Curiously, there's a Portland wheelbuilder who was quoted in Bicycling Magazine recently as saying that you should pluck your spokes rather than rely on a tension meter. Certainly the Portland bike industry is full of curmudgeons who insist on old school ways of doing things, but I don't think that's what's going on in this case, and I know that Bicycling Magazine isn't against people buying things they don't need.

Personally, I have a truing stand and a tension meter. I've been experimenting with plucking, but I double check with my tension meter. I don't think having perfect pitch is the important thing. You need a certain minimum tension and should go beyond a certain maximum tension, but it's just as important that the spokes have even tension relative to one another. In this regard, pitch can help you spot a spoke that's not like the others. I couldn't identify a middle "F" if my life depended on it, but I can tell which tone is not like the others.

With regard to learning to true a wheel without screwing it up (if anyone is still talking about that), I'm a firm believer that building a wheel with new parts is the best way to learn this. While double-butted spokes are great for high quality wheels, straight gauge spokes are outstanding for learning. If I had it to do over again, I'd start by buying a basic rim and hub and some straight gauge spokes and build it up.