Beginner Guitar Lesson #3 Tuning

B3: Tuning

Possibly the most important thing to know about playing the guitar, is of course tuning it. Unless you somehow make up your own tuning, you wont be able to play guitar without tuning.

First off, there's two main ways to tune the guitar. You can tune the guitar to itself, or to the exact Pitch. I recommend tuning to the exact note and pitch, this way you'll be able to play along with songs you may want to learn. Tuning the guitar to it self means tuning from the E string in what ever key it may be. In tune or not.

But we will just go from what i recommend. In this lesson I'll start off by telling you how to tune in Standard, I'll explain a few other tunings later on.

First you're going to have to make sure your low E string (6th string) is tuned perfectly. You can do this with a keyboard or even an online tuner. Just tune the string until it matches the note on the keyboard etc.

Now we will go over the basic process of tuning your guitar in standard...

1. Place your finger on the 5th fret of your low E string
2. Play the A string open and tune till it matches the note played on the low E string
3. Place your finger on the 5th fret of the A string and repeat step 1 and 2 with the open D string
4. Repeat for 5th fret on D string and Open G string
5. Place your finger on the 4th fret of the G string and play the open B string
6. Tune the B string to the note played on the G string
7. Place your finger on the 5th fret of the B string and play the open high E string
8. Tune to the high E string to the note played on the B string

Follow the steps carefully and with a good ear you should have your guitar tuned in Standard EADGBe.

Now i'll explain alternate tunings. Alternate tunings is when the notes of your strings are tuned differently, usually to achieve a lower pitch or to make certain chords and progressions easier.

The two most common are Drop D and Eb (Also called Half step tuning and even Jimi Hendrix tuning)

Drop D is a tuning in which your Low E string is tuned down to match your D string. The configuration would like this

DADGBe

The reason it's called drop D is because the top 3 bass strings when played together, play a D5 power chord. This also means you can bar the top three strings on any fret and get a power chord.

To get this tuning is very easy. First tune your guitar to standard as provided above. Play your Low E and D both open and tune the low E to match your D.

Now i'll explain Half step. Half step is the same configuration as Standard yet all the strings are tuned down half a step. The result looks like this

Eb Ab Db Gb Bb eb

This tuning is something referred to as Hendrix tuning since Jimi Hendrix was famous for tuning down a half step. To get this tuning is a little harder than Drop D. First tune to standard.

Play the sixth fret of your fifth string and tune your low E string to match the fretted note. When in tune, your sixth string should be one octave lower than the sixth fret of the fifth string.Continue to tune your guitar in the standard way once your low E string is in tune. Fret the fifth string of your low E and match the open fifth string of your guitar to the fretted note. Continue this process up each new string. The only exception to this rule in standard tuning is the B string. To tune the B string, fret the fourth string of the prior string instead of the fifth.

This tuning gives a lower tone than standard yet the ability to play the same way you do in standard.

Here's a brief table of some other common alternate tunings and a description.

Drop Db Dropped D tuning tuned down a half step

Drop C Same as Drop D but transposed a whole step. Popular in Metal bands

Drop B A whole step lower than Drop C. Very low tuning, requires thicker gauge strings

Drop A Extremely low tuning, One step down from Drop B. Heavy metal bands such as Slipknot use this tuning.