How to tune a Guitar?
Tuning is one of the most essentials things to learn and master, because if your guitar is not properly tuned, then you cannot play correctly. There are many alternative ways to tune the guitar, but for the purpose of this lesson will only cover the most common way of tuning.
A standard guitar has six strings:
It’s a good idea to try and remember all the string names by the actual name, but for now you can refer to the strings as numbers. As you can see below I have listed the strings in the order as if you were to have the guitar sitting in your lap, and looking down at the guitar.
• E : also referred to as Low E (6th)
• A (5th)
• D (4th)
• G (3rd)
• B (2nd)
• e : also referred to as High e (1st)
Here is when your trusty guitar tuner will come in handy, and if you do not have a turner on hand, you can always use a piano.
Tuning the Guitar by a Piano:
- We need to find the low e on the piano, it is located at the 3rd octave on the piano if your looking at the start of the piano keys on the left, and then moving right, it would be the 3rd E.
- Next, we would need to tune our A string, we can find the A 5 keys to the right of our E note.
- D is our next string, to find this we need to move up 5 more keys from our E note to find the D.
- Moving along, is our G string, which we can find 5 keys from our last note which was D.
- B is our next note to tune, and it is located only 4 keys from D.
- Lastly, we need to tune our high E string, this note can be found 5 keys from our last note of B.
Tip: Make sure you count white and black keys when moving up to find your next notes on the piano, this is very important!
Steps to tuning your guitar by ear, or with out a tuner: Let’s get started tuning the guitar without a tuner:
1. Start at the top string on the guitar that is facing you, which is the Low E string, and then pluck the string with your pick, to create a tone. After you have plucked the string let’s check your tuner and try to match the string up to the E pitch, located on the tuner.
*This is the most vital string to get in tune, because once this is in tune, we can tune the rest of the guitar by using this string and then tuning the 5 string, 4 string, etc.
2. Next we are going to tune the A string, we can do this by using the Low E string or 6th string, and putting down our index finger on the 5th fret, and holding it down, this will give us our A note. Now tune the 5 strings to the exact pitch as you her on your 6th string.
3. After we successfully tuned the A string, it’s on to tuning the D string. We can tune this string by placing our index finger on the 5th fret on the A string, this will give us the D note we need to tune the 4th string or D string.
4. We are half way done tuning our guitar, so we can get ready to play! The next string that we need to tune is the G string or the 3rd string. Getting the pitch for this string all we need to do is to, place your index finger on the 5th fret on the D string, to get the G note we need.
5. The next string we need to get in tune would be the 2nd string or the B string. This one is different from the previous strings, we do not put our index finger on the 5th fret, we are going to put it on the 4th fret of the G string, so we can produce the B note we need to tune the 2nd string (B).
6. You’ve made it, we are almost done and it’s our last string to tune. This is the high e string, when tuning our last string we had to use a different fret, then we are familiar with, but to tune our last string we are going to use the 5th fret once again, but on the B string or 2nd string.
Guitar Tuner I recommend:
Tips:
- I recommend that every time you go to play your guitar to make sure you tune the instrument, so you know it will be in proper tune, before you play.
- If you have been playing your guitar for a while, then it’s always good to check to make sure the guitar is still in tune. Usually after playing for a while, will make the guitar go out of tune.
Congrats, you have successfully tuned your guitar!
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