So I'm sure you're wondering how the heck do I tune my guitar?
That's a valid point because if you don't tune your guitar,
whatever you play on it down the road, it's just not going to sound very good.
So in this lesson I'm going to go over how to tune your guitar and more
importantly,
I'm going to give you the names of the strings that will be your guide for
tuning, but also your guide for reading tablature,
explaining how to play something to a friend. Believe me,
this is a major foundation.
This is just one lesson in a series where I'll take you from zero to guitar
player in 30 days by teaching you the four super fun skills that'll get you
hooked on guitar. Before you get started,
you'll need to download the tabs course guide and 30 day checklist to get yours.
Just click on the link in the video or visit 30 days to play.com so let's
actually start with the string names because that will inform how you tune the
guitar. I want you to remember one easy term.
It's fairly comedic and you may have heard it before, but if not, get ready.
You might want to write this down. Eddy ate dynamite.
Good by Eddy ... Eddy ate dynamite. Good bye Eddy.
The first letter in each of those words actually stands for the string name.
So let's go through them. So I want you to hold your guitar.
The string that's closest to you is your low e string or Eddie.
The next one is your a string: ate.
The D is the next string. Dynamite.
The next string is your g: good.
The next one is your B.
Uh,
the string that's the furthest away from you is your high e. And that is Eddie.
So you have your e, a, d, G,
B and E. Eddie ate dynamite.
Good bye Eddie.
Now let's use those string names to actually tune your guitar.
And tuning is actually, it's, it's can be very intimidating. In fact,
I shouldn't say can be. It is.
I remember when I first started and I was extremely intimidated to adjust
anything down here. Don't worry, let me just say this,
it gets easier the more you do it.
So I want you to do it as much as you possibly can.
Get as much hands on experience in tuning your guitar as you can because it gets
easier. So let's use those string names as our guide.
While we're tuning the guitar,
I want you to have a clip on tuner or guitar tuner of some sort because that
will make this process much, much, much easier.
So let's start with that string that's closest to you. As you hold the guitar,
that again is your low east string.
Go ahead and plug that string somewhere over the sound hole and your guitar
tuner should pick it up and it should actually give you the string name on the
tuner, right? So this says e, it's straight up and down in the middle.
That means it's in tune. Some tuners give a green light,
others it's just straight up and down like an arrow. Some tuners will blink.
Either way, it'll be very clear to you that your guitar is in tune.
That string is in tune. Now,
one of the things I want you to be aware of is that if your tuner says a letter
other than the string name, that's okay. It's not busted.
You just need to do a little bit of tuning.
So if you're tuning your guitar and you're on the low east string and it says f,
that means you're too high. Think of it like your standard, uh, alphabet, right?
If you're on e and it's an f or a genome, you're way too high.
So you want to come back to that. E. Conversely, if you're on,
say your low eastern,
you're trying to tune your low eastern and it's the tuner reads c or d,
then you're too low and you need to raise it to the email, right?
So here I am, I'm on an f note.
I have to actually lower the pitch of that string and get it to where it reads
and they'll take a little bit of fine tweaking. But again,
once your tune is blinking at you or giving you that sign that it's in tune,
you can go ahead and stop and make sure that it is in tuned.
Pluck it a couple of times and just make sure that you're sure of it.
Make sure that you're sure of it.
Let's go onto the next drink and go ahead and plug that in.
Your tuner should read an a in this does.
The next string is your d.
Um, he needs a little tweak.
The next one is your G.
Right on. The next one is your B.
and the final one is your high e.
all right, so again, we have your e, you're a,
you're D, your g, your B
and your high E.
Yeah.
Now if you're panicking, you're thinking, man, I want to play today.
I can't really get a tuner today. That's okay. You can use this very video,
my guitars in tune.
Just do your best to match the pitch of each of the strengths.
Now w a couple of things before we go onto the next lesson. First,
if the tuners not registering or if it's kind of going all over the place,
go ahead and pick the string right over the sound hole.
And you might have to do it a couple times just to get that tuner to go ahead
and register, right? You want the tuner to feel the vibration of the string.
And I found in my experience that picking over the sound hole usually does the
trick and that's one thing. The second thing is you may have the question like,
cool my guitars in tune,
but how often do I have to tune my guitar? Well,
the truth of the matter is between temperature changes and humidity changes,
or if you carry your guitar around,
you might've accidentally knocked it into something.
You should tune your guitar every single time you play it.
It might be just tiny adjustments, but again,
remember if your guitar is not in tune,
everything you plan it is going to sound a little bit off and a little bit odd
and we want things to sound awesome.
So tune your guitar every single time you take it out of the case or pick it up
off the guitar stand and it will make your guitar experience that much better.
Best of luck tuning. And next, let's have a look at technique.
This is just one lesson in the series where I'll take you from zero to guitar
player in 30 days by teaching you the four super fund skills that'll get you
hooked on guitar. Before you get started,
you'll need to download the tabs course guide and 30 day checklist to get yours.
Just click on the link in the description or visit 30 days to play.com.