Guitar Tuning

Welcome to the tcguitar no holds barred, bells and whistles guide to tuning a guitar.

There are two aspects to tuning a guitar. You must tune all the strings relative to each other so the guitar sounds OK when played on its own. Additionally, if you are playing in a band you must also ensure that your guitar is tuned to the instruments played by the other members. The first aspect is covered by tuning your guitar using the 5th fret rule (see below). If when using the 5th fret rule you initially a string to a reference note, you can then be sure to be in tune with the other instruments. The reference note can be provided by:

The Origins Of The Guitar

Before the advent of the electric guitar, the guitar was defined as an instrument characterised by a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides. Instances of musical instruments similar to the guitar have been found to date back as far as 4,000 years ago. The roots of the guitar can be traced back thousands of years to instruments found in central Asia and India and is distantly related to instruments such as the tanbur and setar, and the Indian sitar.