How to tune a guitar

Standard tuning is E A D G B E. Here is how to get there with a tuner, by ear, and with harmonics, and how to make it stick.

The notes

From the thickest string (the one nearest your face) to the thinnest: E A D G B E. The two E strings are two octaves apart. A mnemonic that stays with people: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.

Each string has an exact frequency at concert pitch, where the A above middle C is 440 Hz: E2 82.41 Hz, A2 110 Hz, D3 146.83 Hz, G3 196 Hz, B3 246.94 Hz and E4 329.63 Hz. You do not need to remember the numbers; a tuner does. But it helps to know that the low E is a slow, low wave, which is why it takes tuners a moment longer to read.

The full table, with every alternate tuning, is on the standard tuning page.

Method 1: with a tuner app

This is the method to use. It is faster than tuning by ear and more accurate than any ear, including ours.

1. Open the tuner and play one string. Only one. The app detects the pitch, shows the nearest note, and a needle shows how far off you are in cents (hundredths of a semitone).
2. Turn the tuning peg slowly. Tightening raises the pitch, loosening lowers it. Watch the needle, not the peg. Small movements: a quarter turn on the peg is a big change in pitch.
3. Come up to the note from below. If you overshoot, loosen the string until it is flat, then tighten up to the note. Strings that are tuned downward to a note tend to slip sharp again.
4. Repeat for each string, thickest to thinnest, then go round once more. Tuning one string changes the tension on the neck a little and nudges the others.

In TuneGlass, the dial turns green and the scale fills when the string is in tune, and a soft chime confirms it, so you can keep your eyes on the peg. Hold a string circle and the app plays the reference note if you want to check by ear.

Method 2: by ear, with the fifth fret

If you have no tuner, you can tune the guitar to itself. You need one reference pitch for the low E (a piano, a tuning fork, another guitar, or the app's reference tone) and then each string is tuned to the one below it.

1. Tune the low E to your reference.
2. Press the low E string at the 5th fret. That note is A. Tune the open A string to match it.
3. Press the A string at the 5th fret (D). Tune the open D string to it.
4. Press the D string at the 5th fret (G). Tune the open G string to it.
5. Press the G string at the 4th fret, not the fifth. That is B. Tune the open B string to it.
6. Press the B string at the 5th fret (E). Tune the open high E to it.

Listen for beating: a slow wah-wah-wah pulse when the two notes are close but not the same. As you turn the peg the pulse slows down and disappears when the notes match. That silence is the target.

The weakness of this method is that errors add up. If the A string is a touch flat, every string tuned from it inherits the error. Go round twice and check the two E strings against each other at the end.

Method 3: harmonics

Touch, do not press, a string directly above the 5th fret wire and pluck: you get a bell-like harmonic two octaves up. The 5th-fret harmonic on the low E is the same pitch as the 7th-fret harmonic on the A string. The same works for A to D and D to G. (G to B is the exception again; use the fretted method for that pair.)

Harmonics ring longer and higher than fretted notes, which makes the beating easier to hear. It is the method many players use on a noisy stage.

Why strings go out of tune

• New strings stretch. For the first day or two they will drift flat every time you play. Tune, gently pull each string away from the fretboard, tune again. It speeds the process up.
• Temperature and humidity. Wood moves. A guitar taken from a cold car into a warm room will be out of tune for twenty minutes.
• Friction at the nut. If a string pings and jumps in pitch while you tune, it is sticking in the nut slot. A touch of pencil graphite in the slot helps.
• Bending and heavy strumming pull strings sharp or flat temporarily. Retune between songs.
• Old strings go dull and stop intonating: open strings in tune, fretted notes out. If retuning never quite fixes it, change the strings.

Electric guitar without an amp?

Yes. A phone's microphone can hear an unplugged electric, though the signal is quiet and the low E is the hard case. TuneGlass was calibrated on exactly this; there is a separate guide with the details.

Beyond standard

Once standard tuning is second nature, the alternate tunings are mostly small moves from it. Drop D changes one string. Half step down moves all six by the same amount. DADGAD and Open G change three. Every one of them is listed with notes and frequencies in the tunings reference.

Questions