Tuning for a Guitar
Overview
Before tuning for a guitar you must realise that a poor quality instrument will never stay in tune for long, if at all but hopefully you have heeded the advice on this site or someone you can trust before attempting this.
Cleaning your strings is essential to good guitar tuning and this simple precaution improves string lifespan, maintaining tone and more reliable tuning. This should be done after every gig particularly if you’re in some sweaty venue. Using a lint-free cloth lightly coated in Isopropyl Alcohol or a suitable guitar string cleaner. wrap it under and around each string, one at a time, and wipe up and down.
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When tuning for a guitar you need a reference pitch and before the days of electronic tuners this had to be achieved with pitch pipes and if your ears were good, tuning forks. The string numbers, from top to bottom, are 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, musically this is E, A, D, G, B, and E respectively.
When strings are too loose, the guitar will generate flat notes and possibly an irritating buzzing caused by the strings touching the fretboard. If the strings are too tight the guitar will sound “sharp” and out of key. Guitarists always talk about the “action” which is the space between the strings and the fretboard. Hard action guitars mean that the strings are hard to press down and thereby tough on the fingers and often the root cause of blisters whilst a soft action is the opposite.
Tuners
Digital tuner
Online Tuner
Unless you are experienced and able to tune by ear using a piano or another instrument as reference, get yourself a good electronic tuner when tuning for a guitar. If your guitar is electric these can be plugged in to the output socket of the guitar and you can adjust the machine heads accordingly.
Alternatively for acoustics you can get the strobe type which allows you to select the pitch e.g E and a microphone will pick up the sound and display on a meter where the pitch is currently at. If you are at home and online then use one of the many free online tuners that are available.
Tuning Procedure
When tuning for a guitar you first tune the low E string, the first string from top to bottom, using a tuner. Loosen or tighten the string tension on the string in gradual steps, checking the result after each adjustment. Continue until the desired pitch is achieved on the tuner. Once the first string is adjusted, the tuner is no longer necessary as the procedure below shows. Once the low E string is tuned, you can move on to the next string.
Hold down the fifth fret of the E string, and play the E and A string (unfretted) together. If the sound wavers, the A string is out of tune. You can then pluck each string independently to determine how to adjust the A string. Once it is adjusted, you can move on to the next string. Now hold down the fifth fret of the A string, and play it with the D string. You carry on in this fashion for all the other untuned strings, fretting the newly-tuned string with its untuned neighbor:
• (E String tuned with a tuner)
• A String - Fifth Fret of E String, Open A String
• D String - Fifth Fret of A String, Open D String
• G String - Fifth Fret of D String, Open G String
• B String - Fourth Fret of G String, Open B String
• High E String - Fifth Fret of B String, Open E String
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New Strings
Before tuning for a guitar check to see if you have a Floating Bridge. f you have,DON’T take all the old strings off at once but one at a time. If this is not the case then it is ok to remove all strings together. Tune them all up to concert pitch, then spend about 20 minutes S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G them by hand. This is done by holding everything down at the nut with the left hand while placing 4 fingers of your right hand underneath one string. Slowly pull it out until you feel tension and gently bounce it forward and backwards, causing a stretching action.
Slide your hand up the neck along the string, pull it away from the fretboard at various intervals from nut to bridge. Retune the string and do it all again. String tuning can drop by as much as an octave at first but after a few stretch/tune ups tçhe string will stay in tune. It can take a week or so until the guitar strings stop jumping out of tune so be aware of this as you don’t want this happening at a performance.
Once you get into the habit of cleaning and stretching your guitar strings it becomes second nature and minimises the aggravation of tuning up every couple of minutes.