Electric Guitar Tuning: The Easy Way

Electric guitar tuning is a painless process since
the invention of digital tuners. However some guitar instructors
still prefer to teach their students how to tune a guitar using
traditional methods, or rather by ear. It is important to be
able to perform electric guitar tuning without the use of a
tuner. For example, what if you were at a friends house and were
asked to jam along on an old electric guitar that looked like it
hadn't been played, let alone tuned, in a year or more and to
make matters worse nobody has a tuner. This article will teach
you a quick way to achieve electric guitar tuning so you
can be confident that you are in tune.

Unlike digital tuners that usually only allow you to tune your
guitar in standard tuning, performing electric guitar
tuning by ear will let you effortlessly match lower
tunings which sometimes are desired for a fuller, deeper sound.
To begin you will need to first tune the sixth string to a note
played by another guitar, a key on the piano, or the fourth
string on a bass guitar. Once the first note is established the
rest is a piece of cake.

As you may have guessed your second step is to tune the fifth
and adjacent string. You can do so by playing the fifth fret on
the sixth string and tuning the fifth string until both pitches
sound the same. Do the same for the fourth, third, and first
strings.

But wait a minute! You forgot... The second string I know. The
reason I omitted it above is because in order to tune the second
string you will need to play the forth fret on the third string
and tune to that pitch.

Let's review how to easily perform electric guitar
tuning. Get your starting pitch from another player,
instrument, or favorite recording. Tune all other adjacent
strings by matching the pitch at the fifth fret on the
previously "in tune" string, except for the second string.
Remember to use the fourth fret on the third string to get your
second string pitch. That's it! Now you know how to execute
electric guitar tuning the easy way. Let's jam!