Tuning the Guitar

Keeping your guitar in tune is extremely important. Without tuning the guitar, your guitar won’t sound very good and will be extremely frustrating to play! The good news is that keeping your guitar in tune is pretty easy!

First, watch this video on how the tuners on the guitar work.

The next step is to know what notes each string should be tuned to in standard guitar tuning.

Standard tuning on the guitar is from lowest string to highest string:

E(6) A(5) D(4) G(3) B(2) E(1) 

Watch the example below on how to tune your guitar, and the correct notes for each string.

In order to tune the guitar, the easiest method would be to use an electronic tuner. There are several tuning apps that you can download on your smartphone or tablet that use the built-in microphone to tune the guitar. There are also tuners that clip on to the headstock of the guitar that can tune any guitar (electric or acoustic) through the vibrations of the strings. Whichever method you use to tune your guitar, you want to make sure that you are tuning to standard tuning. Although there are many alternate tunings that can be used with the guitar, we will be focusing on standard tuning throughout this book.  

Using Electronic Tuners to Tune Your Guitar

Stand-Alone Tuners 

For electric guitars and acoustic guitars with built-in electronics, pedal tuners are very popular and work similarly to clip-on tuners. When you plug your guitar cable into the tuner’s input, it registers the sound of the pickups and displays the closest note and whether the string is too high or too low. Once the tuner reaches the middle green line, the string is now in tune. Stand-alone tuners also have a microphone to tune acoustic guitars that do not have electronics.

Tuning the Guitar Without using a Tuner 

You can tune each string without a tuner by pressing the 5th fret of the 6th string and checking to see if it matches the open 5th string. This works for all of the strings except for the 2nd string, which is tuned using the 4th fret of the 3rd string. You will need to adjust the tuning up or down as needed to match the fretted note on the lower string.

Although this method assumes your lowest string is in tune, it will keep your guitar in tune with itself, and allow for practicing until you can tune your guitar to an electronic tuner.