How To Tune The Guitar

October 23rd, 2005 Print Tip E-mail Tip

So how do you tune this dang thing? There are numerous methods around to tune your guitar, but the ones I've had the most success with are electronic tuners and, what might be called, the 5/4 method.

Using an electronic tuner is fast, easy and accurate. My pet theory is instead of playing the open string, tune your string with the natural harmonic played at the 12th fret (or even try the natural harmonic at the 5th fret). My reason for this belief is that you have double the number of cycles per second (CPS) at the 12th fret harmonic as you do the open string, which may make the tuner more precise or at least its job easier. Thus, your tuner would have at its disposal 220 CPS rather than 110 on the A string. It seems to work---give it a try.

GuitarNote!
After all your strings are nicely in tune, play the open (non-fretted) strings slowly low to high, and then one-by-one high to low. Try to fix these pitches in your mind and mentally "predict" the next pitch before you play it. Then strum all six strings open (called an Em7add11 or A11 chord) and try to fix that sound in your mind. This is a good habit to perform any time you pick up the guitar. Then when you walk into a guitar store or pawn shop and see a guitar hanging on the wall, you can flick the open strings and tell your impressed friends that this one's not quite in tune.

Using the "5/4" method requires no batteries, but a tuning fork will assure that you're tuned to concert pitch (A = 440 CPS), assuming that's what you want. I generally use an A440 tuning fork. By the way I've tested a few "forks" with electronic tuners and they're insanely accurate---who knew a lowly piece of metal...? Anyway, I sound the fork and hold it against the body of the guitar (usually works much better with an acoustic than an electric guitar), and then pull off to sound the note on the 1st string at the 5th fret, which just happens to be A440. The natural harmonic located at the 7th fret of the D string will also give you A440, and then you can continue tuning up or down from the D string reference point. You will here a pulsing wow-wow-wow pattern when you're out of tune. The closer in tune the two sources are, the slower the "beats" or pulses are, and vice-versa. When the first string is in tune, fret the B string at the 5th fret and match its pitch to that of the open E string. Then match the G string at the 4th fret to open B, D at the 5th to open G, A at the 5th to open D, and finally E at the 5th fret to the open A string. Some people might find this approach a bit "backwards" and prefer using an "E" tuning fork to tune the low open E string, and then tuning the open A string to match the low E fretted at the 5th fret, et cetera---whatever floats your boat. When you're in tune, no beats. Hooray!

GuitarNote!
There is a method of tuning using natural harmonics at the 5th and 7th frets, but because the guitar is normally tuned in an equal-tempered system, you can't get an accurate tuning with this method. For a detailed explanation of why not, check out Hideo Kamimoto's book "Complete Guitar Repair" (Oak Publications).