Dansm's Acoustic Page


Tuning
Tuning may be the most important thing for a beginning guitarist to learn. If you aren't in tune, you will never sound good, no matter how incredible a player you are. These pages are designed to teach you how to tune your guitar. Follow them step-by-step and you will be able to tune quickly and easily, without the need for an expensive electronic tuner. For help tuning a 12-string, click here.
The goal of tuning is to put your strings in tune with each other. You strings should be tuned to the following notes (low-to-high): EADGBE. This is called "standard tuning." There are many other possible tunings, but I will not discuss those here.

The first step in tuning is to get a reference pitch. This will be the E on your sixth string. The accuracy of your tuning to this pitch when playing alone is relatively unimportant; I tend to tune to a pitch slightly below this to help me sing higher notes more easily. However, if you are playing in a group, it is absolutely imperative that you all tune to the same reference pitch, because if you don't you will all be out of tune with each other.

The sound file below is an E on your sixth string. Tune your sixth string to it before you go on. To do this, play the pitch, then tune your 6th string until the pitch sounds exactly like the file. You may have to turn up your speaker volume to be able to hear the file well enough to tune.

6th String E

Once you have tuned your 6th string to the E above, move on to tuning!
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© 1998 Daniel E. Smith. Last updated 3-8-98.