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Types of Guitar Strings
Guitar Maintenance Tools
How to Tune a Guitar
How to Adjust the Neck on an Acoustic Guitar
Using a Capo on an Acoustic Guitar
How to Replace Strings on an Acoustic Guitar
How to Replace Strings on a Classical Guitar
How To Adjust Intonation On An Electric Guitar
Making Neck Adjustments on an Electric Guitar
Adjusting Pickups on an Electric Guitar
How to Clean an Electric Guitar
How to Polish an Electric Guitar
How to Replace the Strings on an Electric Guitar
How a Floyd Rose Tremolo Works on an Electric Guitar
How to Change the Strings on a Guitar with a Tremolo or Whammy Bar
Summary: Learn how to tune a guitar from a professional guitar technician in this free guitar care video.
Tim Ambrosius is professional guitar technician and manager at Keller Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been playing guitar for over 15 years and has worked as a professional...read more
"Hi, my name is Tim Ambrosius. I'm a professional guitar tech. I'm going to show you how to tune a guitar. First off, you want to make sure that your "e" is in tune using a tuner or a tuning fork. Then, you're going to tune everything off of that "e" string. What you want to do is go to the fifth fret on that "e" string, hit it, and then hit the next open string down. So, when it's in tune they're going to sound exactly the same. Then, what you do is move up to the next string, the fifth fret on the "a" string, hit that, and hit your next open string down. Make sure they're the same note. Same thing with the "g", fifth fret on the "d", same note. Then the only other alternate one is on your "g" string you want to go on the fourth fret, so that's a "b" note. You want to hit the "b" on your "g", and then hit the open "b" string. Make sure they're the same note. Then back on the "b" string, you want to hit the fifth fret again, and hit the open "e". And, there you have it."
eHow Article: How to Tune a Guitar
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Comments
pgfan92 said
on 8/2/2008 The only downside to this is most people don't have perfect ears and will say that two notes slightly off are in tune, what happens when each string is slightly out of tune with the adjacent string is that the strings on the outside will be out of tune, another thing is that the perfect intervals (4th, 5th, octave) can't be perfectly in tune if the third is in tune (which is what most music is based upon), the short version is that if you tune to perfect intervals, and tune them perfectly, you can only play in one key (for more information, look up tempered tuning and pythagorean tuning). I don't have a camera, so I can't make a video, but here's a better way to tune for people who don't have perfect ears and for people who want non-diatonic music to sound decent. This is using the tempered tuning method.
1. Tune the high E string to a tuner or piano.
2. Tune the B string to the high E string using the 5th fret.
3. Tune the G string to the third fret on the high E string using the 12th fret harmonic on the G string.
4. Tune the second fret on the D string to the high E string.
5. (option 1) Tune the 12th fret harmonic to the high E string as a perfect fifth (a perfect fifth starts out the star wars theme if you need reference, also, these exact notes start out the song chasing cars by snow patrol). Test the 2nd fret of the A string against the B string after tuning.
5. (option 2) If you have trouble doing the perfect fifth, then just tune the second fret to the B string. Do NOT use the 7th fret harmonic and tune to the high E string, 7th fret harmonics are for pythagorean tuning, which tunes an octave so that a note vibrates twice as fast an octave higher, which seriously limits the non-diatonic notes you can use.
6. Tune either the 5th fret harmonic or the 12th fret harmonic of the low E string to the high E string.
guitaro said
on 8/2/2008 Hmmm, just realized the gieson.com link is some kind of christian website. Didn't realize that, anyway they have guitar tuner on there but if the christian part doesn't appeal try the lifesider.com link, it's for musicians.
guitaro said
on 8/2/2008 Other options are to tune with a piano or a tuning website like www.lifesider.com or www.gieson.com. Just remember it's not enough to tune the strings relative to each other, because if the E string isn't in tune to begin with you'll sound off when playing with other musicians.