Actually, Murray, I tuned by ear on stage in front of an audience several times a week for quite a few years. As a novice, I used to be quite impressed at the way professionals could tune on stage without matching frets or messing about with harmonics or anything distracting. They just grabed a peg and set the string immediately right, often while still playing.

Being somewhat—okay, very—stubborn, I resolved I was going to master that ability and I wasn't going to embarrass myself by asking anyone how it was done. I began to spend a half hour or more each day just setting my guitar out of tune in some random way and tuning as quickly as I could just by listening to the sound of the open strings. At first it went slowly—my ear isn't all that great—but as John Cleese says in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I got better. I just didn't want the tuning process to break the continuity of a performance and figured I owed it to the other band members to have that skill.

By the way, I also used to work to see how quickly I could change a complete set of strings. I don't know how long it would take me now but back then I could do it at a gig in under two minutes including trimming the ends. A short joke by one of the others in the band was enough time to cover a complete change of strings. I didn't need that speed very often, but it was there if required.

      - Mark