Tuning a guitar is not always as easy as you think. A lot of electric guitar amps and pedals now come with built in tuners which are extremely helpful. If you have an acoustic guitar I would definitely recommend buying a guitar tuner for about 10$ from a guitar shop.

What guitar tuner should I buy?

You should definitely buy the Korg guitar tuner. I’ve used a ton of guitar tuners out there and the Korg is definitely the one you should buy. Before you actually tune the guitar you must be familiar with certain guitar tunings. You can by the Korg guitar tuner at Guitar Center or any guitar shop.

Standard Guitar Tuning

Here are a few of the standard guitar tunings are: “Standard E”, “Drop-D”, and “E Half Step Down”. All of these tunings are based off of E Standard Guitar Tuning. There are many other alternate guitar tunings out there that songs are played in. There’s: Open G (keith richards loves this one, some say he’s a closet banjo player), C (for heavy metal, metal and harder music), double drop D (E standard with both E’s Tuned down to D) and many more. Let’s start off and keep it simple though, here’s a list of what the standard guitar tunings are:

Standard E Guitar Tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning)	Standard E Guitar Tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning) is the most common tuning amongst  guitarists.
Standard E Half Step Down Guitar Tuning	Standard E Half Step Down Tuning is based off of Standard E Tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning) It is rumored that Toni Iomi from Black Sabbath was one of the first people to make this tuning popular among modern music. The strings are more loose than  the standard e tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning) so it is easier to make bends. * Every string is tuned one half step down, just like it sounds.
Drop D Guitar Tuning	Drop D Tuning is based off of Standard E Tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning) * Tune the low E to D.
Double Drop D Guitar Tuning	Double Drop D Tuning is based off of Standard E Tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning) * Tune both E’s to D.
Open G Guitar Tuning	Open G tuning for guitar is the standard tuning for Banjo’s. Keith Richard’s used Open G frequently in a lot of the Rolling Stone’s Later songs. He picked is up from collaborating with Ry Cooder. * Lower both E’s to D’s, lower the A to G (How to tune to open G)
Open E Guitar Tuning	Open E Tuning is popular in many Rolling Stones songs like “You can’t always get what you want” and “Tumblin’ Dice” as well as the Black Crowes song “She talk to angels”. Tune your A String up to B, your D string up to E and you G string up to G#.
Open C Guitar Tuning	* Tune the B up to C, Tune the D down to C, Tune the A down to G and tune the E down to C

Here’s a list of all the tunings from above along with a bunch of other tunings that are fun to play around with

Standard E Guitar Tuning	E A D G B E
Top Drop D	E A D G B D
Drop D	D A D G B E
Double Drop D	D A D G B D
D Modal	D A D G A D
Open D	D A D F# A D
Cross Note	D A D F A D
Slide G	D G D G B E
Open G	D G D G B D (how to tune to open g above)
G Minor	D G D G Bb D
Open C	C G C G C E
C Minor 1	C G C G C Eb
Semi-open C	C G D G B E
Open A	E A C# E A E
Lute	E A D F# B E
E Minor 7	E B D G B E
Drop Lute	D A D F# B E
D Major 9	D A D F# A E
D 7 Slide 1	D A C F# A D
D 7 Slide 2	D A D F# C D
G 7 Slide 1	D G D G B F
G 7 Slide 2	D G D F B D
C Minor 2	C G Eb G C Eb
A Minor 7	E A E G C E
A Maj 9 – no 3rd	E A E G# B E
Open E 7	E G# D E B E

There are many ways for tuning a guitar by ear

Everyone has their own unique way that works for them. I have my own unique way (in Standard E tuning (EADGBE Guitar Tuning)), I tune my guitar using the intro riffs from the Bob Marley redemption song and Greenday’s good riddance. Both of these songs have opening guitar riffs that have been implanted inside my mind due to learning how to play the song or hearing it 5,000 times on the radio. The opening Redemption song riff is classic and it involves the E A and D string…. 3 strings taken care of… Then as I move to tuning the last 3 strings G B and E I play the intro from Good Riddance and tune the guitar to the proper notes by ear. That right there tunes the whole guitar. Find your own songs and learn how to tune the guitar on your own using my technique.

Tuning A Guitar – More Common Method

The more common way to tune a guitar is to know what an E sounds like from memory, then tune each string to that 6th string E. If you pluck the 5th fret of the 6th string you’ll get the open note on the 5th string and if you pluck the 5th fret on the fifth string, you’ll get the open note on the fourth string, and so on… The only exception to tuning this way is that when plucking the G string to tune the B string, you must pluck the fourth fret instead of the fifth due to the way the E standard tuning is. Aside from that, compare the sounds of each string and tune them appropriately.

Tuning a guitar comes with practice

Its very important always have your guitar properly tuned, it tends to help out with your ear development. I definitely recommend getting an electronic tuner so you can check yourself and see if you’re tuning properly. You can also use various web sites to tune your guitar, however I find that the tones of the notes that they give you sound very midi like and its very hard to tune a real guitar to a midi tone.

Here’s some links to online guitar tuners…
Tuner and Great video on stringing a guitar
http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/utilities/tuner/

Pretty nice tuner
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/onlinetuner.html

Little bit hard to see due to the size, but it works
http://www.dreadscott.com/Guitar.html