Tune Your Guitar

For anyone new to music and playing the guitar, learning to tune up correctly is definitely a challenge. This is mostly because the ear of a musical novice is quite often undeveloped and still coarse, accurate tuning requires delicacy and a sensitive ear.

Some much emphasis is placed on chords and strumming when you first learn to play guitar but it's all for nothing if your guitar is not properly in tune in the first place right? Even the greatest of players is going to sound bad on an un-tuned guitar.

Over time your ear will develop and you'll get faster and more accurate at tuning your guitar, just don't expect it to happen all at once. The musical ear is one of those things which cannot be forced and each person is going to develop at their own unique speed.

I would strongly suggest you invest in an electronic tuner as this can make things easy is a number of important ways. Firstly you won't have to rely on your 'unreliable' ear, instead you'll get a clear indication from the tuner if the string is in tune or not and what adjustments you need to make to get it in tune. Secondly it will give you the confidence to know that you really are in standard tuning the same as everyone else and that your guitar is properly in tune with all the strings set up correctly.

The real challenge with this method is learning to use the actual guitar tuner properly. You'll need to learn how to recognize if it's telling you the note is sharp or flat and what to do about it. This should take no more that a week to perfect and you'll end up hopefully with a guitar perfectly in tune because of it.

Whatever method you employ whether it be manual or assisted tuning, one thing tuning requires is silence and concentration. It really is a delicate art and you'll need to be calm when you do it. All the adjustments you'll make to the tuning pegs should be very slow, even and tiny. It's very easy to go too far flat or sharp due to over winding. We also always tune up to notes, never down.

If you tune down to notes within a few minutes the string will be out of tune again, it's not secure. Think of it in the same way as winding a clock... always wind up to the correct time, it's more accurate than winding down.

Lastly, even when your guitar tuner is saying everything is in tune the final test is always your ear. With a developed ear you'll find yourself making small adjustments to the tuning even though your guitar tuner is saying everything is perfect. Once that happens you'll really know that you have mastered tuning your guitar.