How to Tune a Guitar - The Easy Way

Tuning your guitar is a painless process since the invention of digital tuners. However some guitar instructors still prefer to teach their students how to tune a guitar using traditional methods, or rather by ear. It is important to be able to tune a guitar without the use of a tuner. For example, what if you were at a friends house and were asked to jam along on an old acoustic guitar that looked like it hadn't been played, let alone tuned, in a year or more and to make matters worse nobody has a tuner. The following method will show you how to tune a guitar quickly and easily so you can be confident that you are in tune.

Unlike digital tuners that usually only allow you to tune your guitar in standard tuning, learning how to tune a guitar by ear will let you effortlessly match lower tunings which sometimes are desired for a fuller, deeper acoustic sound. To begin you will need to first tune the sixth string to a note played by another guitar, a key on the piano, or the fourth string on a bass guitar. Once the first note is established the rest is a piece of cake.

As you may have guessed your second step is to tune the fifth and adjacent string. You can do so by playing the fifth fret on the sixth string and tuning the fifth string until both pitches sound the same. Do the same for the fourth, third, and first strings. But wait a minute! You forgot... The second string I know. The reason I omitted it above is because in order to tune the second string you will need to play the forth fret on the third string and tune to that pitch.

Let's review how to tune a guitar. Get your starting pitch from another player, instrument, or favorite recording. Tune all other adjacent strings by matching the pitch at the fifth fret on the previously "in tune" string, except for the second string. Remember to use the fourth fret on the third string to get your second string pitch. That's it! Now you know how to tune an acoustic guitar the easy way. Let's jam!

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