Tuning Your Guitar

As a beginner, it's good to get into the habit of tuning your guitar by ear rather than with an electronic tuner. This helps build your musical hearing as well as not leaving you in a fix when you're in a situation where no one brought a pocket tuner and you need to get your guitar in tune quickly. There are many methods for putting your guitar in approved tuning, yet the beloved "fifth fret method" and harmonic variations are the most useful and simplest.

In order to use the fifth fret recipe properly, one places one finger on the "E" string (the lowest) on the fifth fret and plucks it first while speedily plucking the next string up (the next-highest string, or "A" string). This second string should be plucked open (not being touched in any place on the fingerboard). Adjust the tuner for the open string until both strings emit the same pitch when plucked together. Continue doing this for each string piquant up the fifth fret. For example, place one finger on the fifth fret, "A" string and pluck that one while also plucking the open "D" string and adjusting the tuner for the "D" string until it and the "A" string also have the same pitch when plucked in tandem.

Tuner Guitar

Tuning this way becomes a miniature involved when you make your way up to the "G" and "B" strings. When tuning the "B" string, place your finger on the fourth fret of the "G" string--not the fifth fret--before tuning the open "B" appropriately. This is due to a phenomenon known as the "B-string barrier," but what's foremost is that you become accustomed to tuning the "B" string in this fashion. When tuning the high "E" string at the top, the "B" string is first plucked on the fifth fret before the open "E" as per usual.

Another recipe used to get your guitar in tune without an electronic tuner is to use harmonics on the twelfth fret while plucking private notes on the seventh fret and adjusting your tuners as needed. For example, if you pluck a harmonic over the twelfth fret on your low "E" string--achieved by just touching the string over the twelfth fret, but not pressing down on it--and speedily pluck a note on your "A" string on the seventh fret so that each note--the harmonic and the actual note--are heard simultaneously, you will know either each string is in tune by either the pitches match. Adjust the strings accordingly before piquant up the twelfth fret for each string. When you get to the "G" and "B" strings, you must again consider the B-sting fence and pluck the "B" string on the eighth fret rather than the seventh to be sure it is in tune. Whichever recipe you use--the fifth fret recipe or harmonics--you will assist your ear in recognizing separate pitches and the sounds of separate notes. This is a skill that will become requisite as you begin emulating the styles of others and, subsequently, creating your own compositions.

Tuning Your Guitar