How to Tune a Guitar

Why?

Tuning a guitar is an essential piece of the puzzle when mastering this instrument! A guitar must be in-tune to have multiple notes played together (i.e. chords) not sound like that group of stray cats in the back alley screaming into the midnight moon (kidding, but no seriously... it will sound so bad)

The Basics

 A guitar has six strings in total, all at differing thicknesses and tuned to different "notes". Adjusting these strings to the right notes is also called Tuning. The standard tuning for a six-string guitar (starting at the low/thickest string, closest to the player) is: E-A-D-G-B-E. 


To tune a guitar, one will reach for the head of the guitar where all the turny knoby things are (also known as tuners) and turn clockwise to make the pitch/tone of the string go up, or turn counter-clockwise to make the pitch/tone of the string go down. It is recommended to use the assistance of a guitar tuner tool (either physical or via a mobile phone app) to appropriately tune a guitar to the correct pitch for each string.