How to tune a guitar

Every guitarist tunes thousands of times, and doing it well is a five-minute skill that makes everything you play sound better. This guide covers tuning with a tuner (the accurate way), tuning by ear (the essential backup skill), and why guitars drift out of tune at all.

Standard tuning: E A D G B E

From the thickest string to the thinnest, a guitar in standard tuning is E2, A2, D3, G3, B3, E4 — the low E vibrating at 82.4 Hz and the high E exactly two octaves up at 329.6 Hz. Nearly all chord shapes, tabs and lessons assume this tuning, so it's home base even if you later explore Drop D, DADGAD or Open G.

Method 1: with the online tuner (recommended)

1. Learn the string names. From the thickest string to the thinnest: E, A, D, G, B, E. The thickest string (low E) is closest to you when holding the guitar; a common mnemonic is 'Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie'.
2. Start the tuner and pluck the low E string. Open the tuner, allow microphone access, and pluck the sixth string on its own with a clean, medium attack. Mute the other strings lightly with your palm so the tuner hears one note.
3. Read the needle. The tuner shows the nearest note and how far off you are in cents. Needle left of center = flat (pitch too low), right = sharp (too high). 100 cents equals one fret.
4. Tune up to the note. Turn the tuning peg slowly. If you're sharp, drop below the target and come back up — strings hold tune better when the final movement is upward, because it takes slack out of the machine head.
5. Repeat for all six strings. Work from the low E to the high E: E, A, D, G, B, E. Pluck, watch the needle center, and move on when the display turns green.
6. Make a second pass. Tuning changes total neck tension, so the first strings you tuned drift slightly by the time you finish. A quick second pass takes ten seconds and makes the whole guitar agree with itself.

Open the tuner — it's free, runs in your browser, and shows your exact cents offset in real time.

Method 2: by ear with the 5th-fret method

When you have a reference for just one string (a piano, a tuning fork, or our tune by ear mode), you can tune the rest relatively:

• 5th fret of the low E string = open A string.
• 5th fret of the A string = open D string.
• 5th fret of the D string = open G string.
• 4th fret of the G string = open B string (the one exception).
• 5th fret of the B string = open high E string.

Play the fretted note and the open string together and slow the beating — the rhythmic wah-wah-wah of two close pitches — until it disappears.

Method 3: harmonics

Touch (don't press) a string directly over the 5th fret and pluck to sound a chime-like harmonic. The 5th-fret harmonic on the low E matches the 7th-fret harmonic on the A string; the same pairing works E→A, A→D and D→G. Harmonics ring long, leaving both hands free to turn the peg, and beats are easier to hear than with fretted notes. Skip this method between G and B (the harmonic pattern breaks there) and finish by checking with a tuner.

Why your guitar goes out of tune

• New strings: fresh strings stretch for the first hours of playing. Stretch them gently by hand and retune several times.
• Temperature and humidity: wood moves; a guitar left in a car or brought into a warm venue will drift.
• String slippage: too few (or sloppy) windings on the post let the string creep. Two to four neat wraps hold well.
• Nut friction: pinging sounds while tuning mean the string is binding in the nut slot; a touch of pencil graphite helps.
• Playing style: heavy bends and aggressive strumming work strings loose faster.

How accurate does tuning need to be?

Within ±5 cents of the target, virtually nobody hears a problem; within ±2 cents you're studio-tight. This tuner reads your pitch continuously with sub-cent resolution and shows the exact offset, so you can decide how fussy to be. When in doubt: tune, play a big open E chord, and trust your ears.