Hey welcome to video six of the Beginner Guitar Quick-Start Series. In this lesson we're going
to learn all about how to tune the guitar. Learning how to tune your guitar is really
important because you can be a great player, but if your guitar is out of tune you're not
going to sound good. So, by the end of this lesson you'll know the things that you need
to make your guitar sound great and in tune.
This is going to be a pretty long lesson because I wanted to make sure that nothing was left
out for you. We're going to break it up into three basic main parts. The first part is
going to be tuning theory and tips, the second part is going to be tuning the guitar with
an electronic tuner, and the third part is going to be tuning the guitar by ear. So if
you already know how to tune a guitar with an electronic tuner you can skip to the part
on tuning by ear, or if you know how to tune a guitar all together you can just skip this lesson.
Let's get into some things you're going to need to know in order to tune the guitar.
You've already learned the names of the open strings of the guitar, E A D G B E.
The next thing you need to learn is the natural musical alphabet. And again this is really simple,
but you have to know it. The natural musical alphabet is just the first seven letters of
the regular alphabet, A B C D E F and G.
Now we need to talk about the concept of a note being sharp or flat. If you see a natural
note with a little sign that looks like a "b" next to it, a lower case "b", that little
sign is a flat sign. And that, in the context of tuning, when we talk about a note being
flat, that means that the note needs to come up a little bit. A sharp sign looks like a
little tic-tac-toe sign. In the context of tuning, when we talk about a note being sharp,
that means that the note is a little bit too high and it needs to come down a little bit.
When you look at an electronic tuner it's going to have a couple of ways telling you
if a note is sharp or flat. And those two ways, generally, are either lights or needles.
If the lights on your electronic tuner are off to the left, that means your note is a little
flat and it needs to come up. If it's off to the right that's telling you that your
note is little bit sharp and it needs to come down. Also, you could have a little needle
that basically does the same thing. If the needle is off to the left it's telling you
that your note is a little bit flat and needs to come up. If it's off to the right it's
telling you it's a little bit sharp and it needs to come down a little bit.
Learning how to tune the guitar can be really tricky at first, and like anything else on
the guitar it takes practice to get good at, but if you do practice it you will get good
at it. So, to get started I want to give you some tips that are going to keep you from
breaking strings. I know it's really frustrating when you're learning how to tune the guitar.
The first tip I'm going to give you is make sure that you're cranking on the right tuning
key when you're tuning your guitar. You can follow this string down. If I want to tune
my D string, I've got to follow that all the way down to this tuning peg. Because, if I
accidentally start cranking the A, and I'm thinking "why isn't my, the pitch of my D
string not changing" and I'm cranking the wrong tuning key, what's going to happen is
I'm probably going to break that A string. And that's just going to be frustrating. So,
make sure, double check yourself and make sure, your tuning the right key for the string
that you want to tune.
The second tip that I want to give you to keep you from breaking strings is this. If
you think you too high, too far when you're tuning your string, you probably are. So stop,
crank it back down, and start over. One thing you're going to want to do before you get
started is just go to any string, it can be this E string, and just play with the tuning
key. See how much turning makes the note go down, and see how much you have to crank on
it to make it go up too. Just getting familiar with that will keep you from breaking strings.
So we live in a time where there are just a ton of options for tuners. There are clip on tuners,
pedal tuners, just hand held tuners like this. And it does't really matter which one you
have. You can get a good tuner just a hand held or a clip on for just fifteen or twenty
bucks. If that works for you, great. Today I'm going to be using my iPad, actually an
app on my iPad, to tune the guitar. Those work really good too. I've got my iPad pulled up
here with just a tuner app. And one thing I want to show you before we get in to actually
tuning the guitar is if you have a calibration setting on your tuner, you want to make sure
it's set to A440. Because if not, if it's a little bit off, you're going to sound out
of tune from everybody else that your playing with, or, you know, if you're playing with
a track or your favorite songs or something. So make sure that's set to A 440.
So let's actually get into learning how to tune the guitar with an electronic tuner.
We're going to break this down into a two step process for you. The first step is to
get each string to the proper note name. So if you're tuning this low E string you have
to get it to an E first. After that, you want to fine tune that E to where it's right spot on.
So let's just take this real quick, our low E string. I threw it out of tune earlier,
and it's saying that it's a D sharp which is not right. It's a little bit low. Now it's up to an E.
That's our first step. We've match the note name and that's correct, but as you can see
it's a little bit low. So now you have to fine tune it up to an E. Little bit to high.
There you go.
Okay now I'm going to throw the rest of this guitar out of tune just randomly, and we can
work on our tuning that way. And that's a really good way to practice tuning too, just
by the way. So let's try to get the rest of this guitar in tune. So, let's go to our A string,
and that's telling me that it's a G sharp. Now once you get, in your musical alphabet,
once you get all the way to the G, you come back around to the A. So, if it's a G sharp,
its telling me that this string is a little bit flat and needs to come up to an actual A note.
Okay now we've got it to an actual A. Now we are going to fine tune it to where it's
right on the money. That's good.
And one tip I wanted to give you here, always tune up to a note if you can. If you overshoot
a note and go too far, a little bit sharp. Come back down and try to tune up to that note.
That helps your string stay in tune better.
Alright next note, this should be a D, and it's telling me it's a D sharp. D sharp is after
D, so it's telling me that it's a little bit too high and we need to come down. Okay now
it's a D, but it's still a little bit sharp because the needle is off to the right. So
we'll keep coming down until it's on the money. And remember, always tune up to that note.
There you go.
Okay what's the name of the next string, the third string, it's a G right? It should be
a G. It's telling me it's a G sharp, and we don't want a G sharp, we want a G. So we need
to come down a bit. Okay it's a G now. The note name matches. And there it's a G.
Make sure to tune up to the note. Now do you see why it was important for you to learn the
names of the open strings for the guitar, right?
Next string over is the second string, it should be a B. It's telling me it's an A sharp
which means that it's low and it needs to come up a bit. Okay it's a B now. It's a little bit low still.
And there you go, right on the money. The next string over should be
what, an E right? The first string. And that's an E, but it's telling me it's a little bit sharp
so we need to come down some. So always go under the note and then come up to it, right.
And now we're pretty close to being in tune. I always go through and do that again just
because since guitars are made of wood they kind of change when the tension on the strings
change. So, I go through and tune the whole thing again, and then you should be in tune.
So do what I just did. Mess up your guitar, throw it out of tune, get your tuner, and
practice tuning your guitar. Match the note names first, of the strings, and then fine
tune the string to be right on the money.
Let's move on to learning how to tune the guitar by ear. This can be pretty intimidating
for a lot of players if they don't have a musical background, but I'm going to give
you some tips that are going to allow you to tune the guitar anywhere even if you don't
have an electronic tuner available. So you're not always going to have an electronic tuner
with you everywhere you go, but if one of your strings on your guitar is close to being
in tune, then you can tune the guitar to itself. So, let's just say our low E string was close
to being in tune, okay. I'm going to teach you something called the fifth fret method
that you can use to tune the rest of the guitar to that low E string.
What I'm going to do is just throw this guitar out of tune just a little bit here and there
kind of randomly like it would be if it had been sitting in the corner for a long time.
And what you're going to do is go to the fifth fret of the low E string. That note is an
A note. And if you remember, the open fifth string should be an A note too. So that note
on the fifth fret should should the exact same as the open fifth string. Not even close, right?
The idea is to match this open A string to the sound of the fifth fret of the low
E string. And this takes practice. My ear is telling me that it's a little bit low.
So, I just brought it up and tried to match those two notes as best I could.
Okay next string over. Now we need to tune the D string, or the fourth string. What we're
going to do is go to the fifth fret of the A string, and that note is a D note. So, this
fifth fret of the A string, this D note, should be the same as the open D string. And my ear
is telling me that that D string is a little bit sharp and needs to come down some.
Let's try it again. There you go.
Okay, next step in the fifth fret method is to tune the G string, and what we're going
to do there is play the fifth fret of the D string. That's a G note, so it should be
the same as this open G string. That's pretty close. It's a little bit off. And this takes practice.
Experiment. If you can't tell if it's sharp or flat, or if it needs to come up or down,
make it go down like way far. And then come up or do the same thing. If you can't tell if
it's sharp or flat, bring it way up, and if it sounds like it's getting further away,
you know it needs to come down.
Okay, this is where the fifth fret method kind of falls apart a little bit, or it changes.
To tune the B string we have to go to the fourth fret, not the fifth fret, of the G
string because that note is a B note. So we need to match that note on the fourth fret
of the G to the open B string. And my ear is telling me that that open B string needs
to come down. It's a bit sharp. And again this takes practice, but your ear, the more
you do it the better your ear will get at telling what needs to come up or down.
Now we need to tune the high E string, and to do that our fifth fret method gets back
on track. Go to the fifth fret of the B string, and that note is an E. So those two notes
should sound the same. This one is really close. There you go.
So, once I get the guitar in tune by ear, again just when I was using an electronic
tuner, I go through and do the whole thing again just to kind of fine tune it and make
sure everything is where it should be. Tuning the guitar by ear can be difficult at first,
but cut yourself some slack. It takes practice just like anything else on the guitar. Practice
it on a regular basis and you'll get better at it.
In the next lesson we're going to go over strumming hand technique, so get ready for
that. If you have any questions on tuning you can leave them in the comments here below,
or juste email me nate@guitarsystem.com See you in the next lesson.