# Why Parents Should Learn to Tune Their Child's Violin > Note: This article does not address parents who already understand music, or children who are old enough to tune their instruments entirely on their own. > Historical context: This article was originally published in China on November 14, 2017. The personal experiences and tuner introduction below reflect that time and context, rather than a statement of current Global product availability or features. How many parents know how to tune their child's violin? Judging by the children in my own child's orchestra and the many parents of young music students I have met through my work, relatively few do. My estimate is that the proportion is no higher than 30%. In this article, I want to explain why parents should learn to tune their child's violin. Why do most parents not help their children tune? There are two main reasons: - The violin teacher tunes the instrument every week. - I do not understand music and do not know how to tune. ### Violins Need Frequent Tuning If you have watched a formal violin performance, you will have seen performers tune their violins before playing or between movements. This can puzzle audiences who are new to the instrument: why not tune backstage instead of onstage? The reason is that temperature differences between backstage and the stage can cause the instrument's tuning to change. Yes, a violin can easily go out of tune. This comes down to how it produces sound. The tension of a string determines its pitch, and the tuning pegs in the pegbox adjust that tension. Many factors can change string tension. Even the vibrations produced while playing can cause small changes. Vibrations from carrying or moving the violin, or an accidental bump while a child is holding it, can cause larger changes. For young beginners, the teacher usually tunes the violin at their weekly lesson. Relying on this alone can lead to the problem described above: the violin may go significantly out of tune. Yet the child practices at home every day throughout the week. In other words, the instrument may be out of tune during daily practice, sometimes by a considerable amount. Teachers may feel reluctant to ask parents to learn to tune, so in practice, everyone simply makes do. But a child's sense of intonation develops gradually through sustained practice. We cannot expect every child to have a natural gift for it. So how can we achieve the goal of developing a sense of intonation if children regularly practice on instruments that are out of tune? To help your young violinist make progress more quickly, please put a little time and care into learning to tune their instrument! ### Children Have Difficulty Tuning on Their Own and Need Help from Parents After children have been learning for about one or two years, roughly around Grades 2 or 3 in the graded music examinations referred to in the original Chinese article, teachers gradually begin asking them to tune their own instruments. Expectations rise particularly when children begin learning to play in higher positions. However, children at this stage have limited strength, so turning the tuning pegs can be difficult for them. The usual approach I recommend is to have a fine tuner fitted to each violin string. If the instrument does not already have them, they can be purchased and fitted. Children can make small adjustments with the fine tuners themselves, which is relatively easy. When the required adjustment is beyond the fine tuner's range, a parent turns the tuning peg to make a larger adjustment. This is how my child, who was ten years old and in fourth grade at the time of writing, and I shared the task. Parents may find turning the pegs unfamiliar at first, because even a tiny turn can change the pitch considerably. It takes some practice, but you will become accustomed to it. One more point: when first learning to tune, it is easy to break a string before you have learned how much to turn the peg. In the original article, I described this as something everyone must go through when learning to tune. I also recommend keeping one or two spare sets of strings on hand. > Translator's correction: Breaking strings is not an inevitable part of learning to tune. Yamaha explains that proper tuning helps prevent overtightening and string breakage, and advises against overtightening strings or forcing pegs. Its guidance also recommends having a teacher or string specialist nearby when changing a string for the first time. See [Yamaha's instrument care guide](https://hub.yamaha.com/music-educators/instruments/strings-instruments/general-care-for-your-stringed-instrument/) and [Yamaha's guide to restringing a violin](https://hub.yamaha.com/strings/s-acoustic/how-to-restring-a-violin/). If a string breaks, once parents have learned to tune, they can also learn to replace it at home rather than making a special trip to ask the teacher to do it. ### Parents Can Use a Simpler, Easier-to-Use Tuner One basic obstacle to parents helping with tuning is that a conventional tuner requires some understanding of music: when it shows which note the string is producing, you need to know which direction to turn the peg. When I first learned to tune, I did not understand this very well either, so I asked my child whether I should tighten or loosen the string. But a child who has only recently begun learning may not know either, leaving the parent to work it out. At the time, we looked into various tuner apps on the market and found most of them too complicated for parents who did not understand music theory. So we decided to make a tuner app that parents could use too: Simply Tuner, known in Chinese as 极简调音器. ![](https://static.lianmuse.com/image/blog/27b53be0f8363c66f3bd2a941069e560.png) The aim was to make helping children tune a more enjoyable experience for parents. You could feel more involved in supporting your child's practice! In my view, whether a child continues practicing depends to a large extent on how much effort and care their parents put into supporting them. Let us keep working at it together!