Lesson 3: How to Tune A Guitar

This lesson covers How to Tune A Guitar. Tuning it before playing it each time is an essential element to good guitar playing basics and it will help you develop a good ear for music too.

Here are two ways to tune the guitar. If you don't feel like reading, just skip down to the How to Tune A Guitar video.

• 1)Use another in-tune instrument, like a keyboard, to tune each string.

• 2)Use a digital tuner to tune each string.

How to tune a guitar using another instrument

This option assumes that you know how to locate the correct keys on a keyboard! If you do:

• Start with the low E. Low E is the correct sound for the 6th string of the guitar. The 6th string is the first one facing up as you are holding the guitar, as shown in the photo above; it is the fattest and thickest string making the lowest note.

• The next string is the 5th, A. Tune to the A note above the low E.

• The 4th string is D, tune to the D note above the A. We're going in fourths so far, get it?

• The 3rd string is G, the 2nd is B, the first and skinniest string is the E string. If you already know the keys of a keyboard for tuning the guitar, chances are you already have some musical knowledge and can get the guitar in tune fairly easily.

Other ways of tuning a guitar

Once you get any string in tune, you can tune the guitar to that string. Follow the diagram here. You first need to tune the 6th string, E. Play the 5th fret of the 6th string and you get A, the note of the 5th string. This works for any successive string except the B 2nd string, which you play on the fourth fret of the 4th string to make the correct tone.

In the old days prior to digital, (yes, there were such primitive times), we used a tuning or pitch pipe, which was a little pipe that you blew into to produce the low E note. You then had to tune the rest of the guitar to the 6th string, the E, after you got the E in decent tune.

But why go through that when you can get a digital tuner for only about 15 bucks? The digital tuner can be plugged into a jack in your guitar and when you pluck each string, the dial on the tuner will oscillate back and forth and show you just how far out of tune the string is. You should look for an very even oscillation of the dial between the + and - values to get as perfect a tone as possible. Allow the dial to oscillate a bit because it takes a few seconds to register the exact tone. The digital tuner is very small and compact and can be carried around in your guitar case (easier by far than looking for a keyboard to tune your guitar to!)

For those who enjoy technology, here's a handy guitar tuner to help you tune your guitar online. You can use the metronome to practice with too.

from HOW TO TUNE A GUITAR to FREE GUITAR SCALES

How to Tune A Guitar