How To Tune A Guitar

Last Updated on Thursday, 28 May 2009 07:33 Monday, 18 May 2009 18:08

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:

• a tuning fork
• a guitar pitch pipe
• a digital tuner - this device 'listens' to the note you play and tells you whether it's flat or sharp. It won't actually tune the guitar for you, unfortunately! Chromatic tuners are the professional's choice and can tune to any note, so you can tune any instrument with one of these. They can be a little confusing for beginners, so manufacturers also provide guitar and bass tuners, which only tune to the notes of your guitar's open strings.
• Youtube (see below)

5th Fret Rule

Here's a reminder of what note each of the open strings of your guitar plays.

The 5th fret rule involves you playing strings at the 5th fret to compare their notes to other open strings. For example, if you play the low pitched E string (at the top!) at the 5th fret, it should play the same note as the next string down (the A string). If they don't sound the same, you tune the A string until the notes are the same. You then move down and play the A string at the 5th fret and compare that to the open D string. At this point if one of them is out, tune the D string. If instead you tune the A string it will then be out of tune with the E string you previously tuned. Keep repeating this process until you get to the G string which you play at the 4th fret to tune to the B string.All other strings use the 5th fret.

As mentioned earlier, the problem with using the 5th fret rule without a reference note is that although your strings are in tune relative to each other, you may find that your guitar is out of tune with every other instrument in the band. Don't fret (ha ha) - just get them to tune to your guitar. You're the star of the show, don't let them forget.

Anyway. In summary the steps are to tune your bottom E string to the corresponding note provided by your tuner (tuning for, pitch pipe etc) and then tune your other strings to that using the 5th fret rule.

Tuning Your Guitar With Youtube

That's right, those nice people who post videos on Youtube are a helpful lot. One particularly nice chap has posted the notes for standard tuning where he repeats each note 9 times. This is much more useful than the tuning CDs you can get that only repeat each note 3 times.