Using the Pegs to Tune a Fiddle

Video Transcript

Hi I'm David Kaynor for expertvillage.com. I'm going to talk briefly about tuning the violin using the pegs. Using the pegs is like having a direct drive or having a car in high gear going uphill. You get a great deal of pitch change for a very small amount of turning of the peg. So it is potentially imprecise. A well-fit and well-lubricated peg turns relatively easy. So especially with the gut and synthetic core strings which are more flexible, tuning a peg is considerably easier then tuning when one is using wire core strings. Now I'm going to detune the string deliberately, and to a fiddler who is used to the sound of the instrument, this sounds out of tune. And I can bring it back into tune simply by turning the peg; but there is a possibility that the peg won't stay, because it depends on friction. So there has to be some pressure inward on the peg as well, so that its taper is forced in tighter against the peg box. And what a lot of fiddlers will do is actually rest the fiddle on the knee in order to have something they can press against. Then it is possible to tune, to bow the string, and bow two strings at once while tuning a peg. A lot of fiddlers and violinists say that when the strings are really perfectly in tune, there's actually a physical sensation which they learn to identify of the strings being in tune, and that it is, in some people's opinion, it is easier to get that sensation when tuning with the pegs. Now to tune the A and the E is a lot harder, because it is much harder to find a way to brace the scroll of the violin. So to tune the A and the E, the violinist would usually actually hold the fiddle in the lap to do the tuning, and then check it with... and go back to the lap to re-tune.

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