Guitar Lessons Article 3 : How to Tune a Guitar

One of the first things you have to learn as a guitarist, even before you begin to play the guitar, is how to tune a guitar. Learning how to tune a guitar is not as difficult as one may think, even if you are a little tone deaf. However, before I begin to teach you how to tune a guitar, I will mention the alternative ways you can go about tuning your guitar with the least amount of hassle.

The first and most obvious way to tune your guitar if you cannot tune it yourself by ear, is to use an electronic guitar tuner. These are small and rather inexpensive electronic devices which listen to the frequencies and sounds of your guitar strings when individually strummed and, via a blinking led light, advise you whether to tune that string up or down to the corresponding note.

The second alternative way to tune your guitar is to ask a professional guitarist to tune it for you. Ofcourse this will only be good for playing guitar at that moment because once you are ready to pick up your guitar and play it again, chances are your guitar will be out of tune and you will need to ask that person to retune it. This is why learning how to tune a guitar is most essential to guitarists of all types.

The easiest way to tune your guitar is using a piano as the standard reference pitch. The first string you should be tuning is the 6th string which is the thickest string on your guitar. On the piano look at the sets of black keys. They are in sets of 2s, then 3s and the pattern repeats. The white key directly following the 2nd black key from the set of 2s is an E. Play that key on your piano and tune your 6th string of your guitar to that exact pitch by listening carefully and slowly twisting the controlling knob of that string. Once you have successfully tuned that 6th string, you have already won half the battle.

Now in order to tune the remaining 5 strings, just follow this pattern:

Go ahead and play your 6th string while holding down fret 5, this is an A note. Tune your open 5th string to the same sound that the 6th string / 5th fret omits.

Next play the 5th string while holding down fret 5, this is a D note. Now tune your open 4th string until both your open 4th string and the 5th string / 5th fret sound the same.

Then play the 4th string while holding down fret 5 which is a G note. Again, tune your open 3rd string to the sound of the 4th string / 5th fret.

Now this part is tricky, play the 3rd string while holding down the 4th fret, B note, and then tune your open 2nd string to this sound.

Finally play the 2nd string while holding down the 5th fret, E note, and tune your open 1st string to this sound.

Now your guitar should be perfectly tuned. Remember to always tune your guitar every single time you pick it up and are going to play. Make sure to also check the tuning after playing for a while for the very act of strumming the guitar can cause it to go out of tune.