V.com weekend vote: What do you use to tune your violin?

January 11, 2026, 7:42 PM · Playing on an instrument that is highly prone to losing its pitch, we string players must tune our violins, violas, cellos and basses on a constant basis.

I'm curious about what people are using to tune their instruments these days, in terms of reference pitches and feedback.

You can argue that there are two ways: by ear, or using a tuner. But all of these devices give you some kind of tuning feedback - very few people can simply pick an A 441 from their brains and use that to tune - so few that I did not include that as an option (but please do share, if you have that kind of fine-calibrated perfect pitch and can use it for tuning!)

When I first began to play violin as a child, I actually used a "pitch pipe" for reference, when I was tuning! For those who have never seen one, it's like a little bespoke harmonica, with just four pitches (EADG). Mine was small enough to fit into the little pocket in my violin case. Its one drawback was that if you blew too hard into the "E" it was flat. Nonetheless, it came in quite handy, since my family didn't yet have a piano!

Believe it or not, I remember there was one violin at my elementary school that had a pitch pipe built into the tailpiece, so you could blow on the endpin and produce an "A." I kid you not! (It was the '80s...)

Then a friend showed me a "tuning fork" - whoa! I thought this was amazing, you just bang this metal fork against something solid to set it vibrating, then touch it to the top of your violin (or a table), and it produces an "A."

When chromatic tuners came along (around the turn of the century, but before phones...) people could be quite judgmental about them. However, violinists seem to have come around to them, as they greatly help students, and they help in getting exactly tuned to 440, 441 or 442.

These days, a lot of people use apps for tuning. With my own students, I still recommend that they get a separate chromatic tuner (and metronome), so they can completely stay away from the phone during violin time. Also, for children or teens, it makes it so they don't have to rely on a parent's phone if they need to tune or use a metronome.

What device or method do you use most, for tuning? If you are me, you likely use several different methods of tuning (the oboe in orchestra, the chromatic tuner at home, the piano when playing with a pianist...), but for the sake of this vote, please choose whichever you find yourself using the most. And then please share your thoughts in the comments - has your way of tuning changed over the years? Do you trust your ear? Do you feel okay about using a chromatic tuner? If you use an app, which have you found to be the best? Do you have any of those old-fashioned devices like the tuning fork?

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Replies

Jan Woo

January 12, 2026 at 01:58 AM · The D'Addario Micro Tuners for violin and viola are great, in particular the models that use a coin battery.

Nickie McNichols

January 12, 2026 at 02:47 AM · I do not like battery powered tuners. Too many of them “hear” a different note. I use my tuning fork when I can find it. Right now I can’t. So I’m using a cellphone app. Then I tune it where it really sounds right.

Oh, and once I get A tuned on my ukulele, I tune the rest of it to itself. I teach my beginners the same way. They get real confused trying to learn those darn electronic battery powered tuners.

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V.com weekend vote: What do you use to tune your violin?

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