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Guitar For the Absolute Beginner #4: How to tune your guitar

By Mark Lee

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If you enjoyed this post you might like these:

Guitar for the Absolute Beginner: How to play guitar in 30 days
Guitar for the Absolute Beginner #2: How I hold a guitar pick
Guitar for the Absolute Beginner, # 1: Make a practice plan to ensure your success
Guitar for the Absolute Beginner #3: Every Anglican Does Get Baptized Eventually, and other tricks to memorize string names
Guitar for the Absolute Beginner #5: a chromatic warmup “scale” for guitar

Tags: guitar, guitar lessons, tuning

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Guitar for the Absolute Beginner, Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments to “Guitar For the Absolute Beginner #4: How to tune your guitar”

Cindygoatkeeper

February 25, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Thanks, Mark! I've been waiting for this one! Easy enough to do! You also mentioned a tuner. I would be interested in getting a tuner for my acoustic. What would you recommend?

#692

marklee3d

February 25, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Look for that in a coming post…

#693

Angie-angelfangomer

February 25, 2009 at 3:35 pm

Cindy-When I bought my guitar I also bought a Korg Guitar/Bass Tuner (GA-30). I don't think it cost me much (Under $10??)…I'm glad I have it. It has a light and meter with it so it's pretty much fool proof for me. But I also know how to tune the way Mark showed us.

#709

Dan_Gross

February 25, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Yeah, that's what we call "close enough for jazz," Mark. Nice lesson!

BTW, that's a pretty expensive pitch pipe you have there, Dr. The guitarists I play with, when tuning by ear, usually start with the A, which is just common practice from standard A-440 tuning pitch. But I'm also curious: any reason you started with your 1st string, rather than the 6th? Usually when I'm tuning with a tuner I go from 6th->1st.

#716

marklee3d

February 25, 2009 at 5:44 pm

Start on whichever string works best for you. I chose high E for this demonstration b/c it's easier to hear if it's sharp or flat in that register. The A concept is interesting. Do your friends start with the 2nd fret A on the G string? I guess that would be a concert A.

#721

Dan_Gross

February 25, 2009 at 6:12 pm

Actually initial tuning is to the open A, which I guess would be 8va down from concert pitch. Same note though (can get it from the metronome tone if your ear is good enough). So, open A, down to E, then up to the others.

As far as your method, I get what you're saying. It just feels a little weird adjusting the string that you're fretting, as opposed to the open string…

#724

Russell Martin

February 25, 2009 at 10:33 pm

For those who have an Iphone or touch there are some tuners out there. I bought guitar toolkit when it was first introduced for cheap, its now $10 but includes a metronome, chord chart etc also.

#739

wayne

February 26, 2009 at 3:19 am

good job mark i have used that method many times .its valuble to learn how to tune by ear .lol so when your behind a curtain with people from production running around talking on radios waiting to give the thumbs up that your ready to go on and your electronic tuner goes completely haywire you will be able to survive in a timely manner .yes that is a true story that really happend to me .but like dan i most often start on the sixth string ..

#755

Dan_Gross

February 26, 2009 at 6:23 pm

An exercise for the newbies: Use the tuner after you've tried using your ear. IOW, tune a string w/ tuner, tune the rest by ear, check results with tuner. Helps me.

#798

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