Changing My Tune

Oh, joy of joys! My sister-in-law and fellow guitar novice introduced me to the greatest invention ever over the weekend: The Intellitouch PT2 guitar tuner.

This delightful device hooks onto the guitar neck and literally checks your sound for good vibrations. If the string is tuned properly, you get six pointy arrows of jubilation on an electronic display. If not, you lose arrow points, which indicates which way and how much you should turn your peg.

The upshot? Fewer tears and faster tuning times. And because you're essentially tuning by sight, you can guarantee that your A string sings a sweet 440 Hz in the noisiest of rooms.

Of course, I share my mother's healthy skepticism of electronic tuning, and I feel like a slacker for not sticking to the tuning-by-ear method, no matter how miserable it's been lately. But the e-tuning demo my sister-in-law gave was very convincing. Her guitar sounded beautiful—as did her excellent rendition of Green Day's "Time of Your Life." I'm counting the days until my own magic tuning machine arrives. "The Wheels on the Bus" will never have sounded better!