How to Tune a Guitar: 3 Easy Methods (Beginner Guide)

A guitar that’s even slightly out of tune sounds wrong in a way you can hear before you can name it. The good news: tuning is one of the easiest skills to pick up, and once you’ve done it ten times, you’ll do it on autopilot for the rest of your playing life.

Here’s how to get there.

The six notes you’re tuning to

Standard tuning, from the thickest string (top) to the thinnest (bottom):

E, A, D, G, B, E

A common way beginners remember this: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie. Cheesy, but it sticks.

The two outer strings are both E, two octaves apart. That’s worth knowing because if your high E sounds nothing like your low E, something is very wrong (most likely you’ve crossed an octave).

Method 1: clip-on tuner (the easy way)

If you’re brand new, just buy one. Clip it on the headstock, pluck a string, watch the needle. You’ll be in tune in under thirty seconds.

A clip-on tuner picks up vibration through the wood, so it works in a noisy room. That matters more than you’d think.

Method 2: an app or our online tuner

Phone tuners are perfectly good. They use your microphone, so they want a quiet-ish room. Free options exist for every platform; you don’t need to pay for one.

Our own browser tuner is on the way and lives at /tools/guitar-tuner/ once it’s live. No download, just allow microphone access and play a string.

Method 3: tuning by ear (the slow but useful one)

The 5th-fret method:

1. Tune your low E by reference (a piano, an app, or another guitar). Get this one right.
2. Press the low E at the 5th fret. That note is an A. Match the open A string to it.
3. Press the A at the 5th fret. That note is a D. Match the open D string.
4. Press the D at the 5th fret. That’s a G. Match the open G string.
5. Press the G at the 4th fret (this one’s the exception). That’s a B. Match the open B string.
6. Press the B at the 5th fret. That’s the high E. Match the open high E string.

It feels fiddly the first few times. After a couple of weeks it’s faster than fishing your tuner out of a bag.

What to do when nothing sounds right

If you can’t get a string in tune no matter what:

• Check the octave. Phone apps especially will sometimes lock onto the wrong octave. Strum hard and look at the note name, not just the needle.
• Check the string. Old strings go dead and stop holding pitch. If a string took a sharp bend or has visible kinks, it’s done.

• Check the tuning peg. A loose peg won’t hold. On most guitars there’s a small screw on the peg head you can tighten by a quarter turn.

A short routine

Tune before every practice session. Not because it’s strict discipline; because hearing an in-tune chord on the first strum of the day is genuinely a small joy, and it’s one of the easiest wins in your playing.

That’s it. Get a clip-on tuner if you don’t have one, learn the six notes, and you’re done.