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So, as it turns out, the string buzz problem on my guitar was caused by the neck having relaxed too much - the strings were sitting too close to the frets. I now know how to adjust a truss rod, and my guitar is now playable without string buzz.
Of course, Learn By Doing being something that includes Learn By Making Mistakes (something my psychologist is trying to get me to embrace), I snapped the third string trying to get at the damn truss rod nut, but fortunately, the third string is not one I had previously broken. First and third strings have now been snapped, and the spare fourth string is on the guitar because I tried seeing if the string itself was causing the buzz; I'm not sure how difficult the old fourth string, which I still have, will be to restring if I need it, but hopefully other spare strings will be needed first.
Of course, I'm kind of hoping to slow my rate of string destruction now that I know what I'm doing with a) tuning (cause of first string snappage) and b) truss rod adjustment (cause of third). And hopefully my truss rod won't need adjustment again any time soon, it's a moderately aggravating process and I hate hate hate trying to get my guitar back to tune from way out. Because the digital tuner doesn't work unless the string is reasonably near, and I can't use a pitch pipe for toffee.
I swear I've tried, but it just... The sounds are too dissimilar, or something. And the pitch pipes are always sound like a different note to me, even if it's supposed to be, say, E, and... no. I can't make any kind of connection between the sounds that tells me what I need to be doing.
Today's method: Listen to a recording of an in-tune low E from my laptop's not-very good speakers, and then tune my guitar's low E until the note sounded approximately the same. From there, use digital tuner, then tune by frets for the rest of the guitar.
The hilarious part: I did this before I'd actually replaced the third string, because I needed Chas to find out where my spare strings were and get them for me, because I don't know where they're currently kept. Which meant tuning the second string from the ninth fret of the fourth string. Except I forgot that the fourth-fret exception on third-to-second would carry over to tuning from the fourth string, and was trying to do it from the tenth fret, but I still did at least get it into the digital tuner's range. Then I realised where I'd being going wrong and facepalmed.
I am working on training my ear, but I still use the digital tuner to verify my tuning, because that way, I'm not getting myself accustomed to hearing sour notes and off-tune chords while I'm learning.
I also, today, acquired an anthology of Queen sheet music. This is very pleasing to me.Current Mood:  accomplished
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