hi guys my name's andy and in this
lesson i'm showing you how to tune any
guitar be acoustic or electric
now anyone who wants to get their guitar
in tune accurately needs a guitar tuner
now be this a clip-on tuner like the one
that i have here
or a tuner as part of a guitar pedal
which is better for playing live or band
practices or of course these days that
are guitar tuner apps now i particularly
prefer myself the guitar tuner app which
is free it's great for getting your
guitar in standard tuning i have no
affiliation with them that's just the
one that i personally use to great
effect whichever tuner that you use we
need to know the names of our open
strings which are e a d g b e and that
was covered in the previous lesson in
this series of sort of beginner basics
videos for beginner guitarists so i'm
going to presume that you know the names
of your open strings already but i will
give you some prompts as we go and we're
going to go ahead and get your guitar in
tune so some guitar headstocks are
different from others the main type is
this type where we have three on one
side three on the other we can also have
this type of headstock where we have all
six in a line the golden rule with
either of those is that anti-clockwise
increases the pitch and clockwise
decreases the pitch so makes it lower
and typically we're going to be turning
your tuning pegs anti-clockwise to
increase the pitch because it's not
often that guitars make themselves
higher but they can sometimes make
themselves lower now on my acoustic
guitar i've detuned a couple of the
strings intentionally so see if you can
notice which ones those are but we're
going to make a start by picking your
thickest e string
and you want to pick around one a second
to get a consistent note and that will
give an accurate reading on the tuner
itself so here's my tc electronic
polytune tuner it looks to me an awful
lot like kit from knight rider but let's
see what it reads when i pick the
thickest e string
so there we've got the letter e and we
can see that it's all green which means
that that note is in tune now that
string is in tune because we want this
to be the e string if i purposely detune
this a little bit and see what happens
it's gone it looks like it's gone up but
the letter has gone to the d and that
little light there says that's a d sharp
so we're going to increase that there we
go it's gone on to the e range
but it's going to increase
keep going and you can see it's all red
now but we're getting hints of green i'm
going to keep turning it
and there you can see that we have all
green which means that note is in tune
to an e which is what we want so let's
take a look at the next string this
should read an ear
and it does but you can see that we've
got a red line on there which means it's
a little bit too high so i'm going to
take it anti-clockwise
and we're getting more green
and that's pretty much perfect and it's
on the air now the next one string four
so one two three four we're expecting to
be a d let's have a look at what it is
now that's become up as a b
so that is a fair way out of tune and
we're gonna have to tighten it by
screwing it anti-clockwise a fair bit
because that's the one that i detuned
earlier
so it's now going to see even just by
turning it that little bit
keep going anti-clockwise
and we need to go right up
that little dot at the side of the c
means that it's gone to c sharp
and we need to keep going past that and
here we are on to d
still red
and there we are we're getting all green
and that line in the middle
and if i just detune it slightly that is
a d nut
and that's perfectly in tune
third string next so we go around the
outside
that is showing a g which is correct
and you can see that it is
all green which is exactly what we want
the next string is the second string and
that's this tuning peg
now that is also reading a g which is
not good we want that to read a b so i'm
going to have to turn this
to a higher pitch and if i keep pick
picking and listen
you can hear it keeps going up
we're on the b
and there we go
that note is in tune now if i'd have
kept turning there the note would have
gone higher and higher and eventually it
will get so high that the string is
going to break so it's really important
you know exactly what note you're going
for and some tuners allow you to hear
the note that you're tuning to
but also on my website where this video
is embedded you will hear the tuner
notes as well so that you can hear
string six and string five so you can
try and tell yourself whether you're
getting closer to note or further away
from it
so let's have a go for the thinnest
string now
this should read an e
and it does but it's a little bit low
so i'm making a couple of millimeter
adjustment there and that put it
perfectly in tune and if i go for our
first chord in this beginner's course
the a major chord
that now sounds correct when i play all
six strings but when i play a chord you
can get inaccurate readings so your
tuner will only work when you're playing
one string or only one sound is heard so
a couple of common mistakes are picking
a different string to the one that
you're turning now it's quite weird at
first to be picking something over here
and turning and looking at your screen
on the the tuner
but you will get used to it over time
this is an essential skill because you
really should check that your guitar is
in tune every time you pick it up though
it tends to really only go out of tune
when you maybe put it in a case or don't
play it for a while so if you're picking
it up every other day
it should be fairly in tune but if it's
sounding a bit wrong check it and make
sure that you're tuning your guitar so
that you know you tune into the right
notes now while we're on the subject of
tuning your guitar there is a quick
fifth fret tuning trick that you can
check your guitar is in tune which means
that the fifth fret on the thickest e
string
is an a note and that should be the same
as the open string five
you can hear that they're the same note
and that is the same at fifth fret of
every string apart from one
so there we can hear this is a d note
and the open e string is a d as well
this should be a g and it is in tune
with the string that is underneath it
now then it changes and we can't play
the fifth fret on the g
because that would be a c note and it's
not in tune with the other other b note
so we need to move it down by a fret
and you can hear that those notes are in
tune and then finally fifth fret on the
b
is the same as the open string
so that's a great way to check that
you're in tune just nice and quickly and
if you know that your thickest string is
in tune you can learn to tune your
guitar yourself by ear which is a great
skill to develop over the coming months
so that's it for this tuning lesson join
me in the next basic skills lesson where
i'll be talking you through what a pick
is and how to use it i hope to see you
there bye for now
you can download this video and the
ebook that goes with this entire course
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