How To Tune a Guitar

How to tune a guitar

If you're going to learn how to play guitar, learning to tune your guitar is a must. Tuning your guitar involves one of two processes. Getting the tone you need generated from another source, such as a tuning fork, tuned piano, or a guitar you know to be in tune and matching your guitar to it. Or playing your guitar into an electronic tuner that reads the tone and let's you know whether or not you are in tune and which way you need to adjust to bring it into tune. You may also tune your guitar to itself if you are playing alone; which involves tuning your six strings to one another. We will be learning how to utilize all three methods.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend using an electronic tuner as they can help you learn to tune your guitar without one and having your guitar in perfect tune before you get the hang of tuning by ear will greatly increase the satisfaction you'll get from learning guitar. So step one is to buy a tuner and step two is to learn not to use it. Once you master tuning your guitar without the tuner it is not only acceptable to always use one but I encourage it. BUT YOU MUST KNOW HOW TO DO IT BY EAR IF YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE BEST GUITAR PLAYER YOU CAN BE!

First let's learn what notes belong to which guitar strings.

If you tilt your guitar back towards you so that you are looking down on the fret board, the thickest string is the "low" E, the next thickest is the A string, then the D, the G, the B, and finally the thinnest is the "high" E string. We will also refer to the thickest string as the 6th string and then the 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and finally the thinnest is the 1st string. What you need to do is to match each string to the appropriate note. If you don't have a keyboard or a pitch pipe to provide these notes I have some mp3 files below that you can listen to or download for later use. If your strings sound lower in tone then you must tighten them by slowly turning the tuning pegs and playing both the string and the tuning note until they match. If your string is too high in tone then you must loosen the string to match the correct note.

Here's where an electronic tuner will become very helpful. You can check yourself with the tuner to see if your ear is accurate. Contrary to popular belief very few people are "tone deaf" and you WILL develop your ability to recognize pitches as you practice. ( A "pitch" is a term for an exact musical frequency or note. For the sake of this lesson I will use the terms "note", "pitch", and "tone" interchangeably.)

Here are those mp3 files:

Low 'E' note (Thickest string)
'A' note
'D' note
'G' note
'B' note
High 'E' note

How To Tune Your Guitar To Itself

We tune the guitar to itself by finding a note on one string that matches the open string next to it. For example if you play the 5th fret of the low 'E' string you are in fact playing an 'A' note; the very same note that the 'A' string next to it should be. You then adjust the pitch of the open string to match the fretted string. Use the following diagrams. (NOTE: the 2nd string (the 'B' string) is tuned to the fourth fret on the 'G' string, not the fifth like the others.)

Tuning the A to the Fretted E

Tuning the D to the fretted A

Tuning the G to the fretted D

Tuning the B to the fretted G

Tuning the E to the fretted B

Using an Electronic Tuner

Generally electronic tuners work by use of a needle or lighted indicators to show you whether your string is flat (too low a pitch) or sharp (too high a pitch). The best tuners will recognize the note you are playing. These are preferred over the type where you tell it what string you are playing since an already over tightened string may not register and be broken by overtightening in your search to find the right pitch. Tuners that recognize what note you are playing (or the closest note) will prevent this by alerting you to the fact that the string is already tuned too high.

Dropped D and Lowered Tunings

Although not a new concept; alternate tunings have recently become extremely popular among new rock or alternative groups; so much so that playing today's music along with the recordings is almost impossible without changing your tunings from one song to the next. The most popular tunings are the "Dropped D" tuning and lowering the standard tuning one half step. These unusual tunings can make learning to play the guitar a bit challenging but they don't have to be a hindrance as long as you're aware they exist. .

Dropped D tuning is very simple: instead of your lowest (Thickest) string being tuned to an 'E' you will need to lower it one whole step down to a 'D'. Some examples of songs in Dropped D tuning include "Higher" by Creed and "You Wanted More" by Tonic.

Some artist have recorded songs using lower tunings: usually lowering all of the strings by 1/2 of a step so that your string from bottom to top will be tuned as follows: E flat - A flat - D flat - G flat - B flat - E flat. An example of a song recorded in lowered tuning is "Hemmorage" by Fuel and I believe every Kiss song recorded in the seventies.

The really difficult thing from a student's perspective is when an artist combines the Dropped D tuning with the lowered 1/2 step tuning. This can make playing by ear a nightmare. "Breakdown" by Tantric, "Hanging By A Moment" by Lifehouse are two examples of songs where you will find this combination. Using online TAB sites ; although not always accurate; can help you determine whether or not songs aren't in a standard tuning. This is covered more in the section on tablature.