By
eHow Arts & Entertainment Editor
Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Things You’ll Need:
Step1
Start with your thickest, lowest-pitched string to prevent having too much tension on your thinnest, most fragile strings. Turn the tuning knob to take up the slack in the string, making it tight enough so that it can vibrate without rubbing against the frets.
Step2
Repeat with the other strings, going from the thickest, lowest-pitched strings to the highest.
Step3
Press a finger directly on the lowest, thickest string where it rests on the white bar at the top of the neck to keep the tuning knob from turning while you pull gently on the string with your other hand, stretching it several times. This will prevent the string from stretching while you play. Repeat this stretch for each string.
Step4
Plug your guitar into the tuner if you have an electric guitar, or just get up close to the tuner if you have an acoustic.
Step5
Tune each string (again from lowest to highest) by plucking once and watching the indicator on your tuner, which tells you the note you're closest to and whether you're above or below that note. Your strings, from lowest to highest, should be E, A, D, G, B and E (two octaves higher than the low E) in Standard Tuning.