If you want to ensure that your acoustic guitar sounds good every time that you use it, then you should actually tune it before you actually play it. What is the point of playing a great piece of music if it is completely out of tune? Even though you may find yourself becoming somewhat frustrated with your acoustic guitar tuning it will all be worthwhile in the end and you will soon realize just how important tuning your guitar is each time you play it.



When it comes to tuning a guitar it will take a lot of practice in order that you are able to learn how to do it correctly and later on you will find that you can easily tune your guitar by ear. However in the beginning there is a much easier way that you can tune your acoustic guitar, by using an electronic tuner. You can easily pick up such a piece of equipment for around $20 and is a good investment for those of you who will be playing their guitars regularly. As well as helping you to tune your guitar much more quickly the tuner will quickly tell you when you have hit the right note on the string that you are tuning.

To use one of these tuners you sit down and place it close to your guitar, either on a stool or table close by. Then once the machine is set up and you have your guitar on your lap you turn the machine on and pluck the sixth string on your guitar in order to give you your reference pitch (low E). The tuner picks up the pitch of each note through the microphone on it and there is an indicator on the front, which shows you when the string is at the right pitch. These machines are also able to show if the pitch of the note is too sharp or too flat and in order to tune the string to the right pitch you then just start to turn the tuning key at the head of the neck of the guitar. After each turn of the key you should pluck the key and see what reading the tuner is giving.

When it comes to tuning a guitar you should always tune up (tighten strings) never tune down (loosen strings). However if you do find at some stage that you have over tightened any of the strings when tuning rather than just loosening them off a little (tune down) loosen them off a bit. Then after loosen the string once more you can begin the whole process of tuning once more. If you tune up rather than tune down you will get much more accurate results each time you do it. Also you will find that your acoustic guitar will stay tuned much better for much longer.

If you would like to learn acoustic guitar tuning without the use of an electronic tuner then you will still need a source in order to reference pitch from. Ideally you can either use another guitar, a piano, a tuning for or even an MP3 as long as you know that it is in tune.

When you start your acoustic guitar tuning start by tuning the sixth string (low E) and use this as your reference pitch. Then once you have the sixth string tuned you can then move on to tuning the other five strings to that particular note. When moving on to the next strings to tune you should do the following:-

1. Pluck the sixth string that is now in tune and where you finger has been placed on the fifth fret. The note that this produces is the note that you want to hear as you begin to tune the open fifth string. So slowly begin to tighten the tuning key on the top until the sound of the open fifth sounds the same as that of the sixth when your finger is on it above the fifth fret. 2. Now to tune the open fourth string you need to place you finger on the fifth string above the fifth fret and again pluck this to hear the sound it makes. Again as you did in step one you tighten the tuning key until the note of the open fourth sounds the same as the fifth string with your finger on the fifth fret. 3. Next you will do the same steps with the open third string to get it in tune with the fourth string and then do the same with the open second string against the third string. But this time you move you move your finger down from the fifth fret down to the fourth fret when playing the third string to tune the second one. 4. Finally when it comes to tuning the open first string on your guitar you need to place your finger on the second string above the third fret and this will give you the right pitch in order to tune the open first string. Once all these stages have been completed you will hopefully correctly tuned your guitar.

But a great way of ensuring that when first starting to tune your guitar by ear is to also use an electronic tuner as well. Although when it comes to acoustic guitar tuning the old fashioned way is good, but an electronic tuner ensures that you get accurate results every time that you do it.