How To Tune a Guitar

In this lesson, I'm going to teach you how to tune a guitar.

Before you can tune however, you need to know the open tuning of the 6 strings.

ANOTHER DAY GOES BY

Remember that phrase. Memorize it! You'll always use it, I promise. It is the best way to remember the open tuning of the middle 4 strings, starting with the one closest to you when holding the guitar.

The outer two strings (the lowest and highest strings) are both E; easy enough to remember.

TUNING BY EAR

Learning to tune by ear is a great skill to have. You never know when the day will come that you want to play the guitar and there's no tuner around to help you. Or you're in the middle of playing and notice one string slightly out of tune. Instead of going through the hassle of pulling out a tuner, this method is much faster and more efficient.

The basic idea is that the 5th fret of one string is the same note as the next string in open position (without pressing down on it). That is, with the exception of the G string, which needs the 4th fret pressed in order to play the B for the next string. And it's really as simple as that. Memorize this pattern, and you'll be able to tune by ear.

That being said, keep in mind that there's no way to tune the low E string without some outside source. So though you can get your guitar in tune with itself, it may or may not be in the correct tune with the rest of the world.

USING A TUNER

To get your low E string in tune, or all of them if you rather, you'll need some type of tuner.

There are many great phone apps out there that will do the job. The one I recommend and that I use is "guitar tuna". It is very accurate and has a great user interface.

As far as hardware, I use the KORG pitch clip, which clips to the head of your guitar and uses a color gauge to indicate the pitch of your strings.

Regardless of what device you use to tune your guitar, all of them work relatively the same. The note being played will be shown, along with some type of gauge to let you know if the note is sharp # (too high) or flat b (too low). And you'll use this information to turn your tuning knobs accordingly. Once you understand the basics, you'll be able to read any tuner.

I hope that helps you out. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions!

The First Four Chords You Should Learn On Guitar

In this lesson, we'll look at the first 4 chords you should learn on the guitar. They are G, C, D, and Em. Now, why these 4 chords in particular? Well, they're foundational chords that are easy, and give you a sizable library of songs to begin practicing right away.

Here are some song tutorials that use 3 of these 4 chords:

What you should learn next...

The 18 Foundational Chords

Play 5 Christmas Songs With 3 Chords

In this lesson, I'll show you how to play 5 popular Christmas songs using a total of 3 chords; G, C, and D.

If you'd like to learn these chords you can check out this tutorial:

Oh, and be sure to download the chord charts for each of these songs below. I've included detailed strum pattern overview at the bottom of this post.

STRUM PATTERNS

Since this video has been released, I've re-worked the strum patterns to make them even simpler for beginners to learn, by using the 3 strum patterns I teach: The Driving Pattern, Swing Pattern, and Folk Pattern. You'll notice this update within the chord charts as well. Here's the breakdown

The First Noel & Silent Night: Swing Pattern

Jingle Bells & Joy To The World: Folk Pattern

The Little Drummer Boy: Driving Pattern

How to Simplify Chord Charts

Some songs you find on the internet will have a jumble of chords, some of which you've never seen, and some that are a half dozen characters long (what the heck).

What I say is, instead of trying to learn them in your early stages of guitar playing, throw them out!

Let me explain. This won't work in every situation, or for everyone out there. Some people want to play the song exactly, to the T, as written. So I'll say that this concept is mainly for the beginner to novice, who just wants to hurry up and play the song, and have it still sound good.

The fact that there are over 2,000 chords available out there should be a clue that many of those chords are very similar to one another. Some are so similar, in fact, that they can be interchanged and hardly anyone will even notice. So instead of learning every new chord in every new song you want to play, just learn how to simplify a chord chart to its basic foundational structure, and life will be a whole lot easier for you.

Good luck and enjoy!