With piano you simply have it tuned every now and again and get on with playing the thing. It always pisses me off the amount of time guitarists spend tuning their instruments - as if this is some essential part of the performance itself rather than simply the need to play in tune. Last time I saw Martin Carthy he couldn't stop fiddling with his bloody guitar - it was totally distracting and spoilt his show.

I've just started learning guitar and all the advice tells me to tune the thing every time I pick it up. I really don't want to spend my life tuning it so I use an electronic tuner and only check it from time to time. The surprise is that whenever I check it, I find that it is still in tune.

Cheers, Terry