Tuning Your Guitar




It is very important to tune your guitar.   You need to tune your guitar on a regular basis if you
want it to sound good and make practice enjoyable.  At first tuning a guitar will be difficult but
this will change over time.  It is advisable that if you know someone that is a guitar player, you
can have them tune your guitar for you. You can also simply learn to do it yourself.  It just takes
practice and patience.

There are different methods of tuning a guitar.  All of the different methods are appropriate but
some are more convenient than others.  This is especially important if you are just beginning to
learn the guitar. 
Tuning a guitar involves adjusting the strings so that they play the right note.  You loosen or
tighten the strings by using the tuning pegs.  If you tighten the pegs on the headstock, this will
make the pitch of the string higher, while making the pegs loose will make the pitch lower.

Beginning guitar players may want to purchase an inexpensive electric “guitar tuner”.  This is a
great choice for beginning guitar players.  Electronic tuners can pick up the sound of a string and
let you know through a display that the note is either too low (flat) or too high (sharp). Beginning
guitar player have difficulty telling when a string is not in tune by just listening so buying an
electric tuner can assist in making tuning faster and more precise. 

A starting guitarist who is practicing by themselves, easy and convenient tuning methods are
best.  However, as you become pickier or begin playing with other people, utilizing alternative
tuning methods will become increasingly important. 

If you cannot afford or do not want to buy an electric tuner, there are a variety of ways to
manually tune your instrument.  These ways are relative tuning, tuning with a piano, pitch pipes,
keyboards, tuning forks, intervals and harmonics.  We will go into these types of tuning in the
next chapter.