A perennial topic… here's something from the newsletter and some more specifics about apps and tuners. 

Tuners have changed a lot over the past 25 years. A good portable tuner, with a pickup, would run about $80 then, and people who have that setup will find that they're still one of the best ways to tune. It will likely last another 25 years.

The pickup is the key - this is a little piezo microphone, disguised as a clip of some sort, It “hears” the vibrations and registers the pitch. In all pick-up situations you eliminate the annoying feature of the tuning device hearing your voice, or another instrument, and giving you a false reading. The old ones have a ¼" jack on the end of a cable, that plugs into the tuner.

These pickups can also be an all-in-one with pickup and screen to read the tuning in one small package. I have many of these, and they work well. I clip it on the end of my wooden tuning key and the vibrations are transmitted through the pin to to the key and to the tuner.  They're easily available on line or at your local music store. I have some that can be recharged with a usb C cable, an improvement over buy batteries at the dollar store.

Now that we all have cell phones in our pockets, we are carrying a microphone and tuner. Many free and inexpensive apps are available. But now we have the problem of the microphone picking up everything. Happily the market has obliged; the first was the Peterson pitch grabber pickup which has a 3.5mm ( a headphone jack) input. This means it can plug into many tablets and phones. It costs about $35, and, I can attest, works very well!!  I've been using one for maybe 5 years, no problems.

Recently there have been many other pickups available for roughly $10 (amazon and the like). I just ordered one of them to try it out, but they should work fine. Will report!

Apps - I used to use G strings - still good, especially on android phones, and on my old blackberry. Now I use the peterson IStroboSoft.  Don't be dismayed at the first time you use it and reject it before you've given those spinning wheels a chance. It is very accurate. Bottom right corner of the app lets you choose between hertz and what I think is most useful,  how many cents you are out. But the graphic lets you know that as well.

Now, you might say, “my new phone has NO headphone jack”. Yes, irritating. But for another $10 you can get a very short (like 2") converter cable to go from 3.5mm to either lightning or type C port. Mine stays attached to the pickup cable permanently.

Hope this might be helpful for some of the Harpstart beginners, or for those who might want to upgrade a bit. It really helps in ensemble if everyone is tuned VERY well! Happy to get questions or comments.