NOTE: This is a tip for beginners

Learning how to tune your guitar is one of the most basic things a budding guitarist must know. It’s quite easy to learn as long as you give proper focus in learning it. Besides, playing an out-of-tune guitar doesn’t help anyway.

• The Strings

  A standard six-stringer guitar has six strings tuned to six different sounds. Each string is numbered as 1st to 6th from the bottom (thinest) string to the top (thickest) string. The standard tuning for these strings are as follows:

  • 1st – high E
  • 2nd – B
  • 3rd – G
  • 4th – D
  • 5th – A
  • 6th – low E

  As a mnemonic, you can just remember any of these lines (my personal favorites): Every Beautiful Girl Deserves An Eye or Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter.

• The Tuning Pegs

  To tune a string to a higher or lower note, just slowly twist the peg clockwise or counterclockwise. Just pluck a string continuously while twisting the peg. You’ll hear a lowering or heightening of tune.

• Absolute Tuning

  Absolute tuning refers to tuning the guitar strings specifically to the notes above as determined by the note’s actual frequency. There are several possible references for tuning. If you have a piano, you can find the appropriate notes and use them as references for each string. Or perhaps you’re a lucky owner of a tuning pipe, or better, a guitar tuner, use it by all means.

  The advantage of this is when you play as a group with instruments that are hard to tune (like a piano). It’s best to tune every instrument to . Some musicians i know always bring a tuning fork.

  A pro musician once gave me this advice – invest on a good tuner. There’s no fuss and you’re always in tune.

• The Relative Method

  However, you can relatively tune your guitar especially if you don’t have a piano or a tuner handy. Relative tuning is a tuning method that tunes your strings relative to each other. You can just find a source for the low E note, and use it to determine the tuning of the rest of the strings.

  • Tune the 6th string to the E note.
  • Tune the 5th string to the note played when the 6th string is played at the 5th fret.
  • Tune the 4th string to the note played when the 5th string is played at the 5th fret.
  • Tune the 3th string to the note played when the 4th string is played at the 5th fret.
  • Tune the 2th string to the note played when the 3th string is played at the 4th fret.
  • Tune the 1th string to the note played when the 2th string is played at the 5th fret.

If you want to be really serious about playing the guitar, you can learn the sound of the E by memory so you can tune your guitar easily by ear.