Acoustic Guitar Tuning

It is hard to overstate the importance of acoustic guitar tuning. Always take a few minutes to tune your guitar before you begin to play. Whether you’re playing in a professional venue or just practising at home, an untuned guitar is simply not enjoyable to play. Beginners often become frustrated, feeling that their playing sounds bad when really it is just their guitar is not in tune.

For acoustic guitar tuning with an electronic tuner, sit down and place the tuner on either a stool or table next to your seat. Then pluck the first string. The tuner’s microphone can sense which string is being tuned. You will know how close you are to the right pitch by the indicator on the tuner. It also indicates if you are sharp or flat. Utilize the tuning key to adjust the guitar string until it indicates that you are in tune.

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Keep in mind that one always tunes up, which means going from looser to tighter till it’s in tune. If it becomes too tight, don’t just unwind it a little bit to try to improve it (called “tuning down”). It works far better to give the string some play and then start tightening it again till it’s right. When you tune up, not only are your results more accurate, but you also help the string hold its tuning longer.

A reference pitch source is needed whether or not you want to use an electric tuner when learning how to tune your guitar. Some options as to other things you can use are a tuning fork, another in tune guitar, a piano, or an MP3 that you know is in tune. Your results will always be accurate if you use an electric tuner when acoustic guitar tuning. If you’d like to try it the old fashioned way, an electric tuner will be helpful if you’d like to check your results.

The sixth, or E string is the place to start acoustic guitar tuning. Be sure to tune it to the reference pitch, and after you have it tuned, the other five strings can be tuned to that note. Simply follow the tune. There is a lengthy reason for how and why this works, but it’s not necessary to know how a car works to drive it. Under that same theory, extensive musical knowledge isn’t required in order to perform acoustic guitar tuning.

Let’s begin our acoustic guitar tuning:

(1) Once the low E string (sixth string) is in tune, play it on the fifth fret, and then pluck the open fifth string. Adjust the the tone of the fifth string as necessary until the two notes match.

(2) Move up to the fifth string. Playing it on the fifth fret, tune the open forth string.

(3) Similarly, adjust the tone of the third string while playing the fifth fret of the fourth string.

(4) For the next note, play the third string on the fourth fret (not the fifth) and tune the second string.

(5) Tune the open high E string, comparing it to the tone of the second string, fifth fret.

Don’t be afraid to keep trying, but if it’s your first time doing acoustic guitar tuning, you may want to have someone show you the correct way to do it. Check with the store where you bought your guitar, they’ll be more than happy to show you. Acoustic guitar tuning may be the most important thing that a beginning guitarist must learn. Like any other tasks, it requires some time and practice to master acoustic guitar tuning. It is therefore highly recommended that all beginners have an electric tuner as a reference. Buying an electric tuner is really worth it since it is considered the easiest approach and gives the most accurate results.