6 Easy Steps To Use A Guitar Tuner

You finally acquired your new guitar, you're learning a few chords, and you won't let your guitar out of your sight.  It's a great feeling, isn't it?  But it's not such a great feeling when your chords start to sound funny and you realize that your precious guitar is going out of tune.

You need to add an important tool to your arsenal as a guitarist: tuning!  Tuning is merely tightening or loosening each string until it emits the right pitch.  If you are using the standard guitar tuning, you will adjust your strings to these notes: E-A-D-G-B-E.  That means that the thickest string (which should be closest to you) should be producing an E.  The following string should be an A, and etc.  There are many tuning variations, but we'll save that for another time.

To correctly tune your strings to the correct pitch, you need to know what that correct pitch sounds like.  No surprise there!  But where do you get this pitch?  Any instrument or tool that is already in tune can provide you with a "reference pitch."  A piano, a tuning fork, or a pitch pipe can all give you a reference pitch.  You can even find a few tools online that will give you a reference pitch to work with.  However, tuning by ear can be challenging, and even frustrating, especially for beginning guitarists.  While it's important to develop your ear so that you can hear slight differences in pitch, there is a fast, easy way to recover the rich sound of a properly tuned guitar.

The trick is to use an electronic guitar tuner!  A guitar tuner detects the tone of a guitar string and shows you if it is sharp (high) or flat (low) of the desired pitch.  The tuner's built-in mic picks up the sound from your acoustic guitar.  If you have a pick-up in your guitar or you are playing an electric guitar, some tuners allow you to plug a 1/4" cable into the in-put jack for more precise detection.

There are endless styles and types of tuners, from guitar pedal tuners to clip on tuners.  No matter what kind of tuner you purchased, learning to use it is pretty easy.  So let's get your guitar back in tune in no time.

1. Make sure the tuner is on.  Some tuners are battery operated and others (such as tuner pedals) can be plugged into a power source.

2. If you are going to use a tuner's microphone to check an acoustic guitar, place the tuner near the sound hole to get a clear reading of your guitar.  If your guitar and tuner setup permit you to connect with a cable, do that now.

3. Chose the mode.  If the tuner has a chromatic setting it will automatically detect the note closest to the one you are playing.  This is good, so long as you keep in mind the pitch you are wanting to find.  For example, if you want to tune your lowest string to an E2, but it's closer to a D2 and you're not paying attention, the tuner may indicate that you are in tune, but you will be tuned to the wrong note.  These are the pitches your guitar should be tuned to, from lowest to highest: E2, A2, D3, G3, B3, E4.

Your tuner may permit you to use a pre-programmed setting specifically for a guitar or bass.  In this mode, the tuner will only signal when your strings are tuned to the standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E).

4. Start with the lowest string on your guitar and strum it so that it rings loud and clear.

5. As the tuner picks up the tone it will indicate (on screen, by lights, or both) whether your string is sharp (#) or flat (b) of the desired pitch.  modify the string by turning the correct tuning peg.  Tightening the string will raise the pitch and loosening the string will lower the pitch.  (Tighten the string when you are flat; if it says you are sharp, loosen the string.)

6. Continue until you have tuned all of the strings.

When you are done with all of your strings go through all of them quickly one more time.  As you tune each string, the tension on the neck of your guitar changes, which impacts the tension of the other strings.  This means the first string may fall slightly out of tune by the time you finish with the last one.  Don't worry though--this time will be much quicker.

Your guitar is finally in tune and you can go back to jamming out.  Enjoy!