How to tune a guitar

Standard tuning at a glance

From the thickest string to the thinnest, standard tuning is E A D G B E. Players number the strings the other way round: string 1 is the thin high E, string 6 is the thick low E. A common way to remember the order from string 6 is “Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie”.

The two E strings are not the same note. The low E is two octaves below the high E, which is why the table gives each note an octave number. HeyTuner shows that number too, so you can tell an E2 from an E3 at a glance.

Before you start

• Find a quiet spot. A tuner hears everything the microphone hears. A TV, a fan or a second guitar can pull the reading around.
• Get the phone close. For an acoustic, put the phone or laptop within an arm’s length of the soundhole. For an electric, either hold it near the strings or plug the guitar into an audio interface and pick that input in the device picker. The level meter shows whether the tuner is hearing you clearly.
• Know which peg is which. Trace each string from the nut to the post it wraps around before you touch anything. Most beginner tuning trouble starts with turning the wrong peg.
• Pluck at normal strength. A hard pluck rings slightly sharp for the first moment. Pluck the way you would when playing, near the soundhole or between the pickups, and let the string ring.
• Mute the strings you are not tuning. Rest the side of your picking hand lightly on the others so they do not ring along.

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Tuning with HeyTuner, step by step

1. Open the acoustic guitar tuner or the electric guitar tuner and check that the tuning is set to Standard.
2. Start Auto mode (the Space key also starts and stops listening) and allow microphone access when the browser asks.
3. Pluck string 6 open and let it ring. With Detect String on, the tuner works out which string you played and shows the note, a needle and the distance from the target in cents. A cent is a hundredth of a semitone.
4. If the reading is flat (left of center), tighten the peg a little. If it is sharp (right of center), loosen the string until it reads clearly flat, then bring it back up. The next section explains why.
5. Turn in small amounts: a quarter turn when far off, a tiny nudge when close. Pluck again after each adjustment and wait for the needle to settle before you turn again.
6. The string counts as in tune when it holds within ±2 cents for 300 milliseconds. The display turns green, and you can turn on a chime or a vibration for that moment in the settings.
7. Move to string 5 and repeat, then strings 4, 3, 2 and 1.
8. Run the recheck pass when the checklist asks for it.

When to switch Detect String off

Detect String guesses the string from the note it hears, which is exactly what you want when the guitar is close to pitch. When a string is far out, for example after restringing or months in a case, the nearest string may be the wrong one. A very slack A string can read as a low E that happens to be sharp.

Turn Detect String off and tap the peg you are tuning on screen, or press the number keys 1 to 6. The reading then stays locked to that string however far away it is, and tells you plainly what to do, such as “Tune up 2 semitones”. Once every string is close, switch Detect String back on.

The checklist and the recheck pass

The tune-up checklist ticks off each string as it reaches pitch, then asks you to go round once more. That second pass is not busywork. Raising one string adds tension to the neck and, on guitars with a floating tremolo, pulls the bridge forward, which drops the strings you already tuned. The effect is small on most fixed-bridge guitars and large on floating tremolos.

If the recheck finds only one or two strings a few cents out, fix them and you are done. If most strings have moved, do another full pass. Expect three or more passes on a floating tremolo or after a big tuning change.

Always tune up to the note

Approach every note from below. If you overshoot, do not nudge the peg back down to the target. Loosen the string until the tuner reads clearly flat, then tighten slowly up to the note.

There are two reasons. First, the gears inside a tuning machine have a little play. When you finish by tightening, the gear is pressed firmly against the string’s pull and stays there. When you finish by loosening, the gear can sit in that play and shift later. Second, the string drags in the nut slot. Tuning down can leave a little extra tension trapped between the nut and the post, and that releases the first time you play hard or bend a note, so the string goes flat a few minutes after you tuned it.

Which order to tune the strings

The usual order is string 6 to string 1, low to high. The checklist follows that order, and the ear-tuning methods below also build upward from string 6, so the habit carries over when you tune without a tuner.

When a guitar is badly out, for example after a restring, get every string roughly close first and fine-tune afterwards. Bringing one string perfectly to pitch while the others are a long way off is wasted effort, because the neck and bridge will move as the rest come up.

After the recheck, play a few open chords such as E, G and C. If one chord sounds sour while the tuner says every string is right, the cause is usually intonation or finger pressure rather than tuning. The guide on why guitars go out of tune covers both.

Tuning by ear as a backup

You can tune the guitar to itself with no tuner at all. The result will be in tune with itself, which is all that matters when you play alone. To play with others, start string 6 from a shared reference: a piano, another guitar, or HeyTuner’s By Ear mode with Loop Note, which repeats the reference note every two seconds while you turn the peg.

The 5th-fret method

With string 6 in tune:

1. Fret string 6 at the 5th fret. That note is A. Tune open string 5 to match it.
2. Fret string 5 at the 5th fret (D) and tune open string 4 to it.
3. Fret string 4 at the 5th fret (G) and tune open string 3 to it.
4. Fret string 3 at the 4th fret (B) and tune open string 2 to it.
5. Fret string 2 at the 5th fret (E) and tune open string 1 to it.

Step 4 is the one people get wrong. Every pair of neighboring strings is five semitones apart except G and B, which are four apart, so that pair uses the 4th fret.

Errors add up along the chain, and pressing too hard pushes fretted notes sharp. As a final check, play the harmonic at the 5th fret of string 6: it should match open string 1 exactly.

Harmonics

To play a harmonic, touch the string lightly directly above the fret wire without pressing it down, pluck, then lift your finger. Harmonics ring longer than fretted notes and need no finger pressure, so they are easier to compare. These pairs sound the same note:

• String 6, 5th-fret harmonic, and string 5, 7th-fret harmonic.
• String 5, 5th-fret harmonic, and string 4, 7th-fret harmonic.
• String 4, 5th-fret harmonic, and string 3, 7th-fret harmonic.
• String 6, 7th-fret harmonic, and open string 2.
• String 5, 7th-fret harmonic, and open string 1.

Harmonics produce acoustically pure intervals, while frets are spaced for equal temperament. The two differ by about 2 cents per string pair, and that error accumulates as you go across the neck. Harmonics make an excellent check, but a chain of them is no more exact than the 5th-fret method. When two notes are close, you hear a slow wavering called beating. Tune until the wavering slows and disappears. The guide to tuning by ear explains how to hear it.

Common mistakes

Tuning to the wrong octave

When you bring a new, slack string up to pitch, the first E you reach on string 1 is E3, an octave too low. The tuner shows the right letter, so it looks fine, but the string feels floppy and buzzes. Check the octave number against the table above. Detect String off helps here, because the reading tells you how many semitones you still have to go.

Going an octave too high is not a real risk. Doubling a string’s pitch needs four times the tension, and the string breaks long before it gets there. Strings do break when tuned a few semitones too high, so if a string feels much tighter than its neighbors, stop and check the note.

Turning the wrong peg

The pegs on the two sides of a 3+3 headstock are mirror images, so the motion that tightens one side loosens the other. Before you turn anything, touch the string at the nut and follow it to its post. Then make a small turn and watch the reading. If the note moves the wrong way, or does not move at all, you are on the wrong peg or turning in the wrong direction.

Forgetting that new strings stretch

New strings keep stretching for the first few days, and the wraps around each post tighten. Each time you tune, the string drops again. Speed this up: tune to pitch, then hook a finger under each string and pull it gently away from the fretboard, working your way along its length, and retune. Repeat until the pitch stops falling after a stretch, usually after three or four rounds. Pull firmly, not violently. The aim is to settle the string, not to test it.

Pressing or leaning while tuning

Pushing on the neck, pressing the headstock against your body or resting your hand on the bridge or tremolo arm changes the pitch while you tune. Hold the guitar as you would to play, with nothing pressing on the neck or bridge. When you fret notes, press just hard enough for a clean note. Heavy fretting bends notes sharp, especially on tall frets.

Tuning before the guitar has settled

A guitar brought in from a cold car or a hot stage will drift as the strings and wood reach room temperature. Leave it in its case for a while before you open it, then tune. If the room is noisy, use the sensitivity slider or plug in an electric directly, and use the mic test to see whether your microphone is the problem.

Keeping it in tune between sessions

Tune every time you play. It takes under a minute when the guitar is close, and it shows you early when something is wrong, such as a string that drops overnight. When you are ready to try other tunings, start with drop D, which changes only string 6, and read the guide to changing tunings safely before you try bigger changes.