In this post I will tell about how to tune a guitar. Well, a player must check the tuning of the frequently if he wants to develop a good knowledge of the different pitches. The tuning which is used generally called the Standard Tuning, have the open notes E, B, G, D, A, E from the bottom to the top thickest string. And the string names are also referred to their tune, example the bottom string is called E and so on. If you are having remembering the string names of standard tuning, you can always use the mnemonics to remember the string names. Apart from this there were several other altered tuning, which has been discussed later.
Tuning is done from either bottom to top or top to bottom. I prefer bottom to top, but you can always try the other way, but remember to tune chronologically. There were practically several methods to tune the guitar like electric tuner, pitch pipes and other instruments. Well, lets begin considering you don't have an electric tuner. First of all tune the bottom most high pitched E with a piano or other guitar in tune. Well if you don't have a piano or other tuned guitar you can always tune to guitar but not the standard A=440 concert pitch. For, this tighten the bottom string to a fairly high pitch, but don't tighten too much or the string will break! After tuning the bottom string, hold the 5th fret of B string (the second one from bottom), and adjust it by using the tuner in such a way that the 5th fret note of the B string is same as the open high E string, because the 5th fret note is also E, and when they are in tune they will resonate. After that we move similarly. For G string match its 4th fret (its 4th, not 5th remember it) with the open B string. Then 5th fret in the D string is matched with the open G string. Similarly, 5th fret of A string is matched with open D string and the finally the 5th fret of high E string is matched with the open A string.
For quick reference the above picture shows the relation between the different strings of the guitar. This is the most common way to tune a guitar. In the next post I will be telling you about an advanced way to tune your guitar using harmonics.
