Have you ever wanted to sit down and play a little guitar and you noticed that your guitar is just not sounding right? Even though it was sitting safely in its case, atmospheric or temperature changes could have caused your strings to stretch and go out of tune. Now if you are like many beginning musicians, you are still developing your ear and learning to discern between notes and learning how to determine when two notes match or harmonize. At this stage in your development as a guitarist your ear may not be quite as keen as a seasoned musician’s. Here is an easy way to tell if you are in tune if you do not have another guitar or a tuner handy.
To begin with you must understand how the strings’ open tones relate to each other. Open, of course means, playing a string without fretting a note. The notes to which guitar strings are tuned are as follows from bottom to top: E (1st string), B (2nd string) , G (3rd string), D (4th string), A (5th string), E (6th string). Now there is an interesting relationship between these particular notes that will help you in tuning. Each string’s note is separated by five degrees from the next. The note “A” is five half steps up from E. Write out the entire music scale and you will see what I mean:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#
Start on E (since E is the open not of your top string). Count up five half steps and you will land on A. Now start on A (which is the next string below low E on your guitar). Count up five half steps and you end up on D which is the next string down and so on. So now go back to the top string, which is E. Now count up five frets. The note that is at the fifth fret on the top E string is the note of A. A is five half steps up from E. So if you fret the low E string at the fifth fret, pluck it and then pluck the open fifth string (which is A) and let them ring together. The two notes should match. If they do not then you can tighten or loosen your fifth string in order to make them match. You will know when they do not match if you listen closely to their tone. If they do not match you will notice a “wavy” sound in the tones they make together. Tighten or loosen one of the strings so that the “wavy” sound you hear gets slower and slower and finally fades away. At that point the two notes are in tune with one another. You can now proceed to the next.
The fifth fret on the A (a.k. 5th) string is the note D. And of course D is the open note of the 4th string. So follow the same procedure to tune your fourth string. Fret the D note which is at the fifth fret on the fifth string, pluck it, let it ring, then quickly pluck the open D string. Adjust the tuning knob of your fourth string until the two notes match. Follow the same procedure for the next two strings.
There Is One Exception To This Rule
You will notice that there are only four half steps between G and B. This is the only exception to the rule I am laying out here. Now since B is only four half steps up from G, then to tune them you will need to fret the G string (3rd string) at the fourth fret. Pluck it, let it ring, and then quickly pluck the B string (or 2nd string) and tighten the tuning knob for the B string until the two notes match. Once that is done you can then fret the 2nd string at the fifth fret in order to get sound the high E note needed for tuning the final string. Once you have done this trying playing a few chords. Once again listen to any obvious “waviness” in the sound. This will clue you in on whether or not your instrument is tuned. If it is not, then go back through the process and fine tune it a bit. After a while, as your experience and knowledge increases, this will be a much quicker process for you.
Now let us tackle one more issue. You have probably realized that just because all of your strings are in tune with each other, this does not necessarily mean that you are tuned to standard tuning because you did not have anything like another instrument or tuner to go by. The simple solution is to turn on a CD of a song you know how to play and play along to see if you are flat or sharp. Then you can adjust your tuning accordingly. This works best if there is a part in the song where a particular note or chord is struck and held for an extended period. This will help you zero in on whether or not you need to tune up or tune down.
I hope this proves to be helpful for all of you beginning guitarists. Learning guitar may seem difficult at first but over time you will come to love and appreciate being able to play an instrument.
