Tune Your Guitar

It’s important to have your guitar in tune for notes and chords to sound pleasant.  It will also allow you to play along with friends or recorded music.  Most importantly, it will give you cues when the chords you are playing need corrections, which is a very important element of mastering the fundamentals.

Tuning by Pitch

Here is an online tuner to give you the proper tone for each of the six strings, provided by HowToTuneAGuitar.org.

Start with the 6th string (the thickest string closest to your head, strumming just the open 6th string creates an E note), and use the correlated tuning key to tighten the string to make the pitch higher, or loosen the string to bring the pitch lower, until the sounds match.  Follow this procedure for each of the remaining five strings.

If you’re still having difficulties tuning the guitar, that’s OK, tuning a guitar tends to be a challenge for beginners. Try to find a friend that already knows how to play guitar to tune yours for the first time, or bring it to a guitar store where they’ll typically be happy to help a budding guitarist (even if it isn’t the place where you bought it).  Once you are within the right range, then it’s easier to make the slight adjustments to keep it in tune.

Relative Tuning

If you aren’t near a tuner to hear a specific tone, you can still tune the guitar.  When playing by yourself, it’s only important that the guitar is tuned to itself.  So even if your E note isn’t the same as what’s on a tuner (or in a song), if all the strings are tuned relative to each other, then your music will still sound good. 

Here’s how: 

• Playing the fifth fret of the 6th string (an A note) is the same as the open 5th string (an A note).  Adjust the tuning key for the open 5th string until it matches the 6th string, fifth fret A.

There is a similar pattern for the rest of the strings (make sure you pay attention to the 3rd string B note)

• Fifth fret of 5th string (a D note) is the same as the open 4th string (a D note).
• Fifth fret of the 4th string (a G note) is the same as the open 3rd string (a G note)
• Fourth fret of the 3rd string (a B note) is the same as the open 2nd string (a B note)
• Fifth fret of the 2nd string (an E note) is the same as the open 1st string (an E note)

If you’d like to join us in the 90-Day Guitar Guide, please start by taking the quick Guitar Quiz.  The Guitar Quiz allows us to customize recommendations to meet your specific goals.

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