Guitar Tuning How to Tune Guitar

Guitar Tuner - Using is Guitar Tuner or Auto Guitar Tuner is the most popular way to tune an electric guitar or acoustic guitar. Most are battery operated and perform a variety of tuning functions. The most simple guitar tuners will tune your guitar to a basic E tuning (E,A,D,G,B,E). Most guitar tuners will say 440hz on them as well. This is just a hz meter reading and it's fine that it says this for E Tuning. Some guitar tuners have an input to plug your electric guitar into or a built in mic to pickup you acoustic guitar sound. Plug your guitar into the input and your display should show you a meter that picks up your guitar string sound when you pluck a string. Your low E String is string number 6, the A String is number 5 and so on until you reach string 1 which is your high E string. Now, pluck the first string (Low E) and you should see your meter moving. You should turn your guitar tuning peg until the meter reaches the middle of the meter or 0 mark. It may take some trial and error to figure it out, but it's overall pretty simple. Now pluck your A String (Number 5 on the tuner). Tune this string until it also reached the 0 reading or middle of the meter. The closer you are to the middle or zero the more perfect tune your guitar will be in. Pluck your D String and tune to the middle meter reading. Now continue with each string until you have tuned all six strings of your guitar. Browse some Different Brands of Guitar Tuners below, or Visit our Guitar Tuner Store.

Guitar Tuning Modes - There are different keys or modes to tune your guitar as well. Some guitar players may tune to Eb (E flat). For example, some early Van Halen songs are tuned to Eb (E Flat). There are also open tuning modes as well. Some guitar tuners have functions to let you tune to these different keys as well. Just pick the mode you would like on the auto guitar tuner and tune each string to the middle 0 meter reading and you should be fine.
Drop D Tuning - Many hard rock songs now a days are tuned to Drop D Tuning. This is actually not that hard to do. Basically, you should tune your guitar normally, for example to a standard E Tuning as described in the first paragraph. Use you guitar tuner to do this. Once your in your Standard Tuning now your will need to Drop your Low E String to a D tuning. In order to do this place your index finger on the second string on the 5th fret and play this note. This is the note D. Now, play your Low E Sting while holding the D note on the second string. Tune the Low E String down one step to match the D Note your playing on the 5th fret second string. Once the notes match you are now in drop D tuning. Some songs that utilize this tuning are the Foo Fighters song Everlong, and Unchained by Van Halen. Also, if your guitar has a floyd rose tremelo system you may be able to add a device called the D Tuna. This was invented by Eddie Van Halen himself. Basically, it is attached to your trem fairly easily. Once it is attached, you can drop to Drop D Tuning by pulling the mechanism. It's a nice device to be able to drop D tune on the fly. There is also a fine tuning part of the Drop D Tuna that uses a tiny hex wrench to fine tune to drop D. Very nice feature. Most EVH Peavey Wolfgang guitars came equipped with the Drop D Tuna.
Tuning a Floyd Rose Tremelo or Trem - Most Floyd Rose tremelos have fine tuning knobs on them so that you can fine tune while your guitar strings which are locked at the neck. The stings are locked so that your guitar doesn't go out of tune when you use the Floyd rose Trem and whammy bar. You should tune your guitar normally, lock the nut at the neck, then fine tune using your floyd rose fine tuning knobs. Make sure you knobs are sort of in the mid position when your manually tuning. That way once your locked at the neck you have some room to turn the knobs and fine tune your guitar. Once the guitar is locked at the neck position try fine tuning with these knobs to get in tune.
Tuning Guitar By Ear - More experienced guitarist can tune there guitar by ear. By listening to a song some can figure out that a song is in E or Eb tuning. For example, Back in Black by AC/DC is in E. So, tune your low E string to a specific song you know. Then you can tune the rest of your strings by pressing and playing the note on the seventh fret (Note E in Standard E tuning). Match the notes and tune the second string while playing the low E sting and the note E depressed on the seventh fret. Just be careful that you don't go to far and tune to a higher note than you would like. Keep doing this for each string until finished. Note, the B string can be a little tricky in this method so you may have to play a D Chord to get this one. This tuning method is more for experienced guitarists and may not work for you right away. This is just a way that I used to tune my guitar, please don't feel that this method is the schooled musician way to tune a guitar. It's usually best to use a guitar tuner.
Tuning By Ear - Harmonics - There is also a way to tune using harmonics. Once you know where you want your Low E string to be tuned, try playing the harmonics on the 5th fret of the low E string and the 7th fret of the A string. Harmonics are played by barely touch the string at the fret. The harmonics on the 5th fret of the low E string and the 7th fret of the A strings should match notes. So you can try to tune your A string by matching the harmonic that your playing on the Low E. Again, just and idea for you, don't feel that this way is totally correct. Just another way to find out if your in tune. Also, your harmonic on the B string doesn't always match up. So keep this in mind. This is for more advanced players as well.

How to Tune A Guitar

Guitar Site - Links and ways to tune your guitar
About .com - step by step guitar tuning
Alternate tunings for your guitar - Shows your how to open tune your guitar
Various tunings for guitar
Cyberfret - guitar tuning
Guitar Notes - tuning and alternate tuning

Above we have listed several ways to tune your guitar. Tuning a guitar can be frustrating at first, but with the help of modern auto guitar tuners it can make tuning your guitar a simple process.

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Send mail to mediawebsource@yahoo.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright � 2004 Media Web Source
Last modified: April 19, 2008