Learning to tune a guitar by ear takes a little bit of practice but it is one of the most valuable skills a beginning guitarist can learn. Buying a decent electric tuner is a great investment. However, I can’t begin to count the number of times I have picked up a guitar at a friend’s house, or around a camp fire or in a music store and not had a tuner handy.

A guitar can be tuned “by ear” without an electric tuner by adjusting the tuning pegs for each string on the guitar until that string’s tone audibly matches up with some other reference tone. This reference tone can come from another instrument or a guitar tuning website or often times another string on the same guitar.

You tune a guitar one string at a time. For standard tuning the guitar’s six strings get tuned to the following six notes which are listed in order from the lowest note (and fattest string) to highest note (and thinnest string): E, A, D, G, B, E.

The fattest string on the guitar gets tuned to E – This is the E below middle c on a piano. The next fattest string gets tuned to A – This is the A below middle C on a piano. Etc…

When tuning, it is common to start with the lowest string on the guitar, which in this case would be the fat E string. If you are using some other instrument to provide your reference tone then you will start by tuning that fat E string to match up with an E note that you will play on your reference instrument. If however, you are tuning the guitar to itself without some other instrument or other reference tone then you just have to assume that one of the strings is in tune and so you skip the first string and pretend it is in tune.

When trying to match up a guitar string tone with the reference tone I always make the reference tone sound first (so I play the key on the piano or pluck the string on the other guitar) and then while that note is ringing out I sound the tone (pluck the string) on the guitar that I’m trying to tune and listen to hear which note is higher and which note is lower. If you can’t tell which is lower and which is higher then you can adjust the tuning knob on the guitar you are tuning until you are sure that it is lower in pitch.

Because of the way the tension on the tuning pegs works it is best to always tune up to the note you are trying to match rather than down to it. In other words, make sure that when you play the two notes the note on the guitar you are tuning is lower than the reference note, if it’s not then adjust it until it is. You can remember this by thinking of the phrase “tune-up”, you always want to be tuning the note up, which means you need to start by making sure that it is lower.

Once you are sure that the note from the string on the guitar you are tuning is lower than the reference note you can begin trying to match the notes. This is done by sounding first the reference note and letting it ring, then sounding the guitar string and turning the tuning peg to bring the notes closer together. You do this until the two notes are the same. It may take some practice getting used to telling when these two notes are the same. One hint is that as the two notes get close together you will hear a distinct wobbling sound between the two notes. Then as they begin to match up this wobble will smooth out into a very peaceful round sound. Another hint is to try singing the two notes, as this should help you feel vocally if you are having to change pitch from one note to the other or if they are the same.

Once you have done this for the first string, you move on to the second string (the A). If you are using another instrument to tune to, you just play the A note on the other instrument and match the guitar string. If however, you are tuning the guitar to itself, you use a note played from a string that you have already tuned. So since you have already tuned the E string you will want to play an A note on that already tuned E string. This can be done by placing a finger on the 5th fret of the E string and plucking it. While letting this note ring out, you then pluck your open A-string and tune the A string’s tuning peg until the notes match.

You repeat this process for each of the remaining 4 strings using the following reference notes.

To tune the D string, you hold the 5th fret of the A string for a reference note. To tune the G string, you hold the 5th fret of the D string for a reference note. To tune the B string, you hold the 4th fret of the G string for a reference note. Finally to tune the high E string, you hold the 5th fret of the B string for a reference note.

After completing a pass through tuning the strings it is likely that some stretching or slipping of the strings may have occurred so you will probably have to go back and check each string against it’s reference note on the string below it and make adjustments.

This same technique can be used for other tunings, you just need to know what note your trying to match and find out what fret you need to hold on the already tuned string in order have the correct reference note.