Guitar Music 101: Tuning Your Guitar

There are a lot of technical hurdles every beginning, aspiring guitarist must tackle. Strumming, plucking, chord switching and finger positioning are just a few. Yet there is one challenge that leaves every beginner scratching their heads: tuning. Though it’s true that a guitar novice could play a song on their first day, however, proper guitar tuning could take weeks—if not months—to learn. So what can beginners do for the mean time? Read on and find out.

 

Obviously, good guitar music requires a properly tuned guitar. For beginners, getting an electronic tuner is the best—if not most practical—choice. These gadgets are typically placed near the guitar’s soundhole. As one string is struck, the tuner then shows what pitch that specific string is in. With that in mind, the 6^th string (e.g., the thickest string) should be tuned to “E.” The succeeding strings, on the other hand, should be tuned to: “A” for the 5^th, “D” for the 4^th, “G” for the 3^rd, “B” for the 2^nd, and a high “e” for the 1^st.

If an electronic guitar tuner isn’t available, the best substitute is tuning by approximation. The key here is pressing the 5^th fret of each string (except the 3^rd, where the 4^th fret is used ) and making sure that the string below it sounds exactly the same. It takes a bit of practice, but this is the best way of tuning a guitar without using an electric tuner. All that said, have fun tuning!