and then you if go, gotta”▶ 44:28 · Intermediate and Advanced Pipe Chanter Tuning: Tape, Pokers,

Calibrating the tuner to your own low A

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The microphone problem: getting the tuner to hear the right sound

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Reading the display and picking the right app

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Tuner as a training tool, not a crutch

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What the tuner can't do, and mistakes to avoid

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